Part 23 (2/2)
Yet the friars are to work if they are able and if their charitable and religious duties leave them time to do so. They may be paid for this labor in necessities for themselves or their brethren, but never may they receive coin or money. Those may wear shoes who cannot get along without them. They may repair their garments with sackcloth and other remnants. They must live in absolute obedience to their superior and may not, of course, marry nor may they leave the order.[154]
After the death of St. Francis (1226), many of the order, which now numbered several thousand members, wished to maintain the simple rule of absolute poverty. Others, including the new head of the order, believed that much good might be done with the wealth which people were anxious to give them. They argued that the individual friars might still remain absolutely possessionless, even if the order had beautiful churches and comfortable monasteries. A stately church was immediately constructed at a.s.sisi to receive the remains of their humble founder, who in his lifetime had chosen a deserted hovel for his home; and a great chest was set up in the church to receive offerings.
[Sidenote: St. Dominic.]
90. St. Dominic (b. 1170), the founder of the other great mendicant order, was not a simple layman like Francis. He was a churchman and took a regular course of instruction in theology for ten years in a Spanish university. He then (1208) accompanied his bishop to southern France on the eve of the Albigensian crusade and was deeply shocked to see the prevalence of heresy. His host at Toulouse happened to be an Albigensian, and Dominic spent the night in converting him. He then and there determined to devote his life to the extirpation of heresy. The little we know of him indicates that he was a man of resolute purpose and deep convictions, full of burning zeal for the Christian faith, yet kindly and cheerful, and winning in manner.
[Sidenote: Founding of the Dominican order.]
By 1214 a few sympathetic spirits from various parts of Europe had joined Dominic, and they asked Innocent III to sanction their new order.
The pope again hesitated, but is said to have dreamed a dream in which he saw the great Roman Church of the Lateran tottering and ready to fall had not Dominic supported it on his shoulders. So he inferred that the new organization might sometime become a great aid to the papacy and gave it his approval. As soon as possible Dominic sent forth his followers, of whom there were but sixteen, to evangelize the world, just as the Franciscans were undertaking their first missionary journeys. By 1221 the Dominican order was thoroughly organized and had sixty monasteries scattered over western Europe. ”Wandering on foot over the face of Europe, under burning suns or chilling blasts, rejecting alms in money but receiving thankfully whatever coa.r.s.e food might be set before the wayfarer, enduring hunger in silent resignation, taking no thought for the morrow, but busied eternally in the work of s.n.a.t.c.hing souls from Satan and lifting men up from the sordid cares of daily life, of ministering to their infirmities and of bringing to their darkened souls a glimpse of heavenly light” (Lea),--in this way did the early Franciscans and Dominicans win the love and veneration of the people.
[Sidenote: Contrast between the mendicants and the older orders.]
91. Unlike the Benedictine monks, each of the friars was under the command not only of the head of his particular monastery, but also of the ”general” of the whole order. Like a soldier, he was liable to be sent by his commander upon any mission that the work of the order demanded. The friars indeed regarded themselves as soldiers of Christ.
Instead of devoting themselves to a life of contemplation apart from the world, like the earlier monks, they were accustomed and required to mix with all cla.s.ses of men. They must be ready to dare and suffer all in the interest of their work of saving not only themselves but their fellow-men.
[Sidenote: Contrast between the Dominicans and the Franciscans.]
The Dominicans were called the ”Preaching Friars” and were carefully trained in theology in order the better to refute the arguments of the heretics. The pope delegated to them especially the task of conducting the Inquisition. They early began to extend their influence over the universities, and the two most distinguished theologians and teachers of the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, were Dominicans. Among the Franciscans, on the other hand, there was always a considerable party who were suspicious of learning and who showed far more anxiety to remain absolutely poor than did the Dominicans. Yet as a whole the Franciscans, like the Dominicans, accepted the wealth that came to them, and they, too, contributed distinguished scholars to the universities.
[Sidenote: Importance and influence of the new orders.]
The pope quickly recognized the importance of these new orders. He granted them successive privileges which freed them from all control of the bishops, and finally declared that they were to be bound only by their own rules. What was still more important, he gave them the right, if they were priests, to celebrate Ma.s.s everywhere, to preach and to perform the ordinary functions of the parish priests, such as hearing confession, granting absolution, and conducting burials. The friars invaded every parish, and appear to have largely replaced the parish priests. The laity believed them to be holier than the secular clergy and therefore regarded their prayers and ministrations as more efficient. Few towns were without a gray friars' (Franciscan) or a black friars' (Dominican) cloister; few princes but had a Dominican or a Franciscan confessor.
[Sidenote: Opposition of the secular clergy.]
It is hardly necessary to say that the secular clergy took these encroachments very ill. They repeatedly appealed to the pope to abolish the orders, or at least to prevent them from enriching themselves at the expense of the parish priests. But they got little satisfaction. Once the pope quite frankly told a great deputation of cardinals, bishops, and minor clergy that it was their own vain and worldly lives which made them hate the mendicant brothers, who spent the bequests they received from the dying for the honor of G.o.d, instead of wasting it in pleasure.
The mendicant orders have counted among their numbers men of the greatest ability and distinction,--scholars like Thomas Aquinas, reformers like Savonarola, artists like Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, and scientists like Roger Bacon. In the busy world of the thirteenth century there was no agency more active for good than the friars. Yet their vagrant lives, free from the ordinary control of the Church, and the great wealth which was showered upon them, afforded many obvious temptations which they did not long withstand. Bonaventura, who was made head of the Franciscan order in 1257, admits the general dislike aroused by the greed, idleness, and vice of its degenerate members, as well as by their importunate begging, which rendered the friar more troublesome to the wayfarer than the robber. Nevertheless the friars were preferred to the ordinary priests by high and low alike; it was they, rather than the secular clergy, who maintained and cultivated the religious life in both city and country.
General Reading.--The opening chapter of Lea's monumental work, _A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_ (Harper Bros. & Co., 3 vols., $10.00), gives a remarkable account of the mediaeval Church and the abuses which prevailed. The first volume also contains unexcelled chapters upon the origin of both the Franciscan and Dominican orders. For St. Francis, by far the best work is Sabatier's beautiful biography, _St. Francis of a.s.sisi_ (Charles Scribner's Sons, $2.50). The earliest and best source for Francis is _The Mirror of Perfection_ (Page, Boston, 75 cents), by Brother Leo, which shows the love and admiration in which ”Little Brother Francis” was held by one of his companions. See also JESSOPP, _The Coming of the Friars, and Other Historic Essays_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.25), Chapter I.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PEOPLE IN COUNTRY AND TOWN
[Sidenote: Little known of the life of the people in the Middle Ages.]
92. Since the development of the rather new science of political economy, historical writers have become much interested in the condition and habits of the farmer, tradesman, and artisan in the Middle Ages.
Unfortunately no amount of research is likely to make our knowledge very clear or certain regarding the condition of the people at large during the five or six centuries following the barbarian invasions. It rarely occurred to a mediaeval chronicler to describe the familiar things about him, such as the way in which the peasant lived and tilled his land.
Only the conspicuous personages and the startling events caught his attention. Nevertheless enough is known of the mediaeval manor and town to make them very important subjects for the student of general history.
[Sidenote: Unimportance of town life in the early Middle Ages.]
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