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 PREACHERS

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PREACHERS

cumstancea to be noted later on, the seventh master general of the order, ISIunio de Zamora, wrote (1285) a rule for the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence of St. Dominic. The privilege granted the new fraternity, 28 Jan., 1286, by Honorius IV, gave it a canonical existence (Potthast, 2235S). The rule of Munio was not entirely original; some points being borrowed from the Rule of the Brothers of Penitence, whose origin dates back to St. Francis of Assisi; but it was distinctive on all essential points. It is in a sense more thoroughly ecclesiastical; the Brothers and Sisters are grouped in different fraternities; their government is immediately subject to ecclesias- tical authority; and the various fraternities do not form a collective whole, with legislative chaj^ters, as was the case among the Brothers of Penitence of St. Francis. The Dominican fraternities are local and without any bond of union other than that of the Preaching Brothers who govern them. Some characteristics of these fraternities may be gathered from the Rule of Mimio de Zamora. The Brothers and Sisters, as true children of St. Dominic, should be, above all things, truly zealous for the Catholic Faith. Their habit is a white tunic, with black cloak and hood, and a leathern girdle. After making pro- fession, they cannot retm-n to the world, but may enter other authorized religious orders. They recite a certain number of Paters and Aves, for the canonical Hours; receive communion at least four times a year, and must show great respect to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. They fast during Advent, Lent, and on all the Fridays during the year, and eat meat only three days in the week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. They are allowed to carry arms only in defence of the Christian Faith. They visit sick members of the community, give them assistance if necessarj', attend the burial of Brothers or Sisters and aid them with their prayers. The head or spirit- ual director is a priest of the Order of Preachers, whom the Tertiaries select and propose to the master general or to the provincial; he may act on their petition or appoint some other religious. The director and the older members of the fraternity choose the prior or prioress, from among the Brothers and Sisters, and their office continues until they are relieved. The Brothers and the Sisters have, on different days, a monthly reunion in the chm-ch of the Preachers, when they attend Mass, listen to an in- struction, and to an explanation of the rule. The prior and the director can grant dispensations; the rule, like the Constitutions of the Preachers, does not oblige under pain of sin.

The text of the Rule of the Brothers of the Peni- tence of St. Dominic is in "Regula S. Augustini et Constitutiones FF. Ord. Praed." (Rome, 1690), 2nd pt., p. 39; Federici, "Istoria dei cavalieri Gau- dent" (Venice, 1787), bk. II, cod. diplomat., p. 28; Mandonnet, "Les regies et le gouvernement de I'Ordo de Pcenitentia au XIIP siecle" (Paris, 1902); Mortier, "Histoire des Maitres G^nSraux des Freres Precheurs", II (Paris, 1903), 220.

II. History of the Order. — A. The Friars Preachers. — Their historj- may be divided into three periods: (1) The Middle Ages (from their founda- tion to the beginning of the sixteenth century); (2) The Modern Period Up to the French Revolution; (3) The Contemporaneous Period. In each of these periods we shall examine the work of the order in its various departments.

(1) The Middle Ages. — The thirteenth century is the classic age of the order, the witness to its brilliaiit development and inten.se activity. This last is manifested especially in the work of teaching. By preaching it reached all classes of Christian society, fought heresy, schism, i)aganisni, by word and book, and by its mi.ssions to the north of Europe, to Africa, and Asia, passed beyond the frontiers of Christendom.

Its schools spread throughout the entire Church; its doctors wrote monumental works in all branches of knowledge, and two among them, Albertus Magnus, and especially Thomas Aquinas, founded a school of philosophy and theology which was to rule the ages to come in the life of the Church. An enormous number of its members held offices in Church and State — as popes, cardinals, bishops, legates, inquisitors, confessors of princes, ambassadors, and paciarii (enforcers of the peace decreed by popes or councils). The Order of Preachers, which should have remained a select body, developed beyond bounds and absorbed some elements unfitted to its form of life. A period of relaxation ensued during the fourteenth century owing to the general decline of Christian society. The weakening of doctrinal acti\nty favoured the development here and there of the ascetic and con- templative life and there sprang up, especially in Germany and Italy, an intense and exuberant mysticism with which the names of Master Eckhart, Suso, Tauler, St. Catherine of Siena are associated. This movement was the prelude to the reforms un- dertaken, at the end of the century, by Raymond of Capua, and continued in the following century. It assumed remarkable proportions in the congre- gations of Lombardy and of Holland, and in the re- forms of Savonarola at Florence. At the same time the order found itself face to face with the Renais- sance. It struggled against pagan tendencies in Humanism, in Italy through Dominici and Savon- arola, in Germany through the theologians of Cologne; but it also furnished Humanism with such advanced writers as Francis Colonna (Pohphile) and Matthew Brandello. Its members, in great numbers, took part in the artistic activity of the age, the most prominent being Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo. (a) Development and Statistics. — When St. Domi- nic, in 1216, asked for the official recognition of his order, the first Preachers mmibered only sixteen. At the general Chapter of Bologna, 1221, the year of St. Dominic's death, the order already counted some sLxty establishments, and was divided into eight provinces: Spain, Provence, France, Lombardy, Rome, Teutonia, England, and Hungary. The Chapter of 1228 added four new provinces: the Holy Land, Greece, Poland, and Dacia (Denmark and Scandinavia). Sicily was separated from Rome (1294), Aragon from Spain (1301). In 1303 Lom- bardy was divided into LTpper and Lower Lombardy; Provence into Toulouse and Provence; Saxony was separated from Teutonia, and Bohemia from Poland, thus forming eighteen provinces. The order, which in 1277 counted 404 convents of Brothers, in 1303 numbered nearlj- 600. The develo|3ment of the order reached its height dtiring the iSIiddle Ages; new houses were established during the fourteenth and fifteenth centiu-ies, but in relatively small numbers. As to the number of religious only approximate state- ments can be given. In 12.56, according to the con- cession of suffrages granted by Humbert of Romans to St. Louis, the order numbered about 5000 priests; the clerks and lav brothers could not have been less than 2000. Thiis towards the middle of the thir- teenth centm^y, it must have had about 7000 members (de Laborde, "Lavette du tr^sor des chartes", Paris, 1875, III, 304). According to Sebastien de Olmeda, the Preachers, as shown by the census taken under Benedict XII, were close on to 12,000 in 1337. (Fontana, "Monumenta Dominicana", Rome, 1674, pp. 207-8). This number was not surpassed at the clo.se of the Middle Ages; the Great Plague of 1348, and the general state of Europe preventing a notable increa.se. The reform movement begun in 1390 by Raymond of Capua established the principle of a twofold arrangement in the order. For a long time, it is true, the reformed convents were not separated from their respective provinces; but with the founda-