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 PREACHERS

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PREACHERS

tion of the congregation of Lombardy, in 1459, a new order of things began. The congregations were more or less self-governing, and, according as they developed, overlapped several provinces and even several nations. There were established successively the congregations of Portugal (1460), Holland (1464), Aragon, and Spain (1468), St. Mark in Florence (1493), France (1497), the GalUcan (1514). About the same time some new provinces were also estab- lished: Scotland (1481), Ireland (1484), Betique or Andalusia (1514), Lower Germany (1515). (Qu6tif- Echard, "Script. Ord. Praed.", I, p. 1-15; "Anal. Ord. Praed.", 1893, passim; Mortier, "Hist, des Maitres Generaux", I-V, passim).

(b) Administration. — The Preachers possessed a number of able administrators among their masters general during the Middle Ages, especially in the thirteenth century. St. Dominic, the creator of the institution (1206-1221), showed a keen intelligence of the needs of the age. He executed his plans with sureness of insight, firmness of resolution, and tenacity of purpose. Jordan of Saxony (1222-1237) sensitive, eloquent, and endowed with rare powers of persuasion, attracted numerous and valuable re- cruits. St. Raymond of Penaforte (1238-1240), the greatest canonist of the age, ruled the order only long enough to reorganize its legislation. John the Teuton (1241-1252), bishop and linguist, who was associated with the greatest personalities of his time, pushed the order forward along the line of develop- ment outlined by its founder. Humbert of Romans (1254-1263), a genius of the practical sort, a broad- minded and moderate man, raised the order to the height of its glory, and wrote manifold works, setting forth what, in his eyes, the Preachers and Christian society ought to be. John of Vercelli (1264-1283), an energetic and prudent man, during his long govern- ment maintained the order in all its vigour. The successors of these illustrious masters did their ut- most in the discharge of their duty, and in meeting the situations which the state of the Church and of society from the close of the thirteenth century ren- dered more and more difficult. Some of them did no more than hold their high office, while others had not the genius of the masters general of the golden age [Balme-Lelaidier, "Cart, de St. Dominic"; Guiraud, "St. Dominic " (Paris, 1899) ; Mothon, " Vie du B. Jour- dain de Saxe" (Paris, 1885); Reichert, "Das Itinerar des zweiten Dominikaner-generals Jordanis von Sach- sen" in "Festschrift des Deutschen Campo Santo in Rom" (Freiburg, 1897), 153; Mothon, "Vita del B. Giovanini da Vercelli" (Vercelli, 1903); Mortier, " Histoire des Maitres Generaux", I-V]. The general chapters which wielded supreme power were the great regulators of the Dominican life during the Middle Ages. They are usually remarkable for their spirit of decision, and the firmness with which they ruled. They appeared even imbued with a severe character which, taking no account of persons, bore witness to the importance they attached to the maintenance of discipline. (See the Acta Cap. Gen. already referred to.)

(c) Modification of the Statute. — We have already spoken of the chief exception to be taken to the Con- stitution of the order, the difficulty of maintaining an even balance between the monastic and canonical observances and the clerical and apostolical life. The primitive regime of poverty, which left the con- vents without an assured income, created also a permanent difficulty. Time and the modifications of the state of Christian society exposed these weak points. Already the General Chapters of 1240- 1242 forbade the changing of the general statutes of the order, a measure which would indicate at least a hidden tendency towards modification (Acta, I, p. 14-20). Some change seems to have been con- templated also by the Holy See when Alexander IV,

4 February, 1255, ordered the Dominican cardinal, Hugh of Saint Cher, to recast the entire legisla- tion of the Preachers into a rule which should be called the Rule of St. Dominic (Potthast, 156-69). Nothing came of the project, and the question was broached again about 1270 (Humberti de Romanis, "Opera", I, p. 43). It was during the pontificate of Benedict XII, (1334-1342), who undertook a gen- eral reform of the religious orders, that the Preach- ers were on the point of undergoing serious modifica- tions in the secondary elements of their primitive statute. Benedict, desiring to give the order greater efficiency, sought to impose a regime of property- holding as necessary to its security, and to reduce the number of its members (12,000) by eliminating the unfit etc. ; in a word, to lead the order back to its prim- itive concept of a select apostolic and teaching body. The order, ruled at that time by Hugh de Vansseman (1333-41), resisted with all its strength (1337-40). This was a mistake (Mortier, op. cit., Ill, 115). As the situation grew worse, the order was obliged to petition Sixtus IV for the right to hold property, and this was granted 1 June, 1475. Thence forward the convents could acquire property, and perpetual rentals (Mortier, IV, p. 495). This was one of the causes which quickened the vitality of the order in the sixteenth century.

The reform projects of Benedict XII having failed, the master general, Raymond of Capua (1390), sought to restore the monastic observances which had fallen into decline. He ordered the establishment in each province of a convent of strict observance, hoping that as such houses became more numerous, the reform would eventually permeate the entire province. This was not usually the case. These houses of the observance formed a confederation among themselves under the jurisdiction of a special vicar. However, they did not cease to belong to their original province in certain respects, and this naturally gave rise to numerous conflicts of govern- ment. During the fifteenth century, several groups made up congregations, more or less autonomous; these we have named above in giving the statistics of the order. The scheme of reform proposed by Raymond and adopted by nearly all who subse- quently took up with his ideas, insisted on the ob- servance of the Constitutions ad unguem, as Ray- mond, without further explanation, expressed it. By this, his followers, and, perhaps Raymond him- self, understood the suppression of the rule of dis- pensation which governed the entire Dominican legislation. "In suppressing the power to grant and the right to accept dispensation, the reformers in- verted the economy of the order, setting the part above the whole, and the means above the end" (Lacordaire, "Memoire pour la restauration des Fr&res Precheurs dans la chr6tienite", new ed., Dijon, 1852, p. 18). The different reforms which originated within the order up to the nineteenth century, began usually with principles of asceticism, which exceeded the letter and the spirit of the original constitutions. This initial exaggeration was, under pressure of circumstances, toned down, and the reforms which endured, like that of the congregation of Lombardy, turned out to be the most effectual. Generally speaking, the reformed communities slackened the intense devotion to study prescribed by the Con- stitutions; they did not produce the great doctors of the order, and their literary activity was directed preferably to moral theology, history, subjects of piety, and asceticism. They gave to the fifteenth century many holy men (Thomae Antonii Senesis, "Historia disciplinae regularis instaurata; in Cceno- biis Venetis Ord. Praed." in Fl. Cornelius, "Ecclesis Veneta;", VII, 1749, p. 167; Bl. Raymond of Capua, "Opusculaet Litterae", Rome, 1899; Meyer, "Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens " in "Quellen and