Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/735

 FRANCISCANS 699 were really a branch of the Celestines settled at Nar- bonne; but their special grievances were that their laxer brethren did not wear the clothes prescribed by Francis, their robes were too long and too rich, and their hoods too large, and that they accepted presents of wine and corn during the vintage and harvest. After some struggles they forced on a controversy in 1282, and were finally condemned by John XXII. at Vienna in 1312. They refused to submit, and were pronounced schismatic in 1318. The Clarenins were a revival, in 1302, of the Celestine hermits under Angelas of Cordova. They fought for re cognition and existence down to 1581. The Congregation of Philip of Majorca arose in 1308. They were refused recognition, but struggled on only to disappear among the fanatical schismatics of the period. The reform of John of Valle es and Gentilis of Spoleto was occasioned by a further relaxation of the rule in 133G, sanctioned by Pope Benedict XII. Their fight for existence lasted almost forty years. These six attempts to return to the original rule of St Francis, and to follow in the letter and spirit his principles of a religious life, were all unsuccessful. The historians of the order ascribe the failures to the rashness of the refor mers or their followers, but the real cause was the utter in compatibility of the rule of Francis with social life in any form. Any thorough-going return to the primitive rule was impossible, but many partial reforms were attempted. The aim of each reformer was to reconstruct the society, or at least to found a small society, which would be so inde pendent of the rules and officials of the Franciscan order as to be free from interference with their endeavours to obey the rule of Francis in their own way. Some of these re forms achieved a very considerable degree of independence, and lasted for a long time. They were all, nominally at least, brought under the common government of the order by the famous union bull of Pope Leo X, Of these reforms the most important are the following : The Soccolantes (named from wearing a wooden sandal), were founded by Paul of Foliguy in 1368, noted from his fourteenth year for his enthusiastic piety. This is the most important, because it started with the principles of the earlier unsuccessful reforms, and succeeded because it professed unconditional submission to the pope. Paul and his companions showed all the idiosyucracies of Francis their cells were full of frogs, and their beds of serpents; they rejoiced in ill health, and nausea at the sight of food was esteemed a sign of the complete mortification of the body. They obtained permission, and retained it against many attempts at deprivation, to live in independence of the ordinary officials of the order. Their reform became successful and spread, and when Leo X. issued his bull of union they were sufficiently numerous to impose their name (Obscrvantes) on one of the great divisions of the reorganized order. At the first they held disputations with the Fratricelli and Bcghards regarding the principles of Francis, for these heretics with great justice declared that they were more true to the Christian ideal of Francis than the professed followers of the saint. The only argu ment the Observants could adduce against their opponents was that Francis had made unconditional submission to the pope part of his ideal. The congregation of Villacrezes was founded by Peter of Villa- crezes, in the convent of Our Lady of Salceda in Castile, about 1390. His principles were very like those of Paul of Foligny, but were even more strictly enforced. The brethren were obliged to wear the scantiest and coarsest raiment, and to content themselves with the barest necessaries of life. The independence of the congregation was finally secured at the council of Constance. (Cf. Mendoza, Hist, del Monte Celia de nuestra Scnora de la Salceda.) The Congregation of Collette, from the nun Collette, is noticed below. The Congregation founded by Amadeus of Assisi obtained inde pendence in 1469 and 1471 ; it was never very strong, laboured under suspicion of heresy, refused to submit to the bull of Leo X., and was finally suppressed by Pius V. The Congregation of Philip Berbegal took its rise from attempts of Martin V. to reform the order in 1430. Nominally suppressed in 1433, it reappeared under another name (the Neutrals), obtained recognition, but was finally suppressed in 1463. The Caperolani, or followers of Peter Caperole, were for a short time independent, and then were reunited with the Observants. Two famous preachers, Anthony of Castel St Jean and Matthew of Tivoli, held out and gathered around them a new congregation, which for long refused to submit itself to the order. More important, however, than any of these reforms, save the first, were the series of national reformatory movements within the order, which produced in Spain the Bare-footed Friars under the leadership of John of Guadaloupe, in Italy the Eiformati led by Stephen Molina, and in France the Recollets. These congregation s arose to embody the reforms suggested by John of Puebla, and sur vived Leo s bull of union. Lapse of time brought relaxations, and these led again to a reaction which produced the reform of Peter of Alcantara, who named his fellows The Brethren of the Strictest Observance. Peter obtained a species of independence for his con vents. They were under the rule of the general of the order, but not of the provincials. From this congregation arose a further reform under John of Paschasc and Jerome of Lanza, which, after some years of independent life, reunited with the congregation of Peter of Alcantara. Most of these reforms were brought together by the bull of Leo X., and are merged under the general name of Observants. 2. The Conventuals included, at the time of Leo X., all the Franciscans who kept the rule in a relaxed form, and had not been influenced by the various attempts at refor mation. They claimed to be the Franciscan order, and in fact at the time were so. Now they are only one of the great divisions of the order. An attempt was made after the council of Trent to reform the Conventuals, and a con gregation of Reformed Conventuals was founded, but it did not exist very long. 3. The Capuchins exist as an independent congregation, and do not take rank with the Observants and Conventuals. They owe their origin to Matthew of Bassi, a Franciscan of the family of Observance, who had conscientious scruples about the shape of his hood or capuce. It was revealed to him in visions that St Francis had worn a long pointed hood, and he began to wear one of the revealed pattern. Others began to copy it. They were persecuted by their fellows, strove for freedom, and at length got it. In 1536 Paul III. formally recognized them under the title of Capuchins of the order of the Minorites, but ordained that their vicar-general or chief was to be confirmed by the general of the Conventuals, and that they were to march under the cross of the Conventual Minorites in religious processions. In 1619 Paul V. removed these restrictions. They now have their own cross and choose their own chief quite independently, and he is called general, not vicar- general. See CAPUCHINS. II. The Franciscan nuns owed their origin to Clara, a noble maiden of Assisi. Born in 1193, she left her home in 1212, fled to the Portiuncula to Francis, and refused to return. The same year she gathered a company of ladies, including her three younger sisters, and founded the order of Franciscan nuns. The order spread rapidly through Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Bohemia. In 1220 Cardinal Hugolin gave them a rule cf life taken from the rule for the strictest sect of the Benedictine nuns, with some special observances. Four years later Francis gave them a written rule, which was approved of by Gregory IX. and by Innocent IV. The rule of Hugolin compelled the nuns among other things to fast every day, to abstain at all seasons on Wed nesdays and Fridays from wine and soup, and to content themselves on those days with some fruits or raw herbs, to fast also on bread and water thrice a week during Lent and twice during Advent. They were also to keep perpetual silence, to be broken only by the permission of the superior. They were to wear two tunics, a mantle and scapulary, be sides a hair shirt. The rule of Francis was not so strict ; he did not oblige them to fast on bread and water during certain seasons, and there were other relaxations. These two rules gave rise to disputes and divisions, and Pope Urban IV. gave the sisters a third rule which was less strict than either. The result was that several convents adhered to the first and strictest rule ; that of the reform