Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/416

392 392 RISE OF XIMENES. PART and twenty months admonished the worthy canon '■ — of the inexpediency of thwarting the plans of Xim enes. 33 Reformer His attempts at innovation among the regular the monastic *■ o o orders. clcrgy of hls own order, were encountered with more serious opposition. The reform fell most heavily on the Franciscans, w^io were interdicted by their rules from holding property, whether as a community, or as individuals ; while the members of other fraternities found some compensation for the surrender of their private fortunes, in the con- sequent augmentation of those of their fraternity. There was no one of the religious orders, therefore, in which the archbishop experienced such a dogged resistance to his plans, as in his ow^n. More than a thousand friars, according to some accounts, quit- ted the country and passed over to Barbary, prefer- ring rather to live with the infidel, than conform to the strict letter of their founder's rules. ^^ Greatexcite- Tlic difficultics of tlic rcfomi were perhaps aug- ment catised i r o ^^'^- mented by the mode in which it was conducted. Isabella, indeed, used all gentleness and persua- sion ; ^^ but Ximenes carried measures with a high 33 Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 35 << Trataba las monjas," says 17. Riol, " con un agrado y amor tan 34 Quintanilla, Archetypo, pp. cariiloso, que las robahalos corazo- 22, 23. — Mem. de la Acad, de nes, y hecha dueila de ellas, las Hist., lorn. vi. p. 201. — Zurita, persuadia con suavidad y eficacia Hist, del Rev Hernando, lib. 3, cap. a que votasen clausura. Y es cosa 15. admirable, que raro fue el conven- Onc account represents the mi- to donde enlro esta celebre bero- gration as being to Italy and otiicr iiia, donde no lograse en el propio Christian countries, where the con- dia el cfecto de su santo deseo." ventiial order was protected ; whicii Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, would srem tiie most probable, torn. iii. p. 110. though not the best authenticated, statement of the two.