THE WORLDS fiPOCif nAKERS.
Edited b Juntw Sme^om.

By

Prof. J. Herkless, d.d.

THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS

EDITED BY
OLIPHANT SMEATON

Francis and Dominic
and The Mendicant Orders
By John Herkless, D.D.

Previous Volumes in this Series : —
CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.
By A. D. Innes, M.A.
WESLEY AND METHODISM.
By F. J. Snell, M.A.
LUTHER AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION.
By Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D.D.
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
By Arthur Lillie, M.A.
WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK.
By James Sime, M.A., F.R.S. E.
For Complete List see End.

THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS

Francis and Dominic

and
The Mendicant Orders

By
John Herkless, D.D.
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in tie University of St. Andrews

New York. Charles Scribner's Sons
1901

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGK
I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
IT. ST. FRANCIS ....... 16
III. ST. FRANCIS ..... .45
IV. ST. DOMINIC ....... 81
V. PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS . ... Ill
VI. THE MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION . . .139
VII. THE MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM . . . 163
VIII. THE DEORADATION OF THE ORDERS .... 192
LITERATURE . . .... 227
INDEX ....... 231

FRANCIS AND DOMINIC

CHAPTER I
Introduction
Medievalism is a record of spiritual, mental, and polit- '
ical slavery ; but it is also the fascinating story of the
Church's supremacy, of the Crusades with their forlorn
hopes and splendid legends, of the piety which raised
the Gothic cathedrals, of the universities with their
weight of learning, of the friars poor for Christ's sake,
of the scholastics justifying the dogma, of the mystics
blessed with the vision of God.
One of the charms of Medievalism is that the stage
is vast; the chief actors are of epic stature. The
emperor, Otto the Great or Frederick "BarFarossa, was
pre-eminent among the kings of the Western world :
the pope, Gregory vii. or Innocent in., was not a
prisoner of his palace, but was a rival for the sovereign
place in Europe. Around the emperor was the majesty
of Rome, while the pope was vested with the sanctity
of religion. The centuries, however, were furnishing
the Roman pontiff with temporal splendour. In the
fourth century Christianity became the recognised

2 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
religion of the Roman State, and the first Christian
emperor, having built a city on the Bosphorus, made
it the centre of his government. Ancient Rome
was left to its bishops, who step by step advanced to
prominence in Italy. In the eighth century the Roman
Church, harassed by the Lombards, called the Franks
to its aid; and on Christmas Day, 800 A.D., he who
claimed to be the ecclesiastical heir of St. Peter be
stowed the imperial crown on the alleged successor of
Augustus. /Whether the empire of Charlemain was a
new creation or was a revival or a continuation of that
of Augustus is a constitutional question ; /but whatever
the answer, it remains that the strongest king in the
West accepted the symbol of imperial power from the
hands of a priest of the Church of Christ.
Charlemain's empire fell to the ground amid the
divisions of his sons. In the tenth century Otto the
Great united Germany and Italy, and was crowned
emperor at Rome. This union, on which the right to
the imperial title was based, had more than a political
interest. The theory gained general acceptance that the
emperor was God's representative in things temporal,
as the pope was representative in things spiritual. J
Frederick Barbarossa, however, in days when Church
and State were at strife, used the phrase Holy Roman
' Empire in order to show that his power~~was not
i derived from the pope but flowed directly from God.
(The phrase, too, though Barbarossa had other intention,
t emphasised the fact that the empire was holy in the
' sense of being an alliance between Church and State.
' This .alliance, which had its symbol in the imperfal
' coronation by the hands of the Bishop of Rome, was
i one of equality. Yet who was to mark the limits of

INTRODUCTION 3
the secular and spiritual, to ¦ decree the dominion of
emperor and pope ? While Otto the Great lived, and
throughout the period preceding the power of Hilde
brand, the Church was in subjection. It was the ideal
"of~£hat pope, and he did not altogether fail, to destroy
the subjection, to establish the supremacy of the Church
over all causes, and to exalt the Bishop of Rome to
universal dominion.
ItThas been tolcT of Hildebrand that in his precocious
childhood he played with wood-chips in his father's
shop, arranging them as the letters of " dominabor a
mari usque ad mare," " I shall have dominion from sea
to sea," and that in the famous monastery of Cluny
the abbot applied the words to him, as to another John
the Baptist, " He shall be great in the sight of the
Lord." His dominion was not to stretch from sea to
sea, but the policy to which he gave his name was to
endure for centuries. Throughout the period of his
youth the papacy was not elevated by virtue or graced
by piety, and its inheritance was an evil reputation.
Among the popes there had been men who purchased
the tiara or seized it by force of arms ; and there had
been others who were deposed, exiled, or murdered.
Two women of noble name and infamous repute had
placed their lovers in St. Peter's chair ; while a boy of
twelve and a youth of eighteen had each been vicar of
the Apostle. If Charlemain stooped from royal dignity
to receive a crown from an ecclesiastic, he was avenged
when the Emperor Henry in. cast out the rival popes
at Sutri, and forced the Roman priests to accept a bishop
from his hands.
In the eyes of Hildebrand, in spite of any theory
of the divine right of kings, Henry 111. was not com-

4 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
missioned to touch the Lord's anointed ; and another
method, different from imperial coercion, must be found
for the purification of the Church. No layman, how
ever exalted, must tamper with spiritual independ
ence. Yet reformation was needed, as Hildebrand saw,
who had been trained in the severe morality of the
monastery of Cluny. Monkish methods of revival
were to hand. As the monk, when keeping the spirit
of his vow, had cut himself off from the corrupting
control of the things of time, that he might govern his
soul to its eternal welfare, so must the Church separate
from the world if it would rule mankind. The first
thing to be destroyed was simony. The priest who
purchased and the layman who sold, they who
brought the things of religion into the market-place
for traffic, were to be pronounced guilty of sin. And
the priest himself, through celibacy, must be kept from
the world. If the Church was to be triumphant, its
servants must be free from the joys and cares of 4 earth.
No priest should have wife and children to divert his
love from Christ, capturing his time, and tempting him
to seek wealth for their support. The custom, too, of
lay_investiture must cease. The ring and staff, symbols
of initiation into dignified ecclesiastical offices, were be
stowed by lay hands, and usually for gold. No theory,
however specious, that the practice was simply a feudal
arrangement where churchmen held lands, would
satisfy Hildebrand. He would not have the ark of
the Church touched by a layman's hand, and the
custom must cease in order that a gross evil might be
removed and spiritual independence be established.
The monastery of Cluny, having set its own house
in order, could honestly command and require a general

INTRODUCTION 5
monastic reformation. Hildebrand went further when
he made freedom from the world an ideal for all clerics
alike. Cut off from secular interests, they would yield
obedience to none but their superiors, and thus the
autonomy of the Church would be established. Priests
had their bishops, and bishops their supreme pontiff, to
instruct and guide them. Asceticism and obedience
would bring to pass that kingdom of God which the
gospel had promised, and which Augustine, with the
unity of Imperial Rome before him, had pictured ; and
in this kingdom the pope would be the vice-gerent of
Christ, in this universal Church His vicar. Let ecclesi
astics be freed from the world and the divine kingdom
would come, wherein earthly interests would yield to
spiritual concerns. The Hildebrandine policy had for
its aim the removal of secular control from the Church,
in order that it might have liberty and then supremacy;
and to secure this end, the asceticism and obedience of
clerics were required. With temporary and partial
success, but with unrelenting vigour, Hildebrand
opposed the simony which everywhere was working
harm. In his crusade against clerical marriage he was
victor in so far as celibacy was established or renewed
as a law, though not till the Reformation did decency
become the general custom of priestly life. The strife
over investitures was more than a question of spiritual
independence : it was the duel between pope and em
peror for supremacy. During the youth of the emperor,
Henry IV., the German clergy were being brought into
obedience to Rome ; but reaching manhood, he deter
mined to strike a blow for national freedom. No
Italian bishop should rule his clergy, and his own
obedience would not be given to Hildebrand. Henry's

6 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
stroke was met by a counter-stroke, against which he
could not stand : " For the honour and security of the
Church, in the name of the Almighty Triune God, I do
prohibit Henry, king, son of Henry the emperor, from
ruling the kingdom of the Teutons and of Italy, and I
release all Christians from the oath of allegiance to
him which they have taken, or shall take." The words
were a declaration of the right of the Bishop of Rome
to dispose of political causes ; and for this supremacy
all other concerns, even piety itself, were sacrificed.
The supremacy was no mere semblance of power.
Hadrian iv., the poor scholar who had wandered from
England to Rome, trafficked in the islands of the sea,
and gave Ireland to Henry n., king of a land where he,
Nicholas Brakspere, had been a beggar. InnocenJLi3J»
receiving the crown of England from John, returned
it to him as his vassal. In the century after Francis
and Dominic had adopted poverty, Boniface VIIL, cloth
ing himself in imperial garments, claimed the title of
emperor, as some have it, and, of a truth, ruined the
papacy that he might be more than a bishop.
Medieval Church policy meant supremacy in things
spiritual and temporal, and for this policy Hildebrand
was mainly responsible. In his strife with Henry the
stroke and the counter-stroke were followed by the
tragic scene of Canossa. Of the great pope it can be
said, indeed, that he put down the mighty from his seat.
With heavy step Henry climbed to the mountain for
tress of Canossa. For three days, standing barefooted
on the snow, and clad in a coarse woollen shirt, Henry,
son of an emperor, himself the uncrowned Emperor of
Rome, sought admission to Hildebrand, the son of a
carpenter of Savona. When at last he entered the

INTRODUCTION 7
presence of the pope, it was to throw himself on the
ground, saying : " Spare me, holy father, — spare me."
Hildebrand had triumphed, but the day of triumph
was short. Christendom was not prepared to accept
the rule of a priest. His last words, when he lay dying
at Salerno, are well known : " I have loved righteous
ness and hated iniquity — therefore I die in exile " ;
and significant was the reply of one of the cardinals :
"Nay, in exile thou canst not die, who as vicar of
Christ and His apostles hast received the utmost parts
of the earth for thy possession." The reply was indeed
significant: it gave voice to the aspiration of the
Roman Church.
f The Hildebrandine policy, at its best, was an attempt\
to save the Church from the evils of feudalism, and to
secure the domination of religion. Let the Medieval
Church be viewed in its place in the midst of an ignor
ant, enslaved, and unspiritual people, governed by kings
and nobles, selfish and cruel, and Hildebrand may be
counted an ecclesiastical reformer seeking to remove
pollution, and justified as an autocrat who enforced N
V^ religion. The kingdom of God did not come through asceticism
and obedience. Simony was checked but not stopped.
A suspicion has arisen, but it is nothing more, that
Hildebrand desired the traffic in livings to pass into
the hands of the popes. The celibacy of the clergy, 1
which has roused the wrath of moralists, was not alien J
to the ethical ideals of the time, and the system gave
to the Church an army for religion. The abolition of
lay investiture, the freedom of the clergy from the
slavery imposed by feudal masters, was the only hope
of the unity of the Church. The Hildebrandine policy,

8 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
in so far as it meant the spiritual independence of an
institution existing for the promotion of religion, was
of value, and the methods employed to realise it har
monised with the recognised moral ideas. But it had
its worldly side, even in the case of Hildebrand him
self, and in the age of Innocent in., and notably of
Boniface viii., that side was prominent. • Thus into the
Church there came a worldly ideal, a dream of earthly
supremacy, a vision of absolute political power, with
the pope ruling kings as puppets. /
During the reign of Innocent ill., in which the
Church reached its height of worldly success, Francis
and Dominic appeared. It was indeed a comprehen
sive religion which produced Innocent and Francis, a
Catholic Church which included that king of kings
and that poorest of beggars who would not have a
place of his own whereon to lay his head. From
Hildebrand to Innocent the Church had been stead
fast, with varied success, in its purpose of supremacy.
At the close of the eleventh century the first Crusade
was proclaimed, and in the effusion of piety Urban II.
was recognised as the head of Christendom, attaining a
dignity never awarded to Hildebrand himself. When
the enthusiasm for the holy places of the East died
away, the Church returned to its strife for power.
There was one man, Paschal n., who would have yielded
all the Church's possessions, save the patrimony of St.
Peter, and would have secured ecclesiastical freedom
by rendering to Csesar the things which Cassar
claimed. A priestly tumult arose. Paschal, however, was
more alarmed by the presence of the German hosts,
and accordingly surrendered to Henry v. the right of

INTRODUCTION 9
investiture, bestowing at the same time the imperial
crown. The Church, on the other hand, having entered
into possession of a definite policy, would not, in spite
of its pope, betray its trust, yielding what its fanati
cism cherished as its divine right. Under Calixtus n.
its triumph came; and, through stress of anathema
and excommunication, Henry agreed to the concordat of
Worms, abandoning his title to invest with ecclesias
tical symbol, and giving, according to priestly inter
pretation, to God the things that were God's.
In the middle of the twelfth century the State, in
its opposition to the Church, gained a champion in
Frederick Barbarossa, great as the king of his people
and to be mourned as their military hero. Hadrian iv.
was the ardent representative of Hildebrandism, against
whom Frederick maintained that the imperial dignity,
neither the gift nor the creation of the Church, was in
itself divine. For emphasis of this theory he neglected
a custom said to have been begun by Constantine the
Great, refusing to hold the pope's stirrup, or touching
the left instead of the right. It was Frederick's en
deavour to establish in Italy a German power which
would control the Church, but in his campaign he had
to meet more than the strength of the Bishop of Rome.
French and English gold secured the opposition of
the Roman people ; and in the north of Italy the
Lombard cities embraced the papal cause, eager to
secure their independence from imperial domination.
Barbarossa failed, without forfeiture of military re
nown, since he could not fight against the plague which
devastated his army and drove him over the Alps.
At Legnano, after an alliance between the pope and
the Lombard cities, Frederick was defeated ; and later,

10 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
at a meeting in Venice, the emperor did not refuse
to Pope Alexander in. that courtesy which he had
denied to Hadrian.
The empire under Barbarossa could not regain the
control over the Church which Otto the Great and
Henry in. had exercised, before Hildebrand arose with
his cry of spiritual independence ; and yet if ever there
was a hope of recovering that supremacy, it lived when
Frederick Barbarossa reigned. He died in his march
to the East as a Crusader, and his Germans promised
themselves that he would come again. None worthier
came to wear the imperial crown, and none so re
nowned; but a great pope, Innocent in., was yet to
frustrate his policy and to gain that political dominion
which was the hope of all the Bishops of Rome.
While the papacy was rising to its height new
monastic Orders were founded, which drew the pious
out of the ways of the world. The Camaldolese,
| Vallombrosians, Carthusians, and Cistercians, to take
' examples, marked a monastic revival. St. Bernard,
the most distinguished of the Cistercians, was at
once the pious recluse, the pojpular preacher, and
the ruler oFthe Church. The crusade inaugurated
by Urban n. had quickened the religious sentiment
of Christendom, as the holy places had called up the
image of the suffering Christ. Bernard was strongly
affected by this sentiment, and the Crucified became
the object of his mystic contemplation. In his mon
astic life he practised poverty in a fashion to which
the older Orders were strangers, but the poverty was
joined to the severe routine of the cloister. When he
preached, the intensity of his piety touched the hearts
of the people ; and more than other monk or priest of

INTRODUCTION 1 1
the twelfth century he fostered religion. Yet with the
cause of religion he identified the cause of the Church,
and no disparity was suggested by him between Christ
and His reputed representative on the papal throne.
He laboured for the Church, silencing Abelard, crushing
Arnold of Brescia, and directing Innocent ii. These
labours, however, did not impede his mission among
the people, and/his poverty and his piety made him the
accepted evangelist of the century before Francis and
Dominic./ In the year 1198, Cardinal Lothair ascended the
papal throne as Innocent in. The son of an Italian
noble of the anti-imperialist party, the nephew of a
pope, Lothair rose to the dignity of cardinal at the
age of twenty-eight. During a retirement from Rome,
when Coelestine in. was pope, he wrote a treatise
styled, " Contempt of the World and the Misery of
Human Life," displaying a monastic spirit which might
have made a saint of him had he not been raised to
the high place of dominion. Called to rule, he was
ready for a task which required not the enthusiasm
of a monk but the wisdom of a statesman. Disorder
was rampant in the nations, and the golden opportunity
had come for the Church, which had in Innocent its
strongest man since Hildebrand. In the empire Inno
cent played with the rivalry of Otto of Brunswick and
Philip of Swabia, and changed German history at
his will by placing on the imperial stage the heir of
the Hohenstaufen, the future Frederick n. In France
Innocent appeared as the guardian of morality and the
saviour of the oppressed. Philip Augustus had put
away Ingeburga, his Danish wife, in whose conduct
there was no cause for a divorce. The French clergy

12 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
had granted divorce, and the queen had appealed to
Rome. Pope Coelestine had quailed before the haughti
ness of Philip, but Innocent was a different man, and
in him the French king and clergy alike found a
master. The nation was placed under interdict, so
that the offices of religion ceased. The king was
compelled to send away his beloved Agnes of Meran,
and to take back the despised and injured Ingeburga.
In England, in the conflict of tyranny and freedom,
King John resigned his crown, to receive it back
as a vassal of the pope. In the south of France,
during the crusade against the heretics, Innocent
made his name terrible, displaying stern and unre
lenting vigour. The crusade to the East which he
inaugurated failed to place Christianity victorious
over its Mohammedan foes ; but it seated a Latin king
and established a Latin Church in Constantinople.
Neither kingdom nor church was to endure, yet both
continued beyond the limit of his reign and increased
the splendour of his rule. The kings of Portugal, Leon,
and Aragon each owned his sovereign power, which
was extended over Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland.
Throughout the whole Church the Bishop of Rome
was supreme ; and Rome itself was now recognised
as the court of appeal for the ecclesiastics of all
lands. The day for the assembling of the Fourth Lateran
Council, 1215, was the day of the Church's triumph.
Representatives of the emperors of the East and West,
Eastern patriarchs, Western bishops, made a cloud of
witnesses to the commanding power of Innocent, and
to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. When
Innocent first ascended the papal throne these words

INTRODUCTION 13
were used in the inauguration sermon : " Ye see what
manner of servant that is whom the Lord hath set over
His people ; no other than the vice-gerent of Christ,
the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between
God and man : below" God, above man ; less than God,
more than man. He judges all, is judged by none ; for
it is written, / will judge. But he whom the pre
eminence of dignity exalts is lowered by his office of
a servant, that so humility may be exalted and pride
abased ; for God is against the high-minded, and to the
lowly He shows mercy; and he who exalte th himself shall
be abased." The pope thus introduced did not scruple
to change the text of the Vulgate in order to gain a
biblical sanction for his official power over life and
death. He taught, too, with Hildebrand, that the royal
dignity is to the papal as the moon to the sun, from
which it gets its light ; and he also used the simile of
the body and the soul. It was he who claimed possession
of the two swords, symbols of civil and ecclesiastical
power; and from his reign till the present the pope
has been styled the vicar of Christ, not simply the vicar
of St. Peter. At the Lateran Council, addressing the
multitude of clerics, the pope took for his own use the
words, "With desire I have desired to eat this pass-
over with you before I suffer." It seemed as if he felt
that his own end was near, or knew that the day of
the Church's triumph would soon be spent. But that
day might well have appeared to others the noon
time of a glory that would never pass. Rome was
the centre of the Church : its bishop the head
of Christendom, the lord of kings, the master of
peoples. Rome had conquered, yet the victory was gained at

14 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the expense of religion, as the innumerable sectaries
showed who sought guidance beyond the Church, and
listened to a gospel no priest would proclaim. Heresy
was rampant, because the Church had turned from
Christ to the world, and her servants had not gone
forth into the highways and byways of Christendom,
to teach the people the orthodox creed and to lead them
into truth. Innocent himself was not ignorant of the
perversion of the Church, and when the mendicants
appeared and offered, though they were not all priests,
to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Bible
and the doctrines of theology, he did not seek to crush
them, but retained them as obedient servants. Thus
it happened that when religion was impotent in the
hearts of the people, the friars arose and stirred it into
life and strength ; and when the Church was a worldly
institution and her priests had departed from the spirit
of Christ, these friars devoted themselves to the
missionary labour to which He had consecrated Him
self. Their ideal was noble, their aim the loftiest,
while yet they retained the zeal and piety of their
'founders ; but ere many years had passed after their
recognition as Orders, the Church succeeded in binding
them to her own worldly uses. Rome profited by their
foundation. Her dominion over the ecclesiastics of
any land might perish through the combination of a
national clergy ; but such a combination, she saw, was
little likely to be formed if the mendicants who had
broken worldly ties acted as her emissaries. Her
political power might suffer with the death of the
great pope to whom the earth seemed given for a
possession ; but it might be saved if the mendicants,
wandering in all countries, preached the gospel of

INTRODUCTION 15
papal supremacy Many were the offices of the friars.
They spread throughout the world, filling the seats of '
learning, attaining ecclesiastical pre-eminence, serving ,
as directors of kings, acting as instructors of the people ;
now reviving religion, now quickening church life, and
preserving for Rome a semblance at least of that power «
which Hildebrand had sought and Innocent wielded,
retaining for her a fragment of that domain which
the one had seen in vision and the other had beheld'
extending from sea to sea. *

CHAPTER II
St Francis
In the year 1182 — the exact date is uncertain — a child
was born who was to be known as St. Francis of Assisi.
The father of the boy was Pietro Bernardone, a pros
perous cloth merchant. Little has been learned of the
mother, Pica, who bore her son while her husband was
absent on one of his commercial travels; but the
association of Francis in early manhood with the
young nobles of Assisi, his knowledge of French, and
his saintly character and purpose, suggestive at least of
the customs and ideals of the Poor Men of Lyons, have
made the assertion plausible, that she was of a noble
family of Provence. The scenery, climate, and vegeta
tion of Umbria, in which Assisi lies, were at once
grand and charming influences which touched the
youth and manhood of the poet saint. At his baptism
the child received the name of John, which the father
afterwards changed to Francis, very likely through
fondness for France, to which his business often led
him. According to another version, the name was
given because of the facility with which the boy
acquired the French tongue ; while another theory has
it that the man of business intended a compliment to
his French wife. All through his life that tongue was
dear to Francis by its poetic associations, as it was the

ST. FRANCIS 17
language of the Troubadours, whose songs enchanted
his youth and lingered in his memory. Tradition has
not failed to tell of miracles surrounding the infancy
of the boy, in order to mark a likeness to the fabled .
childhood of Christ. Francis received the education
given to children of rich parents, and, meagre though it
was, it secured for him a knowledge of Latin sufficient
to make him understand the ritual of the Church, and
love its hymns, which he was wont to sing by the
wayside. When the school education was finished he
joined his father in business, and came into contact
with the merchants who sold and the poor who bought.
At the same time, in spite of trade, the youth was
received by the sons of the nobles of the place, who
were willing to have a companion with the money
which the ambition of Pietro Bernardone supplied.
Thus Francis led the life of a trader and of a young
man of fashion, of fashion embracing prodigality and
perhaps licentiousness, yet saved from coarseness and
vulgarity by the leaven of the Troubadours, who were
then making for refinement in Italy. Companies of
youths would band together to sing the light Pro
vencal songs and to follow the gay practices of the
Troubadours, and occasionally Francis, with his sweet
and flexible voice, was a chosen leader. The songs,
however, were not always light, but sometimes were
touched by piety or inspired by the noble deeds of
heroes. His education in the school of the Trouba-/
dours, more than the education of the Church's school,
prepared him for the wandering life of poverty in
which his love to Christ had a lyric sweetness and his
actions for men had often the character of romance.
Associated with nobles though he was, Francis took

1 8 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the popular side in a contest of the people against the
aristocrats. He was no mere man of fashion afraid of
the sword ; no mere hanger-on to men of rich degree,
prepared through right and wrong ever to defend their
cause. He was ready to use the sword, and used it in
a war between Perugia and his own city when Assisi
joined in the struggle for freedom from German rule.
Taken captive, he was led to Perugia, where he was
confined for a year in a prison, the site of which is now
occupied by the palace of the Capitano del Popolo. In
that prison pious forces may have worked in his soul,
yet on his return to Assisi he pursued his old ways, till
struck down by illness. On his recovery he arranged
to go with a certain knight of Assisi who was setting
forth to fight, along with Walter of Brienne, on the
pope's side against the imperialists. Military life, not
alien to a character inspired by the better and heroic
verses of the Troubadours, was now his ideal. Prepara- ]
tions were made in magnificent style, and he marched
forth in pomp. At Spoleto, however, he was struck
down with fever, and his career as a soldier was ended.
Returning home he changed his manner of life. In
vain his friends sought to win him back to their
pleasures. One day, taunted as a youth in love, he
declared : " I am thinking of taking a wife more
beautiful, more rich, more pure than you could ever
imagine." This, some affirm, was religion ; others more
truly say that it was the Lady Poverty whom his
sentimental imagination so styled, and whom Dante has
wedded to his name. The chevalier must have a lady
for his devotion ; and Francis, who had not cut himself
off from all his former fancies, was to take Poverty as
the lady of his heart. His love of poverty was not,

ST. FRANCIS 19
however, at once made known ; and if this story of his
taking a wife is true, it may be accepted that neither
sudden impulse nor unexpected revelation, but calm
deliberation, led him to the mendicant life.
Thus Dante sang of him —
" Por he, a youth, his father's wrath did dare
For maid, for whom not one of all the crowd,
As she were death, would pleasure's gates unbar.
And then before court spiritual he vowed,
Et coram patre — marriage-pledge to her,
And day by day more fervent love he showed.
Of her first spouse bereaved, a thousand were,
And more, the years she lived, despised, obscure,
And till he came, none did his suit prefer.
But lest I tell it too obscurely so,
By these two lovers, in my speech diffuse,
Thou Poverty and Francis now may'st know."
Giotto, in a fresco in Assisi, has shown Francis placing
the ring on the finger of his bride, who, though
crowned with roses, is dressed in poor garments, and
has her feet bruised with stones and torn with briars.
After the illness at Spoleto, and the retiral from
military service, the religious conversion of Francis
was in progress. What was the influence of these
events on his character cannot be told, as the history
of his conversion can be but dimly traced. He went to
Rome, and was disappointed. The faithful gave but
little, even at the shrine of the apostles. He himself
would be splendid in his charity, as he had been in his
gaiety, and he emptied his purse as a pious gift to
St. Peter. In the papal city he saw a multitude of
X beggars, and the sight suggested an experiment. From
one of them he borrowed his rags, lending him his own

j2o FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
garments, and stood for a day as a mendicant, that he
might enter into the secret of poverty. Experience
was not slow to help him in his pious progress. One
day he met a leper, and in repulsion turned away.
But seized by remorse, he hastened to kiss the loath
some hand and pour out his money. Legend has
touched this story. The leper vanished, and then
Francis, like Sir Launfal in " The Vision," knew that
he had ministered unto Christ.
" And the voice that was calmer than silence said,
' Lo, it is I, be not afraid.' "
Soon afterwards Francis entered a leper home as a
visitor, to carry sympathy to the victims of disease
whom society had banished from its midst. He would
discipline himself to the hardest duty, and it was no
easy task to which he gave himself. " The excellent
reader," says Heine, " does not require to be told how
terrible a complaint was leprosy in the Middle Ages,
and how the poor wretches who had this incurable
plague were banished from society, and had to keep at
a distance from any human being. Like living corpses,
in a grey gown reaching down to the feet, and with
the hood brought over their face, they went about,
carrying in their hands an enormous rattle, called Saint
Lazarus's rattle. With this rattle they gave notice of
their approach, that every one might have time to get
out of their way."
Leprosy had spread in Italy and other countries of
the West, especially after the return of the Crusaders.
Medical science was powerless, and the afflicted were
ostracised, and too often there was no one to tend their
bodies and none to heed their souls. Francis, following

ST. FRANCIS 21
Christ, required no other example to draw him to the
lepers, though he may have heard that the Poor Men
of Lyons had not forgotten them. His humanity
inspired him to seek the outcasts, and his piety traced
in them the divine image, their foul disease notwith
standing. In his Testament he declared when dying :
" When I was in the bondage of sin it was bitter to me
and loathsome to see and look upon persons infected
with leprosy, but that blessed Lord brought me among
them, and I did mercy with them ; and when I
departed from them, what seemed bitter and loath
some was turned and changed to me into great sweetness
and comfort both of body and soul." According to
the Speculum Vitse, it was ordained " that the friars
of his Order, dispersed in various parts of the world,
should for the love of Christ diligently attend the
lepers wherever they could be found " ; and these
friars, urging sanitation, and exhibiting medical skill,
helped to remove the curse from Europe. One of his
first acts, after his adoption of poverty as the way of
life, was to visit the leper house to which he had gone
when his apparel was rich. Now he went in poverty. '
He tended the lepers for a time, and rejoiced that he '
had found something to do for Christ's sake.
The crisis of his religious conversion was reached,
according to one story, on a day when he was praying
before a crucifix in the poor Church of St. Damian.
The Christ of the cross seemed to be alive and to say
that He accepted the service offered in his prayer:
" Be found of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act
only in accordance with Thy holy will." Difficulties
now arose with his father, but he desired to leave all
and follow Christ in poverty, humility, and love. /

J

22 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Stripped of all his possessions, for he had given back
to his angry father even his very clothes, he went out
into the world with nothing but old garments which
had been given him in charity. This was the turning
point of his life : thus did he answer the call of Christ.
He entered into no cloister, but went out into the
world for Christ's sake, and was as poor as He was.
Poverty did not disconcert him : it was the badge of
his service, and as he walked on the roads round Assisi
he sang as one who served in joy.
His first refuge was with the priest of St. Damian.
Legend tells that as he prayed in the church a voice
said, " Go_repair jny house which is falling into ruin,."
and that he took the words as a command to restore
the ruined chapel in which he knelt, heedless of the
great Catholic Church then sinking into spiritual
desolation. Obedient to his heavenly vision, he set
about the work of repair. He had some skill in build
ing, but having no materials he begged for stones for
the pious labour. At the same time he had nothing to
eat, and he asked for bread. The broken bread which
he received was his sacrament of poverty. Other
ruined churches demanded his attention, and on one
of those he laboured, the Church of Santa Maria of the
Portiuncula, which, under the name of Santa Maria
degli Angeli, became the cradle of Franciscanism.
The legend of this church is extremely fanciful.
Originally known as the Church of S. Maria di
Josaphat, it was founded by four pilgrims from
Jerusalem who carried with them a fragment of the
tomb of the Virgin in the valley of Jehosaphat, and a
part of one of her garments. In 516 it was rebuilt by
St. Benedict, who changed its name to Portiuncula, and

ST. FRANCIS 23
afterwards to S. Maria degli Angeli, as angels came
and sang in it. Another legend tells how the name
Portiuncula was given to an indulgence famous in the
Catholic Church. One night Francis learned by
revelation that Christ and the Virgin waited him in
this church. Christ told him that He would grant
a boon for the salvation of men, and the request was
thereupon made that those who entered the Portiun
cula should obtain pardon for all sins confessed to a
priest, and for which penance had been done. At the
intercession of the Virgin, Christ consented, with the
provision that the pope should signify agreement.
Pope Honorius, after making certain modifications,
notably the restriction of it to one day, lest the
indulgences for the Holy Land should be injured,
gave his consent ; and the indulgence was afterwards
extended to other churches. Thus did Francis with
his consecration to poverty become the agent, according
to this legend, through whom a valuable revenue was
secured for his Order. The first biographers of the
saint are silent regarding this episode, and the Bollan
dists speak of it with caution. In recent years, how
ever, attention has been paid to a writing of a French
man, Jacques de Vitry, who, being in Perugia when
Innocent in. died, described the election of Honorius in.,
a simple and benevolent man who had bestowed almost
all his goods on the poor. Saddened by the worldliness
of the papal Court, the Frenchman found comfort in
beholding the Friars Minor, whom the pope and car
dinals treated with respect. From the character of
Honorius and Francis it is not unreasonable to believe
that they arranged an indulgence unburdened with a
condition of alms. The saint, finding in the pope a

24 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
man after his own heart, and desiring to give penitents
an outward sign of divine forgiveness, may have
obtained from him the sanction of an indulgence for
which no price was to be paid. Attention, even to the
present day, is directed to the question of Francis'
share in obtaining this indulgence, and controversy
has arisen. The tendency, however, is to accept the
statements, made in certain documents of the latter
part of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth
century, that the indulgence was established at the
request of Francis.
Nothing in the conduct of Francis pointed as yet
to missionary enterprise, or to the foundation of a
Brotherhood or Order. In Portiuncula, however, he
was to receive the call to his missionary labour, and it
came to him as if directly from the lips of Christ Him
self. One day, it was the year 1209, he heard the
priest at mass reading, but it was Christ who seemed
to say that he should go and preach, healing the sick,
cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, and casting out
devils, and that he should provide neither gold nor
silver, nor brass, nor scrip, nor shoes, nor staves. This
was the formal commission for Francis for his labour
and his poverty ; and when he received it he cast aside
staff and shoes and began to preach, or rather to speak
to the people words of religion. For two years he had
been preparing for his mission by renunciation of the
things of the world, and he who had left all to follow
Christ had a right to ask others to go with him.
Francis entered upon his mission not as a novice in
piety, but as one having authority.
True to his ideal, Francis adopted as his dress the
brown woollen gown, tied with a rope, which the

ST. FRANCIS 25
poorest men of the district wore, and he walked bare
footed. Eccleston tells of one of the friars in England,
that without permission he put on sandals to go to
matins. He dreamt that he was taken by robbers,
who cried, " Kill him ! kill him ! " " But I am a friar,"
was the plea. " Thou liest," said the robbers, " for
thou art not barefooted." In another of the English
Chronicles it is related that one Christmas time two
of the friars, returning from a chapter at Oxford, sang
as they " picked their way along the rugged path over
the frozen mud and rigid snow, whilst the blood lay in
the track of their naked feet, without their being
conscious of it." Dante gives us a picture showing
how the Brothers walked —
" Silent, alone, with no companions near,
We journeyed, one before and one behind,
(So Minor Friars when they walk appear)."
One by one converts were made who joined Francis
as brothers in poverty. He wished, however, to found
no Order. He simply desired men to follow the life
of Christ in its humility, and he preached Christ and
Him crucified to the world. A notable convert was
made when Bernardo di Quintavalle, a rich man of
Assisi, distributed his wealth among the poor. His
story is told in the Little Flowers. Touched by the
patience of Francis, he invited him to sup and lodge
with him, and he set himself to observe his sanctity.
Assured of that sanctity, he resolved to renounce the
world, and made known his purpose. " Bernard," was
the reply, "this that thou sayest is a task so1 great
and difficult that therefore must we seek counsel of
our Lord Jesus Christ." Together they went to the

26 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
bishop's house, where there was a good priest, who at
the bidding of Francis made the sign of the cross, and
opened the missal thrice in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. At the first opening appeared the words:
" If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast,
and give to the poor and follow me " ; at the second,
these : " Take nothing for your journey, neither staves,
nor scrip, neither bread, neither money " ; and at the
third : " If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Then
Bernard went and sold all his possessions and gave the
price to the poor. Among other converts was one who
resigned a canonry in the cathedral ; and when these
men numbered seven, or twelve, according to the
Little Flowers, Francis sent them forth two by two
to preach the gospel, that he might imitate the action
of Christ.
A Brotherhood or association had been formed, not
an Order in the strict sense, and some Rule must be
formulated or adopted. The words which had been
accepted by Francis as a commission would serve as
the basis of a Rule for the Brothers. Reading them
aloud, he said : " Brothers, this is the life and the rule
for us, and for all who may desire to join us. Go and
do as you have heard." Portiuncula, which had been
granted for their use, was the centre from which the
new preachers went forth on their mission, and yet it
was hardly a centre, as there was no house attached to
the church to shelter them as a home. They possessed
nothing, neither as individuals nor as a Brotherhood,
and like children careless of the day wandered about,
now singing in their joy, now teaching or preaching.
A day's work would be wrought, and when no man

ST. FRANCIS 27
gave them work they would beg and not be ashamed.
Penitents of Assisi they called themselves; sometimes,
Joculatores Domini, God's Jongleurs. With them divine
science and the gay science were akin. The Brother
hood increased to twelve, says one tradition, the number
of the disciples, and then it was determined that the
Rule should be written out and submitted to the pope.
That Rule has not been preserved, though attempts have
been made from various writings to piece it together.
Francis, with certain brethren, set out for Rome to
present the Rule to Innocent. The story, as told by
Bonaventura, is that Innocent, walking on the terrace of
the Lateran, saw the preachers, who seemed to be poor
peasants, approach to kneel at his feet, and despising
their rags bade them depart. The sovereign of the kings
of the earth could have no fellowship with beggars.
But at night the pope dreamed that a palm sprouted
between his feet, reaching to a great height ; and when
he awoke he connected his vision with the poor men,
as a prophecy of their future distinction. Another
version is that Innocent beheld the great Church of St.
John Lateran falling to the ground, and that suddenly
it was supported by the beggar whom he had in the
daytime actually spurned from him. This dream, we
are told, was repeated when Dominic presented himself
to the pope. A later legend has it that Francis, in the
papal presence, related a parable, how a king had sons
by a poor woman, whom he afterwards recognised as
his children. This parable could not have been told by
Francis, since it represented the clergy as the illeg
itimate sons of the pope. The meeting of Francis and
Innocent has dramatic and historic significance, and
there is little wonder that Giotto set it forth in one

28 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of his famous frescoes. The painter has represented
Innocent, seated on the throne, turning wondering eyes
on the strangers, who are craving permission to live
after the humility and poverty of Christ.
In Rome Francis unexpectedly met the Bishop of
Assisi, who, favouring his cause, commended him to
the Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo. The cardinal in
turn, after much talk with Francis, introduced him to
the pope, saying, in the words of the legend : " I have
found a most perfect man, who desires to live according
to the holy gospel, and in all things to observe evan
gelical perfection; by whom, I believe, the Lord pur
poses to reform the faith of the Holy Church throughout
all the world." Whatever the details of the Rule were,
as presented to Innocent, they were in substance the
precepts of Christ, adopted in Portiuncula for the
guidance of the Brotherhood. The pope, however, was
too grave in experience to be captured by mere en
thusiasm, and while probably satisfied with the sincerity
of the Penitents of Assisi, he neither condemned nor
accepted the Rule. No new Order was created, but the
pope, leaving the mission of the Brothers to justify
itself, required them to choose a superior. One man,
and one only, could guide the Penitents, and Francis
became the first superior, though, according to another
story, they had, before reaching Rome, elevated Brother
Bernard to be to them as a vicar of Christ's. The
interview with Innocent was over, and ere they de
parted for Umbria they received the tonsure, which
transformed them into clerics. The Waldenses had
refused the tonsure, and so were rejected as heretics.
The Penitents of Assisi did not commit the blunder of
separating from the Church.

ST. FRANCIS 29
Innocent III. hesitated to sanction the organisation
which Francis had intentionally or unintentionally
formed. In the Lateran Council of 1215 it was
determined, since there was danger to the unity of
the Church, that no new Orders should be instituted;
and probably this policy was finding favour even as
early as the year 1210, as Wadding has it, when
Francis presented himself at Rome.
Coelestine in. in 1196 sanctioned the foundation of
an Order by Joachim of Flora, the mystic whose
writings were to influence the history of the Fran
ciscans. Joachim, a son of noble parents, left his home
in order to visit the holy places of the East. In Con
stantinople he was touched by the spectacle of the
horrors of a plague, and, having dismissed his servants,
proceeded on his way as a pilgrim. Visions revealed
to him mysteries of religion. When he returned
to the West he became a Cistercian, but not satisfied
with the severities of his monkish life, he founded a
new Order, in which extreme poverty was to be
practised. Innocent himself welcomed back to the fold of the
Church Durand of Huesca, who separated from the Wal
denses that he might found an Order of mendicants
within the Church. That Order, the Poor Catholics
they were styled, included priests who desired by
preaching to convert heretics, and laymen who through
poverty sought to restore apostolic simplicity. Having
approved the action of the Poor Catholics, Innocent,
none the less, kept back his sanction from the Penitents
of Assisi. It is not probable that he hesitated to recog
nise the preaching of laymen, which could have been
"controlled : it is more likely that he doubted the value

30 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of aggressive poverty, while understanding the worth
of fanaticism. He might well judge the profession of
absolute poverty too extreme for the individual and for
the Order, and too extravagant to attract, even though
he himself had written the " Contempt of the World
and the Misery of Human Life." Innocent was not
guilty of avarice, was not a worldling destitute of
spiritual interests, who had intrigued to become pope
or had been chosen by admirers of craft and cunning.
His letters show him to have been aware of the
degradation of the Church through simony, and to
have been a friend of the poor, eager that they should
get justice. With all this he may have hesitated to
sanction an Order which would make a contrast be
tween its members and the clergy ; and which, by
appeal to Scripture, would oppose the poverty and
lowliness of Christ to the riches and pomp of His
vicar. Innocent was engaged in the great ecclesiastical
movement inspired by Hildebrand, and in securing the
supremacy of the Church had no leisure, it must be
said, to direct the religious life of Christendom. Hilde
brand, true to the reforming spirit of the age, and with
a lofty conception of the function of the Church, desired
the secular clergy to practise monkish asceticism ; but
-in seeking ecclesiastical liberty he secularised the
Church, and the road to supremacy was the road to
degradation. A vicar of St. Peter without pomp or
style could not be the superior of an emperor, and the
striving for worldly splendour infested the clergy, who,
forgetting asceticism, sought elevation along with the
supreme pontiff. In the age of Hildebrand the Patarines
in Italy, themselves practising monkish severities, had

ST. FRANCIS 31
inveighed against the clergy for worldliness, and had
contrasted them with their own preachers, who walked
in lowliness and poverty. In the twelfth century
Arnold of Brescia was the most noted of those who set
up poverty as the rule for all Christ's people. His
preaching was construed as an unholy attack on a
divine organisation, and the ecclesiastical revolutionist,
obnoxious to Hadrian iv., as also to Frederick Bar
barossa for his republicanism, was done to death, the
victim of a pope's tyranny and an emperor's petty
wrath. His keenest opponent was Bernard of Clair
vaux, who was a monk for his own salvation, and
the upholder of the Church for the welfare of the
people. Yet Bernard, too religious not to be vexed by
worldliness, exclaimed: Do not the "ambitiosi, avari,
simonaici, sacrilegi, concubinarii, incestuari," flock from
all the earth to Rome that they may obtain or retain
ecclesiastical honours ? Again he cried : " Who will
give me before I die to see the Church as it was in the
ancient days, when the apostles cast their nets to catch
souls, not silver and gold ? " Still stronger were his
words: "It is no longer true that the priests are as
bad as the people ; for the priests are worse than the
people." One and all, the pious condemned the wealth
of Rome and the sordid greed of the bishops and
clergy ; and certainly the progress of the heretics in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries was helped by their
attacks on clerical pride and avarice. Sectarians, like
the Apostolici, by contrast of their own practices, held
up to scorn the priest who, ministering at the altar of
Christ, did no other duty in His service. Waldo sold
his goods that he might give to the needy, and the first
Waldenses were styled the Poor Men of Lyons. The

32 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
pious within and the heretics outside the Church con
demned that worldliness which was destroying its
power, and which Innocent could not remove.
It is not known from what source Francis received
his impulse to poverty, and very likely to no particular
sect or Order did he owe his inspiration. He had not
lived, however, as a hermit, and must have been aware
of the various attempts to bring back the Church to
apostolic simplicity. There is the theory that his
mother belonged to the Waldenses, and instructed him
in the principles of her sect. Whatever the origin of ¦
his inspiration, Francis put himself in emphatic con
trast with the ordinary priest; and in this poverty
adopted for Christ's sake, and honourably practised,
there is one important factor of the success which
crowned Franciscanism at its beginning.
After the interview with Innocent, Francis and the
Brothers turned once more to Assisi, near which, at
Rivo Torto, they proceeded to occupy a ruined cottage.
In the caves and grottos of the district they would
spend hours and even days of contemplation. They may
have been tempted to that life of contemplation which
fascinated seekers for God ; but they resisted the charm,
that they might preach to sinners and carry glad tidings
to the poor. In one of the Little Flowers it is related
that Brother Masseo was sent to Sister Clare and Brother
Silvester to pray to God to show whether Francis
should give himself to preaching or wholly unto prayer;
and the divine answer was, that he should go through
out the world preaching, since he had been chosen not
for himself alone, but also for the salvation of others.
Rome had not rejected the Penitents, and now the
churches were offered for their preaching. Francis did

ST. FRANCIS 33
not despise the courtesy of the clergy, but as a child of
nature he loved the open air, and crowds gathered to
him in places where there was no shelter of consecrated
roof. And his style of teaching, in its freedom from
conventionality, suited the open, since from first to last
his sermons had nothing of the dialectic of the schools,
and nothing of the hard dogma of the Church. They1
were the appeals, touched no doubt by the supersti-|
tions of the age, of a pious, earnest, loving soul to men
to follow the Christ, to live through righteousness to i
the service of God.
In Assisi, Francis became the helper of the oppressed,
demanding certain privileges from the Maj ores for the
Minores, and reconciling for a time the rich and poor.
To emphasise the humility of the Brothers, and to
bring them nearer to the Minores, as they were styled,
he ordained that they should be known as Brothers
Minor. In the Rule, according to Thomas of Celano,
was the phrase " Et sunt Minores." Francis found a
name in Minores, and an ideal in the name.
The cottage at Rivo Torto, which had once been
occupied by lepers, was not the property of the
Minorites, and others were free to use it. One day
a rude peasant took up his abode, and the Penitents
moved out, exercising, as they hoped, humility and
love. A chapel was now needed for their worship,
and they obtained the Benedictine Chapel of Santa
Maria degli Angeli, around which they built huts,
forming what may be called the first Franciscan con
vent. That convent, even in its simplicity, was not to
be a possession, not to be a permanent abode : it was
to be but a centre from which to go out on missions,
and to which to return. It was probably in imitation

34 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of Christ and His disciples that the Brothers, as is
recorded, asked of Francis a form of prayer. In
addition to the Lord's prayer he gave them this : " We
adore Thee, 0 Christ, in all Thy churches which are in
all the world, and we bless Thee because Thou hast by
Thy holy cross redeemed the world." The ritual of'
the Brothers was to be simple. The missions con
tinued; evangelisation was to be the chief labour of
the Minorites. From place to place they moved in
Umbria, singing in joy as they went. By Francis'
express command, and after his own example, they
were to be poor, possessing no property and accepting^
no money either for service or charity ; and they were
to beg when they could not earn their bread. Work
they must, though not in fixed employment. " I desire
that all my brethren should labour," Francis is re
ported to have said, "at useful occupations, that we
may be less of a burden to the people, and also that
we may be less subject to maladies of the heart and
tongue, and may not be tempted to evil thoughts or
evil speaking." When work failed, the Brothers were
not to be ashamed to beg. Christ Himself had said
that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Brother
Egidius, one of the paladins of his round table,
Francis called him, carried water in Brindisi, made
baskets at Ancona, sold wood in Rome. The first
Minorites were not idlers, causing offence in the name
of religion. They laboured, when they could, for bread,
and were not ashamed, when hungry, to beg for it as
the wages of spiritual service. But they were not to
accept money, to touch that which had destroyed the
uses of the Church. They were to be poor that they
might follow Christ, that they might be cut off from

ST. FRANCIS 35
the temptations of the world, and that they might be
one with the humblest on earth. If they had any
thing, they were to bestow it willingly on the needy.
Francis himself once gave a beggar the mantle worn
above his gown. He himself had but the loan of it,
he declared. " Your life," said the Bishop of Assisi to
Francis, " without any goods in the world seems to me
most hard and terrible." " My lord," answered Francis,
" if we had possessions we should need arms to protect
them." Bonaventura, describing his predecessors in
the Order, wrote : " Because they possessed nothing
earthly, loved nothing earthly, and feared to lose
nothing earthly, they were secure in all places ;
troubled by no fears, distracted by no cares, they
lived without trouble of mind, waiting without
solicitude for the coming day or the night's lodg-
ing." Bonaventura himself, in 1273, after he had been for
seventeen years the head of the Franciscan Order, was
elected a cardinal. When the messengers arrived to
tell him of the election, they found him washing the
dishes just used at one of the convent meals. He
would not see them till his task was finished ; and
till he was ready to receive it, so runs the story,
the cardinal's hat was hung on the branch of a
tree. Into his love of poverty Francis wove the grace of
charity. The Brothers, though they were to be unlike
the secular clergy, were to be courteous, saluting them
by kissing their hands. Nor were the rich to be
despised. "There are men," he said, "who to-day
appear to us to be members of the devil, who one day
shall be members of Christ." The same courtesy is

36 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
enjoined in the Rule, where it prescribes the ways of
poverty : " And all the Brothers are to be clad in mean
habits, and may blessedly mend them with sacks and
other pieces ; whom I admonish and exhort, that they
do not despise or censure such men as they see clad in
curious and gay garments, and using delicate meats
and drinks, but rather let every one judge and despise
himself." At the Lateran Council of 1215, when Innocent sat
on the papal throne as on the seat of the empire of
the world, the case of the Minorites was considered.
The pope, desiring them to join themselves to an exist
ing Order, as Dominic and his companions were to
associate with the Augustinians, once more refused a
formal sanction of their Rule. The papal advice did
not, however, commend itself to Francis, and remem
bering the corruption of the Monastic Orders, he
would not agree. Innocent died before this dispute
was settled, but the papal policy was continued by
the Cardinal Ugolini, the future Gregory ix. The
cardinal, John of St. Paul, who had befriended Francis
died, and Ugolini came forward to offer protection not
to be despised, since there were members of the Roman
Curia strongly opposed to the Minorites. Ugolini was
interested, indeed, in the Brothers and their work, but
he was determined they should not depart too far from7
the ways of the Church.
In the year 1219, some say 1217, the Franciscan
mission was organised by the institution of provinces
in various countries, and the appointment of provincial
superiors. Jacques de Vitry, in his journal of events
of 1216, shows the wide extent of the mission in that
year. " The men of this Order," he relates, " assemble,

ST. FRANCIS 37
not without great profit, once every year, in a place
prearranged, to rejoice in the Lord and to eat to
gether ; then, with the counsel of good men, they
adopt pious resolutions, approved by the pope. After
that they disperse for the remainder of the year
through Lombardy and Tuscany, and even to Apulia
and Sicily." The Brotherhood increased by the in
coming of all sorts of men, rich and poor, scholars and
peasants. Three robbers, who were murderers, are
mentioned. With the increase the area of the mission
widened, and men were sent forth, some of whom were
to win the distinction of martyrdom. Brother Elias
proceeded to Syria; and Francis himself attempted,
though he failed, to reach the East, that he might
proclaim the gospel to the followers of Mahomet.
He failed, too, when his zeal would have carried
him to Morocco to convert the Sultan, and there is
a report of his mission to Spain to preach to the
Moors. The purpose for which the mission was organised is
set forth in these words, supposed to be addressed by
the saint to Cardinal Ugolini : " Do you think that
God raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country
alone ? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them
up for the awakening and the salvation of all men,
and they shall win souls not only in the countries of
those who believe, but also in the very midst of the
infidels." In 1219 Francis, once more determining to visit the
infidels, as they were styled, proceeded to Damietta,
where the Christian forces were gathering in one of
the Crusades. The determination showed zeal but not
wisdom in the man who thought that the gospel, if

38 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
preached in purity, would prove acceptable to all
people. One story has it that he sought in pious
pilgrimage the places sanctified by the feet of Christ.
According to another, after preaching to the soldiers
in the Christian army, he passed to the Mohammedans,
and was taken to the presence of the Sultan Kamel.
In the version of Jacques de Vitry, who was with the
Crusaders, the Sultan received Francis with courtesy,
doubtless taking his enthusiasm for madness, and after
hearing him on several occasions, sent him back to his
friends, saying at parting : " Pray for me, that God
may enlighten me, and enable me to hold firmly to
that religion which is most pleasing to Him."
Bonaventura describes the visit as paid to the
Sultan of Babylon, who asked Francis to abide with
him for a time. Francis agreed to remain, provided
the king and the people embraced Christianity; but,
if this could not be, he desired that he and some
of the Mohammedan priests should enter a fire, in
order to try which was the true religion. The Sultan
declared that none of his priests would willingly
engage in such a contest, whereupon Francis, anxious
to secure victory, offered to enter the fire, on condition
that if he passed through uninjured the king should
become a Christian. Francis was dismissed, after the
Sultan had pressed gifts, which were refused.
During the sojourn of Francis in the East important
changes were taking place, beginnings of that pro
tracted revolution which was to transform the Order.
Francis had renounced the world for the sake of
leading the life in Christ, and there is nothing to show
that at first he thought even of a Brotherhood. Men
joined him, and while he saw the need of organisation

ST. FRANCIS 39
he refused privileges and shunned formalities. He
was captivated by poverty and impelled towards it by
a spirit of chivalry, and, more seriously, by a pious
desire to avoid the avarice debasing the Church. In
no sense did he oppose the Church or join with those
who judged Arnold of Brescia a martyr for gospel
truth. Yet the purposes and ideals of the great
ecclesiastics were very different from his, and not
unnaturally some have counted him the victim of an
intrigue, when the Brotherhood came under the
direction of the Church. Ugolini, it has been affirmed,
inspired the changes effected during Francis' stay in
the East. And yet the saint was friendly with
Ugolini, as he was with Elias, the Brother credited
with being the servant of the cardinal's schemes.
Francis was not a dreamer to imagine that a thou
sand friars, whom perhaps he had never seen, would
be controlled by his example and filled with his
enthusiasm for simplicity. But he had ideals, and
these he would cherish, opposing all schemes of
prelates and friars alike which would do violence to
his plans. He would not and did not refuse obedience ;
but, to his mind, the best service to the Church was to
follow poverty and restore simplicity. The Brother
hood grew, and, as its members were of different lands
and tongues, it required papal help that it might be
preserved. The progress was greater than the dream
of a visionary or the pride of an egoist could have
predicted ; and Francis was not so foolish as to think
that the glory of success was due to him alone, and
that he could altogether save it from official control.
During Francis' absence the opportunity for inter
ference came, and Ugolini, as protector, introduced

40 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
changes to bind the Order to the Church. That
interference, however, might not then have taken
place had not the rumour circulated that the saint
was dead. One of the most serious changes was the
direction of the Poor Ladies of St. Damian, the Poor
Clares, as they were afterwards named. In the year
1212 Francis had admitted to the life of poverty a
young girl of Assisi, Clara, daughter of the noble
house of Sciffi. By his preaching she had been
brought to a contempt of the world : " he had poured
into her ears the sweetness of Christ." She and
certain maidens who had joined her were ultimately
received into the Chapel of St. Damian, as a convent,
where they were to live in the spirit of the Rule which
guided the Brothers. As they could not preach, and
were not to go forth to beg, they were to employ
themselves with work such as embroidering altar-
cloths, and were to attend the sick. The Brothers
were to help in their support, and charity was to
supply that which was lacking.
Clara was born in 1194, and, according to the
legend, before her birth a voice from heaven said that
her life would be brilliant. Her mother accordingly
desired that the child should be called Clara.
Asceticism ruled her as a girl, and under her rich
apparel she wore a cruel cincture. Suitors were many,
but to none would she listen. The fame of Francis
reached her. Having heard him preach in the Cathedral
of Assisi, she sought converse with the new apostle.
At his advice she fled with companions from her
father's house to Portiuncula, to be followed in after
days by other members of the family ; and when she
had taken the vow of poverty, with his own hands he

ST. FRANCIS 41
cut off her flowing hair, consecrating her as a nun.
Her first days of poverty were spent in a Benedictine
convent, from which she removed to the Church of
St. Damian. It is to be remembered that the man
who advised the flight of a girl from her home had
himself left all for Christ's sake ; and also that he
who assumed a bishop's function, consecrating a
nun, himself asked no priest to set him apart for
Christ. Clara died long after the saint had " fallen asleep,"
and in 1255, two years after her death, was canonised
by Alexander iv. Throughout the later years of his
ilife there was romantic converse between Francis, with
(some of his friars, and the ladies of St. Damian.
ISlander never touched that converse, and his most
ipeaceful hours were those spent in the garden of St.
jDamian, when Clara ministered to her friend.
The number of the Sisters rapidly increased, and in
a few years after Clara entered St Damian there were
houses in Italy, France, and Spain. The Rule by which
the nuns were to live was a modification of that made
by the saint for the Brothers. Ugolini put in its
place one framed by himself ; and, though the newly
established houses were willing to accept it, Clara was
stubborn in her determination to abide by the statutes
of Francis. In 1219 Ugolini bestowed on the
Benedictine nuns certain privileges, which Brother
Philip obtained for the Poor Ladies. The Rule given
by Ugolini and the privileges meant conventional for
mality and a relaxation of the austerities of poverty ;
and, to his annoyance, Francis found on his return
that Brother Philip had been trafficking with Ugolini,
and that his own plan, to constrain the nuns by the

42 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
example of his life and the power of his character,
and to keep them true to poverty, had been seriously
impaired. Among the Brothers themselves greater
severity of conduct had been introduced. True to the
letter and spirit of the gospel, Francis had allowed the
liberty expressed in Luke x. 8, "And into whatsoever city
ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are
set before you." The two vicars, however, whom he had
left in charge made the rules of fasting more stringent,
that they might conform their customs to those of the
established Orders. The change was slight, but it was
a violation of the freedom and simplicity which were
ground principles of Francis' life.
Another event indicated how soon his teaching was
to be misunderstood. One of the Brothers, John of
Capella, was endeavouring to gather the lepers into
an Order, and a Rule for their obedience was submitted
to the pope. It was not to the mind of Francis that
his Brotherhood should be travestied by any Order
with fixed monastic rule, or that any of his friars
should be enamoured of formalities in piety. Later
tradition tells that Francis found that a house was
being erected at Bologna for the Brothers, and was
already inhabited in part. He ordered them to quit
it at once, and was pacified only when assured that
it was not their property.
The primitive simplicity of the Minorites could not
be maintained when the Society numbered thousands,
and this Francis knew. According to Bonaventura,
five thousand men attended one of the chapters held
before the Rule was finally sanctioned by Rome.
Francis, forced by the logic of events, was compelled
in 1219 to accept papal protection for the Brothers

ST. FRANCIS 43
of the mission, many of whom had reported that they
were being treated as heretics or revolutionists.
Forced to another step, he solicited from the pope
the appointment of an official protector. Francis
stood before Innocent's successor with this request,
in spite of his early determination to seek no
privilege. Cardinal Ugolini, because of his friendship,
was named protector; and, armed with authority,
continued the plan, which was that of Innocent, of
bringing the Brotherhood into closer touch with the
papacy. One of his schemes was to choose, on
occasion, prelates from among the Minorites, as he
appreciated the benefit of appointing men with no
family interests to serve. To Ugolini's proposal
Francis replied : " My friars have been called Minores
in order that they may not presume to become
Maj ores. If you desire that they may bear fruit in
the Church, keep them and preserve them in the
place to which they were called."
One of the first indications of Ugolini's official
directorship was the withdrawal of the privileges
solicited by Brother Philip for the nuns, and the
refusal to establish an Order of lepers. On the other
hand, he required that a definite Rule should be
formulated for the Brotherhood. That Rule was
prepared, but before its sanction it suffered many
things at the hands of the Roman Curia, and Francis,
in spite of lost ideals, but from loyalty to the
Church, had to be content. It is told of the saint
that, in the midst of his troubles, he went out one
night to pray, and seemed to hear God saying : " Poor
little man ! I govern the universe ; thinkest thou that
I cannot overrule the concerns of thy little Order ? "

44 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
The story shows the man. Francis' trust in God was
sure, and in himself he had none. Wounded pride,
scorn of change, unfulfilled ideals, were laid as
sacrifices before Him who, governing a world, could
direct the friars.

CHAPTER III
St. Francis — continued
The negotiations between Francis and Ugolini resulted
in 1220 in the publication of a bull, which may be
taken as the official recognition of the Brotherhood.
It contained the significant words : " In nearly all re
ligious Orders it has been wisely ordained that those
who present themselves with the purpose of observing
the regular life shall make trial of it for a certain time,
during which they shall be tested, in order to leave
neither place nor pretext for inconsiderate steps. For
these reasons we command you by these presents to
admit no one to make profession until after one year
of novitiate ; we forbid that after profession any
Brother shall leave the Order, and that anyone shall
take back again him who has gone out from it. We
also forbid that those wearing your habit shall cir
culate here and there without obedience, lest the purity
of your poverty be corrupted. If any friars have had
this audacity, you will inflict upon them ecclesiastical
censures until repentance."
Four years before the date of this bull the Dominican
Order had been founded, and from the first was placed
under papal direction. Why should not Francis act as
a dutiful son, and be guided by the wisdom of the
highest in the Church? The bull was certainly in-

46 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
spired by the desire to conform the Franciscans to the
fashion of existing Orders. A chapter was held at
which the papal communication was read, and the
details of the new Rule were discussed. The incident
of chief importance, however, was the retiral of Francis
from the leadership, or rather his refusal to become the
head of the newly recognised Order. Pietro di Catana, '.
a doctor of laws and a man of noble birth, was chosen
minister-general, but he lived little more than a year
to bear the burden of office. He had been a canon of
the Cathedral of Assisi, and was one of the first to join
the Minorites. Francis chose him as his companion in
the East, and knowing and loving him as he did, it
may be taken that he nominated him as minister-
general. He himself had not withdrawn from office,
annoyed by the papal policy. He retired from leader
ship, being unfitted for a place which required
organising and directing activities rather than piety
and emotion.
Pietro di Catana died in 1221, and was buried in
Portiuncula, into which, according to Thomas of Celano,
no layman was allowed to enter. After the burial
multitudes flocked to the church, on account of the
miracles which were wrought ; and Francis, disturbed
by their tumult, went to the tomb and said : " Brother
Peter, in life you were always obedient to me; as,
through your miracles, we are pestered by laymen,
you must obey me in death. I therefore order you
on your obedience to cease from the miracles through
which we are troubled by laymen." The saint hated
clamour and noise, and was not of those who rushed
after signs and wonders. The next to become minister-
general was Elias of Cortona, who continued in the

ST. FRANCIS 47
leadership till he had made the Order the mere tool
or agent of the papacy.
In 1221, some writers tell us, the Tertiaries, or Third
Order, were founded. These Tertiaries were not monks
or friars in any sense, but were men and women moved
to bring the fundamental teaching of the gospel into
the conduct of daily life. From the first appearance
of Francis as an evangelist of poverty and love, and
not from the exact date 1221, there were men and
women who could not join the Brotherhood or Sister
hood, and yet desired to obey the informal Rule which
he had framed. Certain duties, we are told, were pre
scribed for them. They were to keep God's command
ments, to avoid oaths and lawsuits, to carry no arms
except for defence of the Church, to live in the
simplicity of few material wants, and to give liberally
to the poor. Above all, the love of Christ was to enter
their hearts, and His example to shape their conduct.
These Tertiaries, who were to have a long and varied
history, were proofs of the spiritual excellence of the
Franciscan movement, which affected men and women
not in convents or associations separated from the
world, but in the family and amidst ordinary business.
A Rule for the Tertiaries, we are told, was approved by
the pope, and the name, Brothers and Sisters of Peni
tence, obtained official recognition. Assertions of this
kind, however, are doubtful, as Francis ever feared that
the letter might kill the spirit. It is more likely that
the Rule belonged to a later year. The form of the vow
which candidates for admission were required to take
speaks of a time subsequent to the death of the saint.
These candidates, after an examination regarding con
duct, manners, and association with neighbours, had to

48 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
repeat these words : " I promise and vow to God, the
Blessed Virgin, our father St. Francis, and all the saints
of paradise, to keep all the Commandments of God
during the entire course of my life, and to make satis
faction for the transgressions which I may have com
mitted against the Rule and manner of life of the Order
of Penitents, instituted by Francis, according to the
will of the visitor of that Order, when I am admitted
into it."
The story of the foundation of the Third Order is not
simple. It is unlikely that Francis dictated a Rule;
and certainly the only one of which we have definite
information is that issued by Nicolas iv., which was
intended for all the existing religious societies of lay
men. The Tertiaries, however, were mentioned in a
bull of 1221, the alleged year of their foundation ; while
in 1230 Gregory ix. styled them fratres tertii ordinis,
and in 1247 Innocent iv. placed them under the
directorship of the minister-general. Of some interest
is the fact that in 1882, the 700th anniversary of the
birth of the saint, Pope Leo xiii. in an encyclical
declared that the institution of Franciscan Tertiaries
was alone fitted to save humanity from the social and
political dangers which threatened it.
It was the glory of Francis to spread religion beyond
the cloister, and carry it into family life. He would
have men brought to repentance, and filled with a love
to Christ which would constrain them to poverty and
goodness. These Franciscan Tertiaries, like the associ
ates of other Orders, were helpful in removing the
barrier between laymen and clerics, with the result
that religion was no longer the possession in a special
way of the priest, the monk, and the nun.

ST. FRANCIS 4g
4 Poverty for Francis, as for Dominic, was not simply
a question of property or money : it meant for them
the sum of the virtues or graces in the character of
Jesus Christ. The mendicants, when they taught this
doctrine in its purity, in the years of their enthusiasm
in the thirteenth century, brought the lesson home
to individuals that salvation was to be found not
through adherence to rites and ceremonies, through
devotion to the Church, or through attention to the
sacraments, but through imitation in spirit and in
truth of the virtues of Jesus. Men came to know
their responsibilities as individuals and their duties
in society; learned that the humanity of Christ was
their ideal, and that to attain to His perfection was
to attain to fellowship with Him as God. It was to
the lasting honour of the friars that, in an age when
piety was feeble and worship was formal, they
quickened the spiritual life of the Church, rousing
and freeing men from sloth and slavery in religion,
making them conscious of the infinite importance
of the issues of the soul. St. Elizabeth of Hungary
and St. Louis of France, with their severe uses of
piety, are numbered among the Tertiaries ; and, in
spite of these uses, they show how religion had passed
from mere ritual to the conduct of life.
It is a constant tradition that, during part of his
life, Dante was a Tertiary ; and the assertion is also
made, not without plausibility, that after his death
he was clothed, according to a wish he had expressed,
in the Franciscan dress. Beyond doubt, however,
is the fact that he was buried in a chapel of the
Franciscan Church of Ravenna.
According to some interpreters, there is a direct
4

50 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
allusion to the Franciscan cord in the mention of
that one with which the poet girds himself for the
contest with the panther, the symbol of lust and
pride — " I had a cord which round my waist I wore,
And with it once of old I thought to take
The panther with its skin all dappled o'er."
The cord was useless, and in this fact a reference
has been traced to Dante's dissatisfaction with the
Tertiaries, among whom he found no help to salva
tion. It is significant that, in the second part of his
great poem, he represents himself as girt not with
a cord, but with the rush, an emblem of humility —
"Go then, and gird thou this man, as I teach,
With a smooth rush."
Apart from purely religious effects, the association of
the Tertiaries had important results. The prohibition
of arms, save for the defence of the Church, helped
to destroy the medieval idea of virtue. War was no
longer to be the first concern of a free man. This
change in the moral ideal advanced the growth of
the middle classes, turning men's attention to trade
and commerce, and served also the cause of peace.
The restriction, too, of the use of arms to the pro
tection of religion was soon to tell in favour of the
Church in the great struggle between the papal and
imperial powers, when the Franciscan Tertiaries aided
the friars in destroying the authority of Frederick n.
The rise of the middle classes helped to remove the
gulf between the rich and the poor ; but to the Fran
ciscan movement, and, as part of it, to the establishment
of the Tertiaries, is to be attributed the more humane

ST. FRANCIS 51
feeling which existed between all ranks of society.
The poor felt that they were not outcasts from
humanity, when there were men to heed them, aiding
and pitying them; the rich felt that they were
brothers to the poor, when they recognised a duty
to them, and did it. The plebeian crowd of the
city, spurned by the nobles, despised by the artizans,
poorer and meaner than the feudal serfs, learned
through Francis that Christianity could bring the
fortunate to the unfortunate, could consecrate the
strong to the service of the weak. Francis especially,
but Dominic too, was a saviour of society in bringing
the classes together through sympathy and uniting
them through duty. Civilisation progressed as men
ceased to strive for domination one over another, and
•learned that the one blood of which God had made
them was the symbol of their unity.
The Rule, for the preparation of which Francis had
received a papal instruction, was finished in 1221
and presented to the pope. It was important in this
respect, that the Brotherhood officially determined
that there should be no longer the rule of one man
acting with the authority of his own personality and
genius. A minister-general was to govern, having
under him ministers to direct the mission and to
examine candidates for entrance. Francis desired,
however, that these men should be servants and not
masters. The peculiar ethic of the Order was set
forth. The simplicity of the prescribed ritual, with
the attention to be paid to poverty and work, and
especially to the renunciation of money, showed that
the saint desired the friars to continue in the poverty,
piety, and humility which had guided his own con-

52 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
duct. As the Rule was not framed in conventional
mode, and contained dissertations on religion and morals,
it was not likely to be sanctioned without suffering
serious changes.
On the 29th of November 1223 the Rule was at
last published under the authority of Honorius III.,
and was little more than a collection of statutes,
showing almost nothing of the handwork of Francis.
The ethical or spiritual exhortations were omitted,
as were also, for the most part, the passages from the
Bible which had been so important at the foundation
of the Brotherhood. The value of life in harmony
with the precepts of the gospel, the beauty of poverty,
and the use of preaching were set forth, but there was
no emphasis on the imitation of Christ. Francis had
ordained that the Brothers should labour for daily
bread, and had declared that begging was legitimate,
when there was no other resource; now, labour was
to be a means of avoiding idleness, while begging was
to be a privilege and mark of the Order. Another
feature was notable. The pope was to name from
time to time some cardinal as governor or protector,
and a general-minister and provincial-ministers were
to be appointed. The general-minister, to whom the
Brothers were to give obedience, was to be the servant
of the pope, so that they might be kept under the
supervision of the Church. How far Francis agreed
to these changes is not to be determined. Probably
they were made at the instigation of Cardinal Ugolini
representing the Church, and Elias of Cortona within
the Order, as events were to indicate. Francis agreed
to them, but with what grace? He was convinced,
there is no reason to doubt, that a new Rule was

ST. FRANCIS 53
needed, since the Brotherhood had made rapid increase.
It could hardly have been with satisfaction, however,
that he saw poverty, the imitation of the life of Christ,
pass into mendicancy, and the freedom of individual
piety sink into obedience to the Church. The Order
had changed, but "he himself was still faithful to the
Lady Poverty, still true to the simplicity which secured
freedom from worldly concerns.
It is to be noted that mendicancy became the privi-
ledge of the pious under sanction of the official Rule,
while Francis himself cherished the idea of the dignity
of labour ; and his example was not lost on the work
ing classes of the towns. He had no wish that he and
his Brothers should beg, unless when work failed ; and
work was pursued not as a means to wealth, but to
daily bread. Freely he would give, and freely, too,
would accept anything bestowed in love ; and just as
readily would he work for the bread for which he
prayed. Poverty, not mendicancy, was his ideal.
Francis became the popular medieval saint, and while
his poverty was a rebuke to worldliness, his judgment
of labour as the honourable means to daily bread
fostered self-respect in the artizans, who were rapidly
increasing in the towns.
One of the peculiarities or characteristics of Francis
was his attitude to learning, which, however, is
intelligible. Legend has declared that he prophesied
the ruin of his Order through zeal for study ; but it
was certainly not the pursuit of knowledge by which
it suffered degradation. Strange stories are recorded,
in one of which he speaks thus to a novice desiring
to possess a psalter:
" The Emperor Charles, Roland and Oliver, and all

54 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the paladins and all strong men, have pursued the
infidel in battle till death, and with great trouble and
labour have won their memorable victories. The holy
martyrs died struggling for the faith of Christ. But
in our days there are persons who seek glory and
honour among men by the narration simply of the
exploits of heroes. In like manner there are some
among you who take more pleasure in writing and
preaching on the merits of the saints than in imitating
their works." And he afterwards said to the youth :
"When you have a psalter you will wish to have a
breviary, and when you have a breviary you will sit in
a chair like a great prelate, and will say to your brother,
' Brother, fetch me my breviary.' " When, again, he
heard that a famous doctor of Paris, perhaps Alexander
Hales, had been received into the Order, he said : " I
am afraid that such doctors will be the destruction of
my vineyard. They are the true doctors who, with
the meekness of wisdom, exhibit good works for the
improvement and edification of their neighbours."
In 1222 he wrote to his friends in Bologna, where the
Dominicans had also settled, a letter displaying intense
feeling, and dictated probably as a warning against
"X the neglect of piety for the sake of learning. " Lord
Jesus," thus he spoke, " Thou didst choose Thine apostles
to the number of twelve, and if one of them did
betray Thee, the others, remaining united to Thee,
preached the holy gospel, filled with one and the same
inspiration ; and behold now, remembering the former
days, Thou hast raised up the religion of the Brothers
in order to uphold the faith, and that by them the
mystery of Thy gospel may be accomplished. Who
will take their place if, instead of fulfilling their

ST. FRANCIS 55
mission and being shining examples for all, they are
seen to give themselves up to works of darkness ? Oh !
may they be accursed by Thee, Lord, and by all the
court of heaven, and by me, Thine unworthy servant,
they who by their bad example overturn and destroy
all that Thou didst do in the beginning, and ceasest not
to do by the holy Brothers of this Order."
The letter, which may have been simply a warning
against idleness or worldliness, shows that the fire of
youth had not died out, and that the passion for the
life in Christ still burned. It may be, however, that
he wrote to the Brothers of Bologna to guard them
against what he deemed was their strongest temptation,
the forsaking of the simplicity of the gospel for the
learning of the schools, after which the Dominicans
sought. Dominic had been trained in theology, and
the members of his Order equipped themselves with
science to overcome heresy. Francis, the son of a
trader, had no culture beyond the refinement of a
lyric taste, and to him scholastic study was nothing.
He had the passionate desire that he and his friends
should commend religion by imitation of Christ, and
learning therefore had no place in his schemes. Piety
and not science was the one thing needful in preaching
to the poor, to the aliens from the commonwealth of
humanity, among whom the Minorites laboured.
At the same time, the opposition of Francis to
learning was not fanatical. Opposition it hardly was.
S-He was afraid that learning might draw the friars
away from Christ. In a letter addressed to Antony
of Padua his position may be seen. That letter,
pronounced by some to be a forgery, is certainly in
harmony with his own words in his Testament- " It

56 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
pleases me," thus it is written, " that you interpret to
the Brothers the sacred writings and theology, in such
a way, however (conformably to our Rule), that the
spirit of holy prayer be not extinguished either in you
or in others, which I desire earnestly." In the Testa
ment it is laid down : " We ought to honour and
revere all the theologians, and those who preach the
most holy word of God, as dispensing to us spirit and
life." Whatever may have been the attitude of Francis
to scientific study and theological learning, — and it does
not seem to have been favourable, — many of the Brothers
attained high distinction in the universities. It is not
an exaggeration to say that the Franciscans of England,
in the latter half of the thirteenth century, became the
most distinguished body of scholars in Europe, and
their fame, one tradition says, attracted Dante to the
university of Oxford.
In 1224 the new Rule was presented to the Order
at a chapter, — the last which Francis was to attend.
It is to this year that innumerable biographers have
assigned the incident of the stigmata. Verna, a
mountain-peak rising on the borders of Tuscany, was
the scene of a mysterious vision, of a seraph with six
wings, which appeared to Francis, and which bore the
image of a man crucified. He had prayed : " O my
Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech Thee grant me two graces
before I die : the first, that in my lifetime I may feel
in my soul and in my body, so far as may be, the pain
that Thou, sweet Lord, didst bear in the hours of Thy
most bitter passion ; the second is, that I may feel in
my heart, as far as may be, that exceeding love where
with Thou, 0 Son of God, wast kindled to willingly
endure such agony for us sinners." The seraph was

ST. FRANCIS 57
the Christ, and Francis felt the joy of His presence and
His love, and, at the same time, sorrow for the pain of
the Crucified One. Then it was revealed to him that
he should understand that " not by the martyrdom of
the body, but by the enkindling of his mind, must he
needs be wholly transformed into the express image of
Christ crucified." And yet, when the vision had passed,
there was in the flesh of Francis a copy of the wounds
of Christ. " His hands and his feet appeared pierced
through the midst with nails, the heads of the nails
being seen in the inside of the hands and upper part of
the feet, and the points on the reverse side. The heads
of the nails in the hands and feet were round and
black, and the points somewhat long and bent, as if
they had been turned back. On the right side, as if
it had been pierced with a lance, was the mark of a
red wound, from which the sacred blood often flowed
and stained his tunic." In the Little Flowers we
are told that Christ said to His servant, before the
stigmata were actually given : " Knowest thou what it
is that I have done unto thee ? I have given thee the
stigmata, that are the signs of my passion, to the end
that thou mayest be my standard-bearer. And even
as on the day of my death I descended into hell and
brought out thence all the souls that I found there by
virtue of these my stigmata: even so do \ grant to'
thee that every year on the day of thy death thou
shall go to Purgatory, and in virtue of thy stigmata
shalt bring out thence all the souls of thy three Orders,
to wit, Minors, Sisters, and Continents ; and likewise,
others that shall have had a great devotion unto thee,
and shalt lead them unto the glory of Paradise, to the
end that thou mayest be conformed to me in death,

58 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
as thou art in life." These words simply show the
progress of the legend, and have nothing of the
dramatic interest of the vision and the gift of the
stigmata. With touching humility, as it is narrated,
Francis tried to conceal the wounds, and yet many
saw and testified that they had seen them. A knight
of renown, Jerome by name, was the doubting Thomas
of this new Passion, and would not believe till the
dead Francis appeared and made him touch the nails
and the wound. The Lady Jacoba, who in the legend
was present at the death of Francis, kissed the pierced
feet and bathed them with her tears, showing herself
another Magdalene; while Clara and her Sisters, at
the burial, saw the tokens of the Saviour's favour.
In one of the frescoes of Giotto the forms of Clara and
her companions may be seen bending over the body of
the saint. The story of Gregory ix. and the stigmata
is thus told by Lord Lindsay : " He hesitated before
canonising St. Francis, doubting the celestial infliction
of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a
vision, and, with a severe countenance reproving his
unbelief, opened his robe, and, exposing the wound in
his side, filled a vial with the blood that flowed from
it, and gave it to the pope, who awoke and found it in
his hand."
The Minorites and — of importance for the spread of
the story — Gregory ix. and Alexander iv. accepted the
genuineness of the stigmata, so that the friends of the
Order were satisfied and rejoiced in the divine honour.
Zealots have believed the miracle; sceptics have doubted,
while some have denied it. The evidence, such as it is,
makes for the conclusion that the body bore the marks
of the suffering of Christ. Yet there has been evidence

ST. FRANCIS 59*
of the same kind for wonders which never happened.
There are those, unconvinced by the testimony of the
saint's friends, who disbelieving the miracle regret with
artistic sense the loss of the dramatic incident of the
stigmata. The members of the Order, however, have
been pleased to draw a parallel between the saint's ••
career and the Saviour's life, and to accept the wounds
as a sign that there was in Francis the same mind as
was in Christ.
The theory has been suggested that Brother Elias,
who intimated the death of Francis to the Order, was
the author of the fraud by which the story of the
stigmata gained acceptance. The intimation contained
these words : " I announce to you a great joy and a
new miracle. Never has the world seen such a sign,
except on the Son of God who is the Christ God. For
a long time before his death our Brother and Father
appeared as crucified, having in his body five wounds
which are truly the stigmata of Christ, for his hands
and his feet bore marks as of nails without and within,
forming a sort of scars ; while at the side he was as if
pierced with a lance, and often a little blood oozed
from it." Professor Hase, and M. Renan follows him,
suggests that Elias hurried the funeral, and when veri
fication was impossible invented the story. Another
theory is that the wounds of the cautery used in his
last sickness were the origin of the legend of the stig
mata. Such a theory does not remove the difficulty
that the men who declared themselves witnesses were
not likely to be deceived by a palpable fraud.
The Dominicans would not be convinced that this
divine favour had been granted to the founder of the
Franciscan Order, even though they had a multitude

60 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of miracles by their own saint. At last their denials
of the stigmata were silenced by papal command. In
their extremity some of them, changing their position,
claimed that the same favour had been shown to
Dominic ; while it became the fashion, after the death
of Catharine of Siena, to assert for her the honour of
the wounds of Christ. In 1475, however, Sixtus iv.
prohibited the ascription of the stigmata to Catharine ;
and so by papal decree the glory rests with Francis
alone, As the legend of St. Francis grew, the desire of his
admirers increased to make him like unto Christ.
Peter John Olivi, in the reign of John xxii., wrote
that Francis was entirely transformed into Christ ;
and, in the same reign, Francis Bernard Delitiosi de
clared that the Gospel of Christ was not more sacred
and more to be observed than the Rule of St. Francis.
In 1385 Bartholomew Abbizzi, a friar of Pisa, wrote
The Golden Book of the Conformities of the Holy
Father St. Francis with the Life of our Lord Jesus
Christ, in which he mentioned forty points of resem
blance, and among these included the stigmata. As
late as 1651 a Spanish monk increased the points of
resemblance to four thousand.
After the incident or vision of the stigmata, Francis
sought the aid of a physician, as he was suffering from
an affection which threatened blindness. An operation
on the forehead was performed with the cautery, but
with no good result. Eager none the less to continue
his labours, he preached in the district of Rieti, making
missionary excursions. Strength failed, and, as Bona
ventura reports, "he began to suffer so many infirmities
that there was scarcely one of his members but was

ST. FRANCIS 6 1
tormented by increased pain and suffering." As early
as the chapter of 1221 his weakness had almost
mastered him. Wishing to address the Brothers, he
pulled the gown of Elias, whispering to him, and then
Elias spoke for him. Now, in his feebleness, he de
sired to leave Rieti and to reach Assisi, where he
was comforted with the welcome of the people. Six
months later he was still alive, and set forth on
another journey in quest of health, only to be brought
back in a litter to the bishop's palace. A few days
after his arrival in the palace he was taken to Porti
uncula. " Never abandon it," he said to the friars
with him, " for that place is truly sacred ; it is the
house of God." On the road to the palace or to
Portiuncula he caused the litter to be placed on the
ground, that he might gaze on Assisi ; and stretching
forth his hand, he blessed the city which had been his
home. " Blessed be thou of God, 0 holy city," — these
are the words in the Little Flowers — "seeing that
through thee shall many souls be saved, and in thee
shall dwell many servants of the Lord : and out of
thee shall many be chosen for the kingdom of eternal
life." He was borne to the hospital, such as it was, of
Portiuncula, and there he dictated his last Testament.
An incident thus recorded shows the man : " Desiring
to give a true proof to all men that he had no longer
anything in common with the world, in that grievous
and painful sickness he laid aside his habit, and placed
himself prostrate on the bare earth, that in the last
hour in which the enemy would attack him with all
his fury he might wrestle naked with his natural
adversary. Lying thus on the earth with his face
raised, according to his custom, to heaven, and intent

62 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
upon its glory, with his left hand he covered the wound
on his right side, and said to his brethren, ' I have done
my part : may Christ teach you to do yours.' " Some
of the friars were around him, among them men who
had been his first friends, and these all he blessed.
Clara was still living, but the stern Rule kept her
from the deathbed of her dearest friend. Elias, too,
was blessed, though the extreme Franciscans of later
days, beholding in him another Judas, hated his
memory. One of his pious disciples, as an early
biographer relates, saw the soul of the saint, in the
form of a star, brighter than the sun, conveyed on a
white cloud over many waters into heaven. Another,
on his deathbed, saw the spirit of the saint rising to
heaven, and cried, " Tarry, father ; I come with thee,"
and fell back dead. The legend is charming which
tells that larks, late in the evening though it was,
hovered over the roof of his last dwelling. Two
years before his death, so runs the story, it was
revealed to him what the number of his days should
be. Francis died on the eve of 3rd October 1226, and in
1228 was canonised, when Ugolini, as Gregory ix., sat
on the papal throne. The body was placed in the
Church of St. George, and when it was being carried
to its resting-place therein, it was taken past St.
Damian, the abode of Clara and the Poor Sisters. The
saint had asked in excess of humility, but the request
was not heeded, to be buried in a spot where criminals
were executed.
In 1228, after the ceremony of canonisation, Gregory
laid the foundation-stone of a magnificient basilica,
dedicated to the memory of the saint, to which the

ST. FRANCIS 63
body was ultimately removed; and legend tells that
down in the depths, below the church, Francis in
deep meditation, with blood in the stigmata, waits
for a resurrection which will take him back to earth.
The pope appointed the 4th of October as the feast of
Francis, enjoining the people to keep it, that they
might benefit by his merits.
Nothing is more significant of the reverence, even
though mixed with superstition, in which the saint
was held by later generations than the fact that, to
use the words of Wiclif : " Thei teachen lordis and
namely ladies that if thei dyen in Franceys habite,
thei schul nevere cum in helle for vertu thereof."
Catherine of Aragon may be named as one of the
ladies who, at a later day, put on the habit of
the Order. It was, however, the love of money
which made the friars teach that burial in their
cloisters was, like bounty to the Order, a sure
means to salvation; and multitudes believed the
teaching. Dante, in the case of Guido di Montefeltro, showed
the popular belief that Francis visited hell to rescue
those girt with his cord —
" I was a man of arms, then Cordelier,
Deeming that I, so girt, might make amend ;
And true enough that deeming might appear,
But that the High Priest — evil be his end ! —
Sent me back yet again to former crime;
Then Francis came, when I had passed death's gate,
For me ; but one of those swarth cherubin
Said, 'Take him not; defraud not my estate.'"
The Dominicans also taught that grace was to be

64 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
found through wearing their official apparel. Thus
Milton speaks —
" Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised."
At the date of the translation of the body a scheme
of indulgences was devised for all visitors to the
church. The Minorites afterwards claimed Gregory's
injunction as the first of nineteen bulls, granted at
various times, which assured indulgences to such
visitors. The Dominicans, in like manner, claimed
that similar privileges were given to all who aided
them in erecting their buildings. To such uses were
Francis and Dominic brought.
Next to the Rule the most significant writing of
Francis is the Will or last Testament, which Renan
with insufficient reason has pronounced a forgery. It
is even more significant, inasmuch as it is the teaching
of the man untouched by any representative of the
Church, a return to the simplicity in which the
Brothers were first associated. Reverence towards
priests, obedience to the superiors of the Order, and
strict adherence to the Rule are enjoined. There is once
more insistence on poverty ; and it is strange to find
the command that no bull from Rome, not even one
ensuring the personal protection of the friars, is to be
accepted. The Brothers are to work, and here there is
evidence of the saint's attitude to mendicancy : — " and
when they do not give us the price of the work, let us
resort to the table of the Lord, begging our bread from
door to door."
Whatever may have been the relations of Francis to
Rome, and especially to Ugolini, there is in the Testa-

ST. FRANCIS 65
ment, even while honour is directed to be paid to
priests, a last cry for that imitation of Christ through ,
poverty and simplicity to which the great ecclesiastics
were deaf. The writer himself describes his Will as " a
reminder, a warning, an exhortation." He required
that nothing should be taken from or added to it, and,
though this reassertion of the primitive freedom of the
Brotherhood was in opposition to many precepts of the
Rule, he enjoined that the Rule and Testament should
be read together.
Francis never directly opposed the Church, and
against its policy had no distinct counterplan; but
nowhere was it more clearly shown than in the Will
that his heart was not in sympathy with the violent
changes made in the organisation and purposes of the
Order. With his last words he emphasised the principles
of labour, poverty, and love which had governed the
Brothers when first they went out into the world.
In spite of austere poverty there was in Francis
none of the gloom of asceticism. The Troubadours had
fascinated him in his youth, and there was ever the
element of joy in his religion. It is possible to isolate
some of his words, and to argue that there was even a
Manichsean basis to his thought. " Many when they
sin or are injured," he said, "blame their enemy or
neighbour. This should not be so, for everyone has
his enemy in his power, namely, the body through
which he sins." In a threatened conflict with demons
— as Francis in common with all saints named certain
spiritual experiences — he welcomed them, saying his
body was his worst enemy, and that they could do
with it whatsoever Christ would permit ; and, on
another occasion, he described his body as his most
5

€6 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
cruel enemy and worst adversary, whom he would
willingly abandon to the demons. On the other side,
we hear him saying, " I have sinned against my brother
the ass," and understand that he had been too severe
to his body. Again, with an insight unusual in
medieval days, he doubted " whether he who had de
stroyed himself by the severity of his penances could
find mercy in eternity." Yet he attributed to the
devil the words: "Francis, there is no sinner in the
world whom, if he be converted, God will not pardon ;
but he who kills himself by hard penances will find no
mercy in eternity." There was no thought of the
devil, however, when he carried bread to one who
had fasted to the serious injury of health. The friar
would not eat, whereat Francis, breaking the bread,
ate of it himself, and said : " Take not the eating, but
the love, my brethren, for your example." Francis
was not speculative, and the popular metaphysic, so
far as he knew it, dominated him. In conduct, how
ever, he adopted simplicity, and less than many saints
indulged in excess of fasting. To make him like unto
Christ, legend tells that on one occasion he fasted
forty days and forty nights, eating no more than one
half loaf. On the other hand, there is a description in
the Little Flowers of the chapter of the Brothers, at
which Dominic was said to be present, and it is told
how men came " with sumpter beasts, horses and carts,
with loads of bread, of wine, of honeycombs, and
cheese, and other good things to eat, according as the
poor of Christ had need." The absence of austerity
from the religion of Francis is seen from another
passage of the Little Flowers, which, though it may be
unfounded, illustrates the impression created by the

ST. FRANCIS 67
saint. He was told at the chapter — that at which pro
vision was so abundantly made for the wants of " the
poor of Christ" — that many of the Brothers "wore
shirts of mail on their bare flesh, and bands of iron,
for the which reason many were weak and some were
dying thereby, and many were let and hindered from
prayer. Wherefore Saint Francis, like a most prudent
father, commanded by holy obedience that whoso had
either shirt of mail or band of iron should take it off
and lay it down before him, and even so did they."
The saint, while certainly not emancipated from
the religious or ethical ideas peculiar to his age, was
no lover of extremes. Assuredly he did not see that
asceticism, sacrifice for sacrifice' sake, could not be
acceptable to Him who asked for the broken spirit
and the contrite heart. On the other hand, his poverty
was intended as an imitation of Christ, and he did not
starve like some zealot of the fields, or torture his flesh
with many stripes that he might be healed. Such
customs could not be included in an imitation of
Christ; and thus there is no revolting picture of
emaciation or self-violence. It is of moment, in under
standing the man, to note that cloister life was not
his ideal. He knew the meaning of the prayer of the
Lord, not to take men out of the world, but to keep
them from the evil thereof ; and through the world he
went as one with a mission, despising the ease of the
convent, and choosing rather to find salvation in seek
ing the lost than to nurture his own soul far off from
earthly interests.
Francis was never so separated from the spirit of
his age as to be free from sadness in liis theology.
Speculation on the doctrine of sin and contemplation

68 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of the physical sufferings of Christ characterised
cloister theology, and influenced the whole of
medieval religious thought. Yet the genius of Francis
kept him from morbid imaginations. Ruskin, who
understood him, has used words which do not repre
sent the saint. " Now the gospel of works," he says,
" according to St. Francis, lay in three things. You
must work without money, and be poor. You must
work without pleasure, and be chaste. You must
work according to orders, and be obedient." Work
was to be without pleasure, not that the worker should
be sad, but that he should be kept from the vulgar
ends of labour. More truly it may be said that joy in
life, not the gloom of asceticism, was characteristic of
Francis; and in that joy there was a lyric element.
He sang as he went abroad on his missionary journeys.
He knew and loved French, and had sung the Trouba
dour songs, the melody of which was in his heart, if
the words could not be on his lips. A charming legend
relates that heavenly music floated through his cell
when he desired comfort, and there was no human
hand to touch an instrument for his delight. The
Canticle of the Sun, or the Canticle of the Creatures, as
it is also called, is attributed to Francis, though there is
no reference to it till, in 1385, it was quoted by Bar
tholomew of Pisa. The verse is irregular, and yet there
is a tradition that Francis had it revised by Brother
Pacifico, the king of verse, as he has been styled.
The lyric feeling of a singer and the aspiration of a
religious man are alike visible, and since the author
speaks, as Francis was wont to do, of the sun as his
brother, the moon as his sister, and the earth as his
mother, there is no reason to doubt that he was the

ST. FRANCIS 69
author. Matthew Arnold's translation may be quoted
as the version of an English poet : —
" 0 Most High, Almighty, good Lord God, to Thee
belong praise, glory, honour, and all blessing !
"Praised be my Lord God with all His creatures,
and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the
day and who brings us the light ; fair is he, and shines
with a very great splendour : 0 Lord, ; he signifies to
us Thee !
" Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and
for the stars, the which He has set clear and lovely in
heaven. " Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and
for air and cloud, calms and all weather, by the which
Thou upholdest life in all creatures.
"Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is
very serviceable unto us, and humble and precious and
clean. " Praised be my Lord for our brother fire, through
whom Thou givest us light in the darkness ; and he is
bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.
" Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the
which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth
divers fruits and flowers of many colours, and grass.
" Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one
another for His love's sake, and who endure weakness
and tribulation ; blessed are they who peaceably shall
endure, for Thou, O Most Highest, shall give them a
crown. '' Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the
body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who
dieth in mortal sin ! Blessed are they who are found

70 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
walking by Thy most holy will, for the second death
shall have no power to do them harm.
" Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks unto
Him, and serve Him with great humility."
It is said that the verse regarding pardon and peace
was written on account of a dispute between the Bishop
and the magistrates of Assisi, and that when the
Brothers sang it in the city the adversaries were re
conciled. Francis' love of song inspired his companions,
and in this fashion, more than by actual authorship,
he influenced the rise and progress of Italian vernacular
verse. He and certain of his friars may be styled with
out hesitation the originators of that verse. Of the
Canticle of the Sun, Ozanam, in Les Poetes Franciscains,
has said : " Ce n'est qu'un cri ; mais c'est le premier
cri d'une po^sie naissante, qui grandira et qui saura se
faire entendre de toute la terre." In tracing the in
fluence of the Franciscans on early Italian literature,
this writer mentions, in addition to the saint himself
and the authors of the Little Flowers, the unnamed
Brother Pacifico, who had been a Troubadour, and
Giacopone di Todi —
" That son of Italy who tried to blow,
Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song."
The Dies Irge has, not without plausible reason, been
ascribed to Thomas of Celano, the biographer of Francis.
Giacopone di Todi was a lawyer, who on the death of
his wife joined the Third Order of the Minorites. For
ten years he feigned madness, that he might secure ill-
treatment in which to exercise patience, and then
became a friar. The Stabat Mater Dolorosa was his

ST. FRANCIS 71
work, and in another, direction he gained notoriety
by his satires against Boniface vin. Not the least,
certainly, of the services which Francis and his fol
lowers rendered to Italy was the use of the vernacular
as a vehicle for the expression of lyric feeling. " The
beginnings," says Matthew Arnold, "of the mundane
poetry of the Italians are in Sicily, at the Court of
kings ; the beginnings of their religious poetry are in
Umbria, with St. Francis. His are the humble upper
waters of a mighty stream: at the beginning of the
thirteenth century it is St. Francis ; at the end, Dante."
Harnack, in his History of Dogma, thus characterises
the influence of the mendicants on poetry: "A lyric
poetry that awakens a response in us exists only from
the thirteenth century, and what force the Latin and
German tongues are capable of developing in describing
the inner life we have been taught by the mendicant
monks. From the discernment that lowliness and
poverty, scorn and contempt, shame and misery, suffer
ing and death, are aids to the saint's progress, from the
contemplation of the man Jesus, from compassion, and
pain, and humility, there sprang for Western Chris
tianity, in the age of the mendicant monks, that inner
elevation, and that enrichment of feeling and of moral
responsibility, which were the condition for all that
was to grow up in the time that followed. One
speaks of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and
comprehends in these words, taken together, the basis
of our present-day culture; but both have a strong
common root in the elevation of religious and aesthetic
feeling in the period of the mendicant monks."
The personification of the sun and moon and wind
in the Canticle was more than a mere literary figure.

72 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Francis was love-intoxicated, touching all nature with
his sympathy. The world was not for him harsh and
hateful, given over to the Evil One. It was a world
with God everywhere, with all things His, and there
fore to be loved. Even to death, sister death, as a
divine servant, he extended his courtesy. " But now
we have to speak," says Goethe in Wilhelm Meister,
" of the Third Religion, grounded on reverence for
what is beneath us. . . . But what a task was it,
not only to be patient with the Earth, . . . but
also to recognise humility and poverty, mockery and
despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death,
to recognise these things as divine." One seems to
hear in these words an echo of the famous Canticle ;
and Francis, one may believe, furnished Goethe with
the content of the Third Religion. The habit of
courtesy had been fostered in Francis by acquaintance
with the knightly customs of the Troubadour songs.
Doubtless there was a suggestion of artificiality when
he addressed the wind as his brother, and of sentiment
ality when he spoke of sister death ; yet the large
heart and glowing piety of the man shone forth in his
gentleness to animals, as when he spoke to the birds
that had gathered round him. There were birds on
the ground, and others flew down from the trees, and
all remained quiet while he said : " My little sisters, the
birds, much bounden are ye unto God, your Creator,
and alway in every place ought ye to praise Him, for
that He hath given you liberty to fly about every
where, and hath also given you double and triple
raiment; moreover, He preserved your seed in the
ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of
the world ; still more are ye beholden to Him for the

ST. FRANCIS 73
element of the air which He hath appointed for you ;
beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap ; and
God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and
fountains for your drink, the mountains and the
valleys for your refuge and high trees whereon to
make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin
or sow, God clotheth you, you and your children ;
wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that
He hath bestowed on you so many benefits ; and
therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of
ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto
God." Biographers have related how the birds
gathered round St. Gall and St. Columba, but in the
whole calendar of saints there has been no one with a
sympathy keener than that which Francis had for
birds and beasts. Very charming is the story of the
swallows. Once, when preaching, he could not make
himself heard for their chirping. " It is," he said, " my
turn to speak, little sister swallows, hearken to the
word of God ; keep silent and be very quiet until I
have finished." A leveret which had been caught in a
trap he thus addressed : " Come to me, brother leveret."
Touched with its sorrow, he extended to it that
sympathy which he had ever ready for the afflictions
of men. "If I could only be presented to the
emperor," he said on one occasion, " I would pray him,
for the love of God and of me, to issue an edict
prohibiting anyone from catching or imprisoning my
sisters the larks, and ordering that all who have oxen
or asses should at Christmas feed them particularly
well." " The sermon to the birds," says Sabatier,
" closed the reign of Byzantine art, and of the thought
of which it was the image. It is the end of dogmatism

74 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
and authority; it is the coming in of individualism
and inspiration; very uncertain, no doubt, and to
be followed by obstinate reactions, but none the less
marking a date in the history of the human conscience."
That sermon, says Renan, with amusing disdain of
elaborate systems, is "le resume' de toute bonne
theologie." "I should myself think the clergyman,"
says Ruskin in " The Lord's Prayer and the Church,"
" most likely to do good who accepted the irany rfj xt!gii
so literally as at least to sympathise with St. Francis'
sermon to the birds, and to feel that feeding either
sheep or fowls, or muzzling the ox, or keeping the
wrens alive in the snow, would be received by their
Heavenly Father as the perfect fulfilment of His ' Feed
my sheep ' in the higher sense."
Love was to Francis the beginning and end of religion,
and religion was no mere service at the altar of the
Church, no mere repetition of prayers within its walls.
His love found its inspiration in Christ, and it extended
to all that he conceived to be His, to the poor and unfor
tunate, to the birds and beasts, even to the sun and wind,
and to death itself. He is not less to be admired, not less
of a saint, because he had, as he seems to have had, his
dream of domestic affection. There is a charming
childishness, and at the same time, a revelation of the
pathos of unfulfilled desires, in the story that one of
the Brothers saw him in the moonlight make seven
figures of snow, and heard him say : " Here is thy
wife, these four are thy sons and daughters, the other
two are thy servant and handmaid ; and for all these
thou are bound to provide. Make haste, then, and
provide clothing for them, lest they perish with cold.
But if the care of so many trouble thee, be thou

ST. FRANCIS 75 ^
careful to serve the Lord alone." His pious imagina
tion was touched by the scene of Bethlehem where
Christ was born. The humility of that birth quickened
in him the desire for poverty ; and the ox and the ass
that stood at the Master's crib warmed his affection for
animals. With the papal consent he introduced into
the Christmas services in the chapels of the Order
representations of the surroundings of the Saviour's
birth, means not the least potent to excite devotion.
It is not mere fancy to designate Francis the
inspirer of the great artists from Cimabue and Giotto
to Raphael. Before he appeared as a preacher of
religion, it has been well said, God in Christ, Christ in
God, was far off from the world ; but he showed the
man Christ, and made men feel their own kinship with
God. What was divine could be set forth only through
that which was human. And for this teacher nature
was God's, and man and nature were not at enmity.
Then again, in his preaching the old religious world
with its lawgivers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and
saints became alive once more ; his vivid imagination
quickened the dead, and they walked on earth. As
Christ inspired His apostles who carried His gospel
over the world, so Francis gave his message to his
friars, who, having seen Christ as man, and God in the
world and in man also, and having felt the presence of
the heroes of religion, were faithful to their charge ;
and, as one says, Giotto, who heard the message, began
the art of the Renaissance. Poetry and painting, apart
from religion proper, caught an inspiration from the
saint, and, like piety itself, were quickened into
newness and fulness of life.
A modern writer on Dante, after referring to the

76 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
tradition that that poet was in Assisi when Giotto
was painting his frescoes, says : " Note the singularly
Dantesque symbolism of these frescoes, the Tower of
Chastity, with her true servants driving off the blind
Cupid with his arrows, emblem of sensual love, into
the abyss. . . . Observe the Centaur, cowed, in his
brute strength, by the law of obedience ; while Pru
dence (in its full platonic sense as including all ethical
wisdom) presents, after a Janus fashion, on one
side her severity and on the other her goodness, — and
the conclusion is, I think, legitimate, as far as any
conclusion from circumstantial evidence can be, that
there was some link closely connecting one period
of Dante's life with the influence of the Franciscan
Order." Let this conclusion be admitted, and there is
the fact that Francis inspired the poetry which was
represented in its grace and strength by Dante, who in
turn left his impress on the art of Giotto, a painter
quickened by the genius of the saint.
In Francis' private life there was a touch of almost
^ romantic spiritual affection for Clara of the Poor Ladies.
The Rule permitted him to see her but seldom, yet when
he was in trouble he went to her for sympathy ; and
her prayers were constantly offered on his behalf. On
one occasion, and one only according to the record,
Clara desired to visit Francis and eat with him. For
a time he would not receive her, till, hearing of her
grief, his companions said to him : " Father, it seemeth
that this sternness is not in accordance with divine
charity ; hearken now unto Clara, a virgin, holy and
beloved of God. It is but a little thing that she asks
of thee, to eat with her ; and she, at thy preaching,
forsook all that the world offers of joy and society and

ST. FRANCIS 77 •
wealth." Francis at last agreed, ordering preparations
to be made in the Church of St. Mary of the Angels,
where Clara had taken the vow of poverty. Clara
arrived with one of the nuns, and found the feast
spread upon the floor. The meal was much more than
the breaking of bread, as Francis talked of God and
His love in such fashion that the friends forgot to eat.
The meeting, if it ever took place, was one of the
charming incidents in the lives of these two saints
of the Order of Poverty. Their names are linked
together like Jerome and Paula, Benedict and his
sister Scholastica, in ecclesiastical history ; like Dante
and Beatrice, Petrarch and Laura, in literature; and
many have deemed the affection of Francis and Clara
more than spiritual, an offering on that altar of God
which not seldom has received the sacrifice of the
most tender love.
Poverty was the watchword of Francis, summing up
for him all active virtues. Before his day religion was
little more than attention to the observances of the
Church. He, on the other hand, was the preacher of
personal piety. His love flowed to Christ, and conduct
was an imitation of His sacred life. Dominic in the
same manner sought to invite men to religion,
preaching the gospel and teaching the truths of the
Church's dogma. Francis chose to preach, but also to
show forth the beauty of holiness by imitation of
Christ. The end sought by the two saints alike was
to stimulate piety, not by drawing men to the cloister „
for contemplation, but by keeping them in the world
for the practice of righteousness.
The mendicants, while acting as the servants of the
Church, unintentionally fostered the tendency to

78 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
criticise ecclesiastical pretensions and priestly pro
fessions, and to examine the validity of the dogma.
Stimulated to piety, the soul found freedom and
rejoiced, and in its freedom took up the task of
testing authority, and the Reformation was the far-off
result. Taught by the mendicants that religion must
govern conduct, men listened to their doctrine, and
inquired, and thought, and judged.
A clear insight into the religion of Francis, or at
least of the good friars with whom the story originated,
is obtained from the chapter of the Little Flowers
which is styled, " How, as Saint Francis and Brother
Leo were going by the way, he set forth unto him what
things were perfect joy." Though one should perform
all miracles, the saint said, such as giving sight to
the blind, or making the deaf to hear, one would not
therein find perfect joy. Then going on with Brother
Leo, Francis continued, that though one knew all
tongues and all sciences, one would not therein find
perfect joy. Then again he said, that though one
should speak with the tongue of angels and know the
courses of the stars, one would not therein find perfect
joy. Going still farther on his way, he cried aloud : " 0
Brother Leo, albeit the Brother Minor could preach so
well as to turn all the infidels to the faith of Christ,
write that not therein is perfect joy." Then Brother
Leo besought him saying : " Father, I pray thee in the
name of God that thou tell me wherein is perfect joy."
Francis thereupon pictured himself and Leo, wet and
cold and dirty and hungry, at the gate of St. Mary of
the Angels, and the porter reviling them as no true
men, and bidding them be off; and declared : " If there
withal we patiently endure such wrong and such

ST. FRANCIS 79'
cruelty and such rebuffs without being disquieted and
without murmuring against him, and with humbleness
and charity bethink us that this porter knows us full
well, and that God makes him to speak against us ; 0
Brother Leo, write that herein is perfect joy." Con
tinuing, he spoke of them as thrown down and beaten
and suffering with patience and gladness, thinking on
the pains of the blessed Christ, and thus concluded : " 0
Brother Leo, write that here and herein is perfect joy.
Then hear the end of the whole matter, Brother Leo :
Above all graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit that
Christ granteth to His beloved, is to overcome oneself,
and willingly for the love of Christ endure pains and ^
insults and shame and want."
The lesson thus taught was a lesson in obedience to &
the Sermon on the Mount, to the command " resist not
evil." Obedience to Christ and imitation of Him, in
spired by love, were the very essence of the religion of
Francis. Saints before him had been consumed by
adoration of the Saviour, and in truth had destroyed
their manhood in the contemplation of the cloister.
But he was not consumed. Filled he was with a passion
which led him to conquer himself, and to go forth to
those whom Christ's own love embraced. That which
Francis taught was taken by his followers, and set
forth in the verse of poets like Giacopone di Todi,
and the prose of mystics like Bonaventura. It is the
doctrine that poverty and humility, insult and shame,
suffering and death may, by an inspiration derived
through contemplation of Christ, become helps to the
progress of the soul. The mean things of life may lose
their vileness, and minister unto salvation.
Writers such as Renan in France, Thode in Germany,

80 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
and Kuenen in Holland, have associated the names
of Buddha and Francis. The Eastern sage and the
Western saint each stepped beyond the bounds of
formal religion, each sought through poverty, through
a renunciation of all material possessions, to be free
from the tyranny of a sordid world, and each tried
through mastery of the body to secure direction of
himself. Of less importance in the parallel, each had
associated with him a band of mendicant monks. But
there was a difference. Buddha was a thinker, this way
and that dividing the things of the spirit, and few
there were who found him. Francis was a poet, his
thought kindled by feeling, his life artistically shaped
by love ; and he was to many as another Christ, perfect
through poverty, humility, and love.

CHAPTER IV
St. Dominic
Dominic, whose name is found in the famous Order,
was born in the year 1170, in the Castilian village of
Calaruega. His father Felix, it is generally said, was
a member of the ancient house of Guzman; and his
mother, Joanna of Aza, was also of noble birth. She
was noted for piety, and through the intercession, we
are told, of St. Dominic of Silos, a son was born to her
when her two eldest boys had entered the cloister.
This child was named Dominic. Before his birth she
beheld him, according to the legend, as a black and
white dog, grasping with his mouth a torch which
illuminated the whole world ; while his godmother saw
him with a star on his forehead and another on his
neck, in token that he would give light to East and
West. The boy was reared in an atmosphere of religion,
and the record is ample of his precocious piety, and
the miracles which attended his infancy. He left his
bed at midnight to kneel in prayer on the floor, and
answered his nurse that for this he had come.
" Silent and wakeful oft in midnight's gloom
He by his nurse was seen upon the ground,
As though he said, ' To this end have I come.' "
On one occasion a swarm of bees settled on his lips,
6

82 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
to foretell his eloquence. In his fifteenth year he was
sent to the public school or university of Palencia,
where he continued for ten years. Tales of his charity
are narrated. Finding a woman unable to purchase
a friend's release from captivity, he offered himself to
be sold that money for a ransom might be obtained.
Again, in a time of famine, he parted with his books
and furniture that he might buy bread for the hungry.
Having left Palencia, Dominic, at the desire of the
bishop, became one of the canons regular attached to
the Cathedral of Osma ; and in a short time his austerity
and piety won for him the place of sub-prior, under
Diego de Azevedo, who was to exercise a lasting influ
ence on his career. His favourite book at this period
was the Collationes of Cassian, a writer in the early
part of the fifth century, who dealt with the spirit and
aim of monasticism.
The first event of public interest in the life of
Dominic was the association in 1203 with Azevedo,
at that time Bishop of Osma, in an embassy to arrange
a royal marriage. Crossing the Pyrenees, they passed
through Languedoc, and were witnesses of religious
degradation and priestly apathy in that territory
which now forms a part of France. When they had
completed the business of the embassy and were return
ing to Spain, they visited Rome. There the bishop
sought release from the duties of his see that he might
proceed as a missionary to certain wild tribes in Hun
gary. Innocent in. refused this request, and the bishop
and his companion continued their homeward journey.
At Montpellier they met the papal legates who were
conferring as to the heresy disturbing the district.
They were told that poverty was a special feature of

ST. DOMINIC 83
the life of the heretical teachers ; and it became evident
to the bishop, from the suits and trappings of the
legates, that the failure of the Church was largely due
to the pomp and style of the representatives. He
forthwith advised the legates to endeavour to gain the
hearts of the people through the practice of piety and
humility and earnest preaching of the gospel. To
give an example, he dismissed his retinue, keeping only
Dominic by his side, and resolved to remain, that he
might declare the faith of the Church. Innocent was
now willing to sanction his absence from his see, in the
hope that something might be done to overcome the
evil menacing the Church. Azevedo accordingly entered
on his missionary labours, with Dominic as his assistant
and companion.
During the reign of Innocent, in spite of papal
supremacy, — in consequence, rather, of the long strife
for political power, — heresy was widespread in England,
France, Germany, Belgium, Italy itself. The heretics
were divided into sects, differing in creed and worship,
yet united in their opposition to the Church. The
worldly policy of Rome made her heedless of the
religious wants of the people, and the spiritually
destitute turned to new teachers and welcomed the
old biblical truths, and sometimes fantastic or novel
doctrines. Reformers within the Church denounced
its worldliness : heretics outside sought its destruction.
The scandalous life and worldly spirit of multitudes of
the clergy, in spite of all attempts at reform, produced
revolts against this doctrine or that, against eccles
iastical authority, and against ceremonies performed
by discredited priests. Thus Peter de Brueys, who
was ultimately burned by an infuriated clergy, had a

84 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
following who believed with him that there should be
no infant baptism ; that the doctrine of the real presence
was untrue ; that the worship of the cross, the venera
tion paid to churches, and prayers for the dead, should
cease. Peter de Brueys' work in Languedoc was con
tinued by Henry the Deacon, and Bernard of Clairvaux
was commissioned to counteract him. Bernard's piety
and eloquence were destructive of heresy, but his report
of the condition of the local Church was disturbing
information for Rome. He described " the churches
without people, the people without priests, the priests
without respect, the Christians without Christ, the
churches deemed synagogues, the holy places of God
denied to be holy, the sacraments no longer sacred, the
holy days without their solemnities." Peter de Brueys
may be taken as the type of men who denied dogmas
and condemned ceremonies, without at the same time
setting forth positive doctrines alien to Christianity.
The most spiritual of the opponents of the Church
were the Waldensians, who, according to an anonymous
writer of the thirteenth century, were the forerunners
of the Franciscans. "There arose," this writer says,
"two monastic Orders of the Church, . . . the Fran
ciscans and the Dominicans, which were approved of,
perhaps, on this account : because two sects which still
exist had arisen in Italy, one of which called itself the
Humiliati, and the other the Poor Men of Lyons. . . .
I saw, at that time, some of their number, who were
called Poor Men of Lyons, at the apostolic see, . . . they
were trying to get their sect confirmed and privileged.
They went about through the towns and villages say
ing, forsooth, that they lived the life of the apostles,
not desiring to have any possessions or any fixed

ST. DOMINIC 85
dwelling-place." Peter Waldo of Lyons, with whose
name the Waldensians are associated, seeking to lead
the life in Christ, distributed his goods to the poor,
and began to preach the gospel. Causing a translation
of parts of the New Testament, and also of " Sentences "
from the Fathers, to be made, he distributed these by
the hands of disciples sent out, two by two, to teach
and to preach. Poverty and simplicity of religious
ceremony were the distinctive marks of the Walden
sians. They did not spare the reputation of the clergy,
and being subjected to persecution, appealed to Pope
Alexander in., who approved their poverty but con
demned them for preaching. The time had not come
for sanctioning an irregular ministry. A few years
later, at the Council of Verona, Pope Lucius in. ex
communicated them as heretics. This condemnation,
however, did not end their progress. They were
charged with holding that the authority of popes and
prelates should be repudiated, that laymen and women
could preach, that masses for the dead were useless,
and that prayers were as efficacious in a private room
as in a church. These Poor Men had undoubtedly
characteristics which were reproduced in the Minor
ites, and Francis could not have been ignorant of their
ways, seeing that Assisi was no isolated village, and
Bernardine, at anyrate, would carry home the news
gathered as he travelled from place to place.
Dominic, on his part, was probably influenced by
them, as by the more violent sectaries, to make use of
preaching as a means to strengthen the power of the
Church. The Waldensians, like the Puritans of Eng
land, were earnest men; but their religion banished
joy, and so their progress was limited.

86 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
The most noted sect was the Cathari, sometimes
styled Patarines in Italy, known as Albigenses in
Languedoc. Tinctured with Manichseism, they were
hardly to be called Christians. Such as they were,
they marked a fierce opposition to the Church, rather
than a return to primitive Christianity. In the
seventh century Manichseism, modified into Paulician-
ism through St. Paul's teaching regarding sin, was
formulated into the creed of an Eastern sect. The
Paulicians multiplied with extraordinary rapidity, and,
according to Gibbon, " shook the East and enlightened
the West." Under persecution many found their way
to Europe, where they spread their doctrines. After a
long period of eventful history Paulicianism, at the
close of the twelfth century, had conquered what is
now Southern France.
In creed, ethic, ritual, and ecclesiastical government
the Cathari were opposed to the Church. They made
an eternal dualism and conflict between the alleged
coequal principles of good and evil, between God and
Satan. Satan was the Jehovah of the Old Testament,
and therefore that book was to be rejected. The New
Testament was to be received, though, in spite of its
representations, Christ was a mere phantasm. In
consequence of matter being essentially evil, marriage
was all but forbidden, and animal food, for its grossness,
was avoided. Sacraments, images, crosses found no
place in the ritual, while a new ceremony, the Baptism
of the Spirit, removed all sin. The organisation of
the sect was peculiar to itself. From among the
" Perfect," a spiritual aristocracy, four classes of officers
were chosen to carry on the government.
The Albigenses, named from the territory of the

ST. DOMINIC 87
Albigeois, or, more generally, the Cathari, were pre
eminently the heretics in the eyes of Churchmen, and
even of the Waldensians ; and Innocent, in his day of
power, determined to crush them. They were zealous
in their missionary efforts, preaching their distinctive
doctrines and inveighing against the Church, and while
the pope was resolving on their destruction, Azevedo
and Dominic opposed them with the orthodox faith.
As early as 1119 Calixtus 11. condemned the Cathari
as heretics. In 1139, at the second Lateran Council,
Innocent n. called upon the temporal powers to crush
them; and Pope Alexander in., at Tours in 1163,
ordered all prelates to anathematise those trafficking
with them, and required secular authorities to im
prison them, confiscating their property. At the third
Lateran Council a crusade was inaugurated, but came
to nothing. Shortly after Innocent in. ascended the
papal throne active measures were begun. Legates,
Peter of Castelnau and Raoul, Cistercian monks, joined
by Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, were sent to Languedoc
to rouse the Churchmen to persecuting zeal.
Eager to uphold ecclesiastical authority, and having
the support of the papal power, they yet failed to stir
the prelates, who were content to draw their revenues ;
and the story of the Church's weakness would have
been illustrated once more had not the legates in
1206 come into contact with Azevedo and Dominic.
"Heresy," said Innocent, in spite of his cruel policy,
" can only be destroyed by solid instruction ; it is by
preaching the truth that we sap the foundations of
error." Inspired by this idea, if not by these words,
the legates, with Azevedo and Dominic, carried on public
disputations, preached in the churches, and held con-

88 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
ferences in private houses. Zealous in work and per
sistent in humility, they made many conversions.
Dominic, his biographers relate, was a powerful
preacher, and the heretics, counting him their most
dangerous enemy, threatened his life. Miracles
attended his manhood, as they had been about his
youth. The heretics, we are told in the legend, paid
no heed to the Feast of St. John the Baptist; and
Dominic threatened a sign of divine anger to certain
men who on the feast-day were working in a field.
When one of them would have made an attack on the
preacher, the ears of corn were seen to be filled as
with blood. Thereupon the men fell down and made
confession of their sin, and shortly afterwards were
reconciled to the Church. Many conventional miracles,
such as this, were attributed to Dominic, but they
afford no indication of his character.
At this period Dominic took the important step of
organising at Prouille a convent for women. The
heretics had established religious houses in which they
educated the daughters of nobles, who were glad to
avail themselves of instruction; and Dominic, after
the manner of these men, opened the house at Prouille,
in order that his female converts might be freed from
temptation to heresy. The Archbishop of Narbonne
and the Bishop of Toulouse, to whom the scheme was
made known, contributed liberally to the building of
the convent; and in 1218 Honorius in. recognised this
association of women as the Second Order of Dominic.
The members, who were to live obedient to a severe
monastic rule, came in course of time to devote them
selves chiefly to the education of girls.
The preachers who laboured among the heretics.

ST. DOMINIC 89
zealous though they were, found themselves unequal
to their task. With papal permission, therefore, they
ordained competent men, wherever they could be
found, and thus was associated, not an Order, but a
company to meet heretical with orthodox doctrine.
While many of the Cathari were restored to the faith,
real progress was slow, since the charge was constantly
preferred that clerics, high and low, were everywhere
disgracing their calling.
What might have been the result of this mission
none can tell, as it was completely overshadowed by
the crusade inaugurated for the violent suppression of
the Albigenses. The legate, Peter of Castelnau, was
murdered in 1208; and Raymond, Count of Toulouse,
suspected of sympathy with the Albigenses, and
inefficient, in the eyes of the Church, as a destroyer
of heretics, was charged with complicity in the
murder. Innocent, full of wrath, did not lose the
opportunity of calling on the faithful to avenge the
death of the legate. A crusade was preached, and
not in vain. Carnage began, and the victims were
numbered by tens of thousands. The king of France
did not himself become a soldier of the Church, but
his nobles, and among these Simon de Montfort, led
their troops against the enemies of their religion.
The war was the most cruel and bloody that ever
disgraced the Church; and the teaching of the
merciful Son of Mary was despised. For the king
of France, however, the crusade was more than the
battle of the Church : it was a long campaign which
resulted in the acquisition of vast territories.
Little is known of Dominic's career during the years
of the crusade. An early biographer wrote: "After

90 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the return of the Bishop Diego to his diocese St.
Dominic, left almost alone with a few companions who
were bound to him by no vow, during ten years upheld
the Catholic faith in different parts of Narbonne,
especially at Carcassonne and Fanjeaux. He devoted
himself entirely to the salvation of souls by the
ministry of preaching, and he bore with a great heart
a multitude of affronts, ignominies, and sufferings for
the name of Jesus Christ." Again, it is told how on
one occasion he was at the mercy of certain men who
sought to kill him. Asked afterwards what he would
have done had they attacked him, he replied : " I would
have prayed you not to take my life at a single blow,
but little by little, cutting off each member of my
body, one by one ; and when you had done that, you
should have plucked out my eyes, and then have left
me so, to prolong my torments and gain me a richer
crown." Fanatical though the teller of this story was,
he illustrated the bravery of Dominic's character, which
was real ; and at the same time spoke according to the
common belief, that through much physical tribulation
one might enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Contemporary documents are few which afford
definite information regarding the first years of
Dominic's missionary labour. There is an absolution
of 1207 showing, from the signature with the addition
prsedicator minimus, that in that year he was entitled
to sign himself a preacher. From a writing of 1208,
a penance for one of the Cathari seeking admission
into the Church, it may be gathered that he was then
at work among the heretics. The penance required
that on three successive Sundays the man should be
scourged by a priest, that he should fast at definite

ST. DOMINIC 91
times from various foods, hear mass and recite a speci
fied number of prayers daily, be chaste in conduct, and
wear monastic garments decorated with the cross.
Another document, said to be among the archives of
Carcassonne, is witnessed by " Brother Dominic, Canon
of Osma and humble preacher," and bears that the Bishop
of Cahors in 1211 paid homage to the Count de Montfort.
The historians of the Order imply that the victory
of the Count de Montfort, at the famous battle of
Muret in 1213, was due to the prayers of Dominic;
or, as others say, to his encouragement of the soldiers
by holding aloft a crucifix. The constant tradition is
that Dominic was with the crusaders ; but the silence
of history may be taken as proof that he did nothing
extraordinary throughout the time when the heretics
were massacred in multitudes.
It is stated, but with insufficient evidence, that
thrice during this period Dominic refused episcopal
office. While the accounts of his success as a preacher
are exaggerated, it may be conjectured from what is
known of his character that he laboured with zeal,
fasting and praying, showing humility and inflicting
self-punishment, and using the noblest means, as then
understood, to call back the wanderers to the fold.
His work attracted the attention of Pierre Cella, a
wealthy citizen of Toulouse, who in 1214 presented
a house for use as a school for the education of
preachers. For the support of this house, and the
purchase of books, certain tithes were designed by
the local bishop ; and when Dominic and his com
panions took up their abode in it an important step
was taken towards the formation of the Order.
Some of the older historians relate that, prior to the

92 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
year 1214, Dominic founded the famous office of the
Inquisition, and became the first inquisitor-general.
The ground for this assertion is a bull of Sixtus v.,
which refers to him as inquisitor under Innocent ill.
and Honorius ill. His character, however, does not
suggest that he was guilty of the severity which
established the Inquisition. Piety wanders in strange
directions, and zeal for the Lord's house not seldom
eats up humaneness ; yet Dominic's piety would not
have directed him to the slaughter of his religious
enemies, if some of the alleged miracles indexed
his character. These miracles displayed a pitiful
and humane man, and were in fact palpable imita
tions of the Lord's. Jordan, his early biographer, has
no mention of the Inquisition. When summing
up Dominic's work among the heretics, he wrote:
"During the time that the crusaders were in the
country the blessed Dominic continued there, diligently
preaching the word of God, until the death of the
Count de Montfort." The Inquisition was certainly
not organised till after the death of Dominic; and,
during the period of his missionary labour in the
south of France, there is no indication that Churchmen
possessed the legal power of ordaining the punish
ment of torture or death. It is probable, however,
that Dominic had a title belonging to bishops, and
granted to legates and special commissioners, to assign
ecclesiastical punishment. The notoriety gained by the
Dominicans in connection with the Inquisition doubtless
suggested to fanatical chroniclers that Dominic him
self earned the glory of destroying enemies of the faith.
The Bollandists are among those who associate
Dominic with the Inquisition, quoting Thomas Aquinas

ST. DOMINIC 93
as justifying the burning of heretics. There is, how
ever, no document to prove that he ever received a
commission as inquisitor ; and if the Lateran Council
in 1215 did grant such a commission, it is to be
noted that by that year his labours in Languedoc
were almost finished. In 1217, in a speech at Prouille,
quoted by Lacordaire, he used words which, while
manifesting pitiless anger, do not suggest that his
own labours had been marked by violence. " For
many years," he said, " I have spoken to you with
tenderness, with prayers, and tears; but according
to the proverb of my country, where the benediction
has no effect, the rod may have much. Behold, now,
we rouse up against you princes and prelates, nations
and kingdoms ! Many shall perish by the sword.
The land shall be ravaged, walls thrown down ;
and you, alas ! reduced to slavery. So shall the
chastisement do that which the blessing and which
mildness could not do." The speech gives truth to
Dante's characterisation —
"Therein the zealous lover was revealed
Of Christ's true faith, the athlete consecrate,
Kind to her friends, to those who hate her steeled."
According to the legend, Dominic, appointed inquis
itor-general in Spain, organised the punishment of
Jews and Moors lapsing from the Christian faith
into which they had been forced, and watched on
one occasion the burning of three hundred victims.
Leaving Spain, he passed to Italy by Aragon and
France, establishing the Inquisition in these countries,
and commissioning Conrad of Marburg to organise it
in Germany.

94 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Noticeable in the history of Catholic devotion is
the introduction of the rosary, with which Dominic's
name has been associated. Controversy has been
busy with the claim made for the saint. There
seems sufficient reason, however, to trace back to
his institution the use of the rosary so prevalent in
the Order. The story of the introduction is thus
told in a recent biography : " We read that when he
was preaching to the Albigenses, St. Dominic at first
obtained but scanty success ; and that one day, com
plaining of this in pious prayer to our Blessed Lady,
she deigned to reply to him, saying, ' Wonder not that
until now you have obtained so little fruit by your
labours; you have spent them on a barren soil, not
yet watered with the dew of divine grace. When
God willed to renew the face of the earth, He began
by sending down on it the fertilising rain of the angelic
salutation. Therefore preach my Psalter, composed of
one hundred and fifty angelic salutations and fifteen
Our Fathers, and you will obtain an abundant
harvest.' "
Dominic and his companions, when they took pos
session of the house gifted to them in Toulouse,
followed the Rule, as they wore the habit, of canons
regular. His purpose was to found an Order of
preachers who should be trained in theology. Learned
though he himself was, after long study in his early
years, he did not become the teacher of his companions,
but placed them under a theologian lecturing in
Toulouse. Further support was given by De Mont
fort, who bestowed on the companions the revenues
from a house and lands.
Dominic's determination to institute an Order re-

ST. DOMINIC 95
quired papal sanction, and that sanction he resolved
to seek in 1215, when the Lateran Council was sitting
in Rome. Individuals like Arnold of Brescia, and
missionaries like the Waldensians, had come into
direct contact with the hearts and minds of the
people, and had not trusted to the authority of an.
institution or the mystic influence of an elaborate
ritual. The Church, on the other hand, amidst the
political schemes of popes and the worldly interests
of priests, had left unheeded the command to preach
the gospel. Preaching was at once the special func
tion and duty of the bishops, and though it could be
delegated they seldom preached and seldom appointed
others to the duty. In the periods when heresy was
rife, the prelates, as a rule, lived as temporal princes,
seeking the supremacy of the Church or trying to
extend its glory by the splendour of cathedrals and
abbeys. Scandalous living had soiled the reputation
of many, and the best were filled with the idea of
political power. They had little interest in the
welfare of the people, and were too few, even had
they all been preachers, to fill the pulpits of Chris
tendom. The parish priests were performers of the
ritual devised to bring the truths of Christianity
before the worshippers, and ignorant performers they
too often were. The growth of the sects and the
spread of heresy were the eloquent witnesses of the
neglect of duty ; and never did monk or priest render
service to the Church and to religion more signal than
that of Dominic when he resolved that preaching
should not be left to heretics and sectarians.
As early as 1031 the Council of Limoges had decided
that preaching should not be confined to churches where

96 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the bishops could occasionally officiate. At Avignon,
in 1209, when heresy was rampant, the bishops were
instructed to be diligent in preaching, and to secure
men fit to be instructors of religion; and in the
Lateran Council of 1215, before the significance of
Dominic's scheme was apparent, it was enacted that
the bishops, who should not and could not be the only
preachers, should provide men competent for the work.
Thus did the Church recognise the need of preaching,
but it did nothing to educate men in theology or train
them as speakers. Innocent had approved the plan of
Durand of Huesca, who instituted the Poor Catholics,
to do inside the Church the evangelising work which
the Poor Men of Lyons were doing outside. Durand,
who had been a Waldensian leader, was brought back
to the Church after a disputation in which the Bishop
of Osma, and probably Dominic, took part. Devoting
himself after his conversion to a life of poverty,
chastity, and severe self -discipline, he gathered round
him men fitted to preach ; but sanctioned though it
was by Innocent, the mission did not commend itself
to the prelates in Southern France, who looked with
disdain on zealots intruding into their province, and
charged them with being Waldensians in heart, in
spite of their profession. After the battle of Muret
the situation was altered, and Dominic took advantage
of the change. He saw that the Poor Catholics had
a true conception of missionary work, and if he did
not imitate them, he and his Order at least suc
ceeded them. Filled with their spirit and living in
their simplicity, he went further, and had his associates
specially trained to preach. Orthodoxy was to be
armed to meet heresy. This was the plan of Dominic,

ST. DOMINIC 97
but it interfered with an episcopal function, and
difficulties had to be removed before the papal sanction
could be gained.
Dominic was welcomed in Rome by the pope and
prelates, as he had laboured among the heretics whose
case constituted an important reason for holding
the Lateran Council. Very easily he obtained a
decree for placing the Convent of Prouille under the
protection of the papal see. The sanction of a new
Order, however, was not to be had for the asking.
The Council had issued a decree against the founda
tion of new Orders ; but a vision, repeating the scene
in which Francis appeared, showed Innocent the
Lateran Basilica supported by a man whom he
recognised as Dominic. The vision was enough, and
the crave of Dominic's petition was granted, with the
limitation that he and his friends, while pursuing
their special plans, should ally themselves to one of
the existing Orders. Innocent is credited with sug
gesting the name Brothers Preachers, which was after
wards adopted. To carry out the instruction, Dominic
chose the Rule of Augustine, as its simplicity allowed
the Preachers to pursue the object for which they
had associated. Besides, Augustine was a scholar, and
his name was attractive to men desirous of theological
learning. Monastic discipline, with its fasting and
poverty, was to be practised, and regulations were
made in regard to study and the government of the
schools. The Brothers numbered sixteen, and, strange to say,
represented the nationalities of Castile, Normandy,
France, Languedoc, England, and Germany. An abbot
was chosen, the first and only one ; and then the
7

98 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
organisation was changed, and provincial friars, with
a general-master, were appointed. Very early in
their history, in 1217, the Brothers disputed about
certain tithes. This dispute, which occurred during
Dominic's absence, did not imply a violation of the
oath of poverty. The Brothers Preachers had taken
no such vow, though some of the old chroniclers
would have us believe that at this stage certain
properties, which the friars could not hold, were
transferred to the nuns of Prouille.
Having chosen the Augustinian Rule, and established
the Brothers in their first convent, Dominic set out for
Rome, to present himself to the pope. Before he
reached the city, however, he learned that Innocent
had died at Perugia, and Honorius in. now sat on the
papal throne. Honorius adhered to the policy of his
predecessor, and granted in 1216 a bull constituting
the Order by taking it under the protection of
St. Peter and the Bishop of Rome, and confirming it in
its lands, churches, and revenues.
A shorter bull is also declared by the Dominicans to
have been issued at the same time. It is as follows :
" Honorius, Bishop, . . . we, considering that the
brethren of your Order will be the champions of the
faith and true light of the world, do confirm the Order
in all its lands and possessions present and to come ;
and we take the Order itself, with all its goods and
rights, under our protection and government." This
bull, with its praise of the friars, could not have been
granted in 1216. In 1296, at a chapter of the Order, it
was ordained that it should be borne by the friars in
proof of their mission, and probably was prepared for
this purpose.

ST. DOMINIC 99
Dominic returned to Toulouse in 1217, and at once
entrusted special work to the Brothers, so that they
should not be mere recluses. One of his first concerns
was to choose men for a mission to Paris, the chief seat
of theological learning; and others he sent to Spain.
In subsequent years convents were established in
Oxford and Bologna, noted as university cities. The
house in Toulouse was left almost empty when the
missions were organised, though spiritual recruits soon
occupied it, and in turn were sent forth as preachers.
Dominic himself did not remain in Toulouse, as he was
anxious to establish a convent in Rome. When he
arrived, Honorius welcomed him, bestowing on him the
use of the Church of St. Sixtus, afterwards the centre
of the first Dominican monastery in Rome. The church
was subsequently transferred to the nuns of Tra-
stevere, and Dominic took possession of the Church of
St. Sabina, attached to the palace of the Savelli, to
which family the pope belonged. Success crowned his
labours, inasmuch as many joined him as friars, and
his preaching was a victorious campaign. At this
period an office was created for him. In the papal
palace the servants of the cardinals and others were in
the habit of loitering while awaiting their masters.
To these servants he turned his attention, suggesting
to the pope that spiritual instruction should be given.
Honorius agreed, appointing him Master of the Sacred
Palace, and giving him permission not only to preach
to the loiterers, but also to deliver formal lectures to
the members of the Court. Thus was constituted the
office of Master of the Palace, which has continued
to be filled by Dominicans.
According to tradition, a Third Order, bearing the

ioo FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
name of Dominic, was at this time established. The
members of the First Order were friars, those of the
Second nuns, while the Third constituted a company
for the defence of the Church. This Militia of Jesus
Christ, thus it was styled, was formed when thet Polish
bishops, in 1218, appealed to Honorius for protection
against the Prussians. On the other hand, we are
assured by tradition that Dominic, seeing the
Albigenses appropriating ecclesiastical property, had
already declared in favour of armed protectors of the
Church. At a later period, when force was no longer
needed for the Church, the militia was changed into
the Order of Penance of St. Dominic, and women were
received as members. Its purpose was to infuse piety
into social life, to practice penance and charity, and to
realise monastic ideals amidst the business of the day.
Another version is given of the foundation of the
Third Order.
In 1209 the members of a military society, the
Militia Christi, attached themselves to Dominic, then
labouring among the Albigenses. They undertook the
defence of the Church; and women were associated,
who engaged in special religious exercises. The society
increased, spreading as far as to Italy; and in due
time, when military aid to the Church was no longer
required, it became the Third Order of St. Dominic.
Whatever may have been the beginning of that Order,
there is distinct evidence of its existence about the
year 1230, and it is possible that it may have been
organised in imitation of the Franciscan association.
Nicholas IV., in 1289, attempted to place the
Dominican society and other associations of a like
kind under the superintendence of the Minorites.

ST. DOMINIC 101
Doubtless the pope, who had been the Franciscan
minister-general, hoped to increase the importance of
his Order ; but the Dominicans, who were strong,
would not countenance the scheme, and it failed.
Dominic, having carried out the work of erecting a
convent at Rome, was not forgetful of the various
settlements which had been elsewhere established;
and, like a father mindful of his sons, went to Spain,
the south of France, Paris, and Bologna. The new
Order had justified itself, and many of the scholars of
the universities consequently joined it, convinced of
the need of the Church becoming a teaching institu
tion. He is represented as having planned for him
self a mission to Africa. Such a mission, while
it may have been- thought necessary by biographers
jealous of St. Francis with his journey to Egypt,
was not according to Dominic's first aim, to attack
heresy at home. His progress from place to
place is represented by his biographers as a con
spicuous success, marked by many conversions and
signal miracles ; and such was the zeal of the preacher,
that we may well accept the story of the conversions.
" He preached," says Jordan, " by night and by day in
houses, in the fields, and by the roadside." His theme
was the mysteries of the rosary, the life and passion
of Christ. Miracles were numerous, and of all kinds.
By the application of a little mud he mended the torn
garments of a Franciscan walking with him. He
promised rain when a long drought was causing
distress in the district of Segovia, and before his
sermon was ended there was a plentiful shower. He
foretold the death of an insolent councillor who spoke
evil of him. He turned water into wine, as his Lord

102 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
had done. In a fit of passion he killed a cock which
disturbed him at his study, and in his penitence his
fervent prayer restored it to life. He was able to
cure a woman stricken by a fever, by causing her to
eat a portion of an eel over which the sign of the cross
had been made.
In the year 1220 the first chapter of the Order was
held at Bologna, a fitting place of meeting for a learned
Brotherhood. An important resolution was taken : it
was determined that all possessions should be
renounced, that the customs of poverty should be
adopted, and all property not absolutely necessary for
the use of the Order should be given to the nuns of
Prouille. The Dominicans in their first years had
accepted gifts, and in 1218 a papal recognition of their
property was issued. Dominic himself received three
churches from the Bishop of Toulouse. The adoption
of the principle of stern poverty was made, there is
no reason to doubt, in imitation of the practice of the
Franciscans. It is unnecessary to suggest any rivalry,
but Dominic was not ignorant of the reverence which
Francis was inspiring, and was wise enough to see that
by poverty his own preachers would command respect.
The friars of Toulouse in vain objected to the
innovation, and in 1228 the resolutions of 1220 were
formally included in the Constitution of the Order. A
change in the habit was also sanctioned at the chapter
of 1228. At first the dress was that of the Canons
Regular, but owing to a vision of one of the Brothers a
new habit was adopted. Brother Reginald was sick,
and one day Dominic prayed earnestly for his recovery.
While he was still suffering, the Virgin with two young
maidens of surpassing beauty appeared to him, and

ST. DOMINIC 103
Mary said : " Ask me what thou wilt, and I will give it
thee." One of the maidens suggested that he should
ask nothing, but trust to the pleasure of the Virgin,
who, after granting certain spiritual blessings, showed
him the habit of the Preachers, saying : " Behold the
habit of thy Order." One of the Dominican
biographers writes : " After the heavenly vision afore
said, and the showing of the habit, the blessed
Dominic and the other brethren laid aside the use of
surplice, and took in its place as a distinctive portion
of the habit the white scapular, retaining the black
mantle which they wore over their white tunics as
Canons Regular."
After the meeting of the chapter, Dominic journeyed
through Italy, and in the course of his wanderings
reached Cremona, where, according to one legend, he
met Francis and Clara. Another legend declares that
the two saints met in Rome in 1215, but the evidence
is insufficient, as there is no certainty that Francis
was in Italy in that year. The story is that while
Dominic was praying in the Basilica of St. Peter he
saw the figure of Christ holding three arrows, with
which He was about to punish the world for its
wickedness. Mary was then seen to present two men to
her Son, who should convert sinners and appease His
wrath, and the next day Dominic recognised Francis
as one of the two men of the vision. " You are my
comrade," he said, " you will go with me ; let us keep
together, and nothing shall prevail against us."
According to a Franciscan account, the two met in
Rome, when Dominic persuaded Francis to give him
his cord with which he girded himself, suggesting at
the same time that their religion should be one, and

104 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
that there should be union between them. Francis
would not listen to the suggestion ; he would continue
in his poverty and his freedom.
At Cremona, as related in the Dominican legend, the
two saints lodged together, and water was brought
from a well which had become unfit for use. They
were asked to bless it, and there was a contest which
should yield to the other. The modesty of Francis
prevailed, and Dominic gave the blessing. In the
Little Flowers it is related that Dominic was present
at the meeting known as the " Chapter of the Trellises."
Francis commanded the Brothers to take no thought
of the needs of the body, but to trust for everything
to God. There were some thousands in attendance,
and yet the people of the surrounding cities supplied
all their wants, inspired by the " Chief Shepherd,
Christ, the Blessed One." Dominic, who at first thought
Francis indiscreet, witnessed all that happened, and
was moved to make this confession: "Of a truth
God hath especial care of these holy poor little ones,
and I knew it not ; and from now henceforth I promise
to observe the holy gospel poverty ; and in the name
of God I curse all the Brothers of my Order who in
the said Order shall presume to hold property." This
legend has evidently grown out of the fact that the
Dominicans in their chapter of 1220 adopted the
custom of absolute poverty.
The fatigues, vigils, and fastings of a busy life wore
out the strength of a man who thought it impious to
pay heed to his body, and in 1221, in the fifty-first
year of his age, Dominic died. He had walked from
Venice to Bologna, careless of the heat of an August
sun, and with strength failing through the poison of

ST. DOMINIC 105
fever he entered the Convent of St. Nicholas. There
he refused the comfort of a bed, and lay on matting
on the floor. The Brothers gathered around him he
addressed, saying : " Have charity, guard humility,
and make you treasure out of voluntary poverty."
Hoping to save him, some of them carried him to a
house on a hill outside the city ; but nothing could be
done, beyond the administration of the last rites of his
religion. He wished to be buried beside his Brothers.
" God forbid," he said, " that I should be buried any
where save under the feet of my brethren." According
to another version, he died in the bed of one of the
friars, as he had no bed of his own, and he was dressed
in a gown which he had borrowed.
Cardinal Ugolini performed the burial service, in
the Church of St. Nicholas, Bologna, and wrote this
epitaph over the tomb —
" Here lies the body of the venerable servant of God,
Dominic de Guzman, born at Calaruega in Spain, in
the diocese of Osma; founder of the Order of Friars
Preachers, of which he was made first master-general
by Honorius in., and confirmed in that dignity by the
suffrages of his brethren, in the chapters held here in
Bologna in 1220 and 1221. On the 30th of May of
the latter year he was declared a citizen of Bologna,
together with all others who should succeed him as
master-general of the Order. He slept in our Lord
at noon oh Friday, August 6, 1221, under the pontificate
of Honorius ill., and I, Ugolini, Cardinal Bishop of
Ostia, and Apostolic Legate, after having celebrated
his obsequies, have herewith by our hands placed his
venerable body. May the name of the Lord be praised
for ever ! "

106 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Signs of divine approbation were said not to be
wanting. At a translation of the body, when the
coffin was opened those standing near declared they
were conscious of an exquisite odour. Three hundred
years after the first translation, a writer declared,
"this divine odour adheres to the relics even to the
present day." There is one legend, obviously an imita
tion of the story of Francis, that in a grotto in
Segovia, Dominic received the stigmata.
Chroniclers of the Order tell that one of the friars
saw the Saviour and the Virgin drawing up a golden
ladder which had been let down from heaven. On the
ladder was a man, with face hidden by his cowl, who
in this fashion was being raised from the earth. The
hour of the friar's vision was the hour of Dominic's
death. Dominic's habits of pious life, according to his bio
graphers, were severe to the last degree. He kept an
almost continual fast, wore the poorest raiment, and
never slept in a bed, but lay on the bare ground or on a
plank. Little time was given to sleep, and hours taken
from sleep were spent before the altar, where he would
offer with his prayers the sacrifice of his own blood,
scourged from his body.
Dominic founded his Order and lived to see its
success. At the date of the second chapter, four years
after the first mission had been sent out, sixty convents
had been established in the provinces of Spain, Pro
vence, France, England, Germany, Hungary, Lombardy,
Romagnuola. Great though the work of the founder
had been, he was not immediately canonised. The
canonisation of Francis and Antony of Padua, in each
case, took place within two years after the death. Yet

ST. DOMINIC 107
thirteen years passed before the Church paid its highest
tribute to the work of Dominic; and it has been
argued that there is proof in this that his influence on
his contemporaries was not the strongest. Apart from
saintship, he deserves honour. In an age when the
people were ignorant of the Bible, when the priests of
the Church were dumb, he trained men to preach, and
he himself preached, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Though
honour was slow to crown him after his death, super
stition and reverence together were ultimately to pay
adoration to his name. His mother was recognised as
a saint, and in 1320 a prince of Castile obtained her
body to increase the sanctity of a Dominican convent
which he had founded. The remains of his father
had to be concealed from the adoration of admirers of
the saint, who prized as holy everything related to
him. So great was the veneration attaching to his
name, that the font in which he was baptized was
preserved and ultimately taken to the Dominican
Convent of Madrid, where it continued to be used at
the baptisms of the royal infants.
In the work of Dominic there was no originality,
and he, earnest indeed to the last degree, was no self-
reliant personality eager for an unconventional ideal.
His ardent faith in the moral value of obedience made
him useful to the Roman Curia, and he was able to
prove himself a faithful servant by accepting the
Augustinian Rule. Innocent, it is true, had little
opportunity of knowing his character, but Honorius,
probably at the instigation of Ugolini, took care to
attach him to the papal Court.
There was no magnetic power of love in Dominic
to draw men to him, even while zeal and goodness

io8 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
directed his labours. He lacked the one thing needful,
whatever it was, which Francis had, to make captive
the heart. Yet the biographers, doubtless moved by
the stories of Francis, have endeavoured to prove him
like unto Christ. A recent biography illustrates the
attempt to mark a physical resemblance between him
and the Saviour : " Although several so-called portraits
are preserved, yet none of them can be regarded as
the vera effigies of the saint, though that preserved
at Santa Sabina probably presents us with a kind of
traditionary likeness. If we compare this with the
engraved gem which professes to be the true portrait
of Jesus Christ a certain resemblance may be traced
between them, especially in the straight line of the
nose and forehead, which, according to the rules of
Greek art, was deemed to belong to the highest type
of humanity."
That which has been specially imitated, however, in
the biographies of the saint is the miraculous power
of Christ. Sinlessness, constant prayer, unwearied
vigils, degradation of the body, have been ascribed to
a multitude of saints, but to this man, in special
manner, have been assigned wonders after the pattern
of the New Testament miracles. Signs were given to
show that God was on his side, that heaven and fcarth
ministered to his necessities ; yet the characteristic of
his legend is the imitation of the deeds peculiar to
Christ. At Bologna on one occasion bread was scarce for the
Brothers, and after the saint had raised his eyes and
his heart to heaven there appeared two beautiful
youths with baskets of the whitest loaves, which they
distributed. On another occasion, when he had no

ST. DOMINIC 109
money to pay his fare for crossing a river, he prayed,
and instantly there was a coin at his feet. As the
Lord had increased bread for the multitude, so did
Dominic cut two small loaves in pieces for a large
number of Brothers, and the morsels were more than
enough for their wants. Wine, too, was supplied in a
vessel, in which before his prayer there had not been
a drop. A youth who fell from a roof and was killed
was restored to life, and this youth's mother being
sick of a fever was healed. Three Sisters in a convent,
whom he did not see, he ordered to be cured, and at
the command they rose in perfect health.
By miracles such as these his biographers have tried
to show his likeness to Christ. Had he been the stern
suppressor of heretics, their violent destroyer, it is
more than likely that the wonders would have taken
another form; and though we reject one and all of
the supernatural deeds attributed to him, we may
surmise from their record that he was not a violent
inquisitor, even though we dare not say that he had
in special degree the loving-kindness of Christ.
The Franciscan extravagance of sentiment which
produced the Book of Conformities had a parallel in
the fanaticism which made Dominic one with Christ.
The Dominican who wrote the life of Catharine of
Siena represented the Eternal as producing Christ
from His head and Dominic from His breast, and as
declaring the equality of the two.
It is not Dominic's character that has impressed
itself on history : it is his policy which has caused his
influence to live. He was not the first to suggest that
the Church should send out preachers to oppose heresy ;
but it was he who saw that men, skilled in debate,

no FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
equipped with knowledge as well as furnished with
enthusiasm, and ready to be obedient to ecclesiastical
rule, were the men to serve the Church from the attacks
of heretics. And not merely did he seize an idea,
propound a scheme ; he had the genius for organising,
and, true to his idea of a learned ministry, gathered
men around him for study, arranged for the education
of others, and sent his disciples or scholars forth into
the world. It is impossible that without persuasive
and convincing powers of some kind he could have
attracted men to his Order ; but the scheme which he
set forth was precisely that to commend itself to
intellectual and spiritual men anxious for the great
institution of the Church which to their thinking was
divinely built. The scheme was destined to affect the
whole later medieval religious movement ; and though
the Dominicans, especially through their connection with
the Inquisition, acquired a reputation which was not
altogether one of holiness, yet the founder of the Order
was wise when he taught that heresy must be met
with learning and educated wisdom, and strong when
he organised a company of men trained in theology
and sent them forth to meet the critics and enemies of
the Church.

CHAPTER V
Progress of the Orders
"Silent and soft is poverty's step," sang Giacopone
di Todi. The rise of the mendicants marked a religious
revival, and inaugurated a mission which extended the
bounds of the Church. The founders of monastic
Orders had retired with pious companions from the
world, and excluded themselves from the life of the
people. Francis and Dominic sought to free them
selves from worldly cares and pleasures alike, when
they embraced poverty; but recognising the need of
a mission to the spiritually destitute, sent their friars
into the villages and cities. Religion was popularised,
and passed beyond the confines of the cloister. The
object was the same, to create and foster piety in the
individual, but the method and sphere of the two
saints were different. Francis turned to the poor and
unlettered, to whom he determined the gospel should
be preached, not by learned but by pious men. Dominic
trained his friars in theology, preparing them for ser
vice among the richer and more intelligent classes, and
fixing his principal houses in the university cities. The
rise of the mendicants was, says Baur, " the practical
declaration that even the monks had not acquitted
themselves of their task until, while remaining true
to their fundamental positions, they had ceased to live
m

112 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
for themselves, and after the manner of the apostles
had striven to labour in the world for the purposes of
the Gospel." The Benedictines, to take an example,
were wealthy, cultured, exclusive, with no neighbours to
tend. They looked first to their own spiritual welfare,
and sought through contemplation to reach God, through
asceticism ordered and limited to merit salvation. Such
service as was done was rendered to the Church and
her priests and friends. The Cistercians, to take another
example, when reformation had restored purity and
quickened piety, indulged in contemplation of the life
of Christ, but restricted their imitation to the convent.
Bernard, indeed, went forth into the world to preach a
crusade, to attack a heretic, to direct a pope, but re
turned to the solitude of Clairvaux, where his religion
was as strait as his cell. The mendicant like the monk
pursued contemplation as a business of the soul, but
contemplation led him to activity in imitation of Christ.
Asceticism, too, was not altogether excluded. But no
cloister seclusion was to impede the mission to sinners.
Thus did the friar widen the sphere of the piety of
the monk, passing beyond the monastery to serve his
neighbour, to seek the lost that he might be saved;
and thus did imitation of Christ attain a richer mean
ing. The friar, too, taught the laymen that they also
had a mission to men and women around them, even
while they heeded the things of their own souls; and
so the kingdom of God was advanced.
Hallam expressed an uninformed opinion of his day
when he wrote : " These great reformers, who have
produced so extraordinary an effect upon mankind,
were of very different characters : the one, active and
ferocious, had taken a prominent part in the crusade

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 113
against the unfortunate Albigeois, and was among the
first who bore the terrible name of inquisitor ; whilst
the other, a harmless enthusiast, pious and sincere, but
hardly of sane mind, was much rather accessory to the
intellectual than to the moral degradation of his
species." Ferocious misrepresents the character of the
man who laboured for the welfare of the Albigeois
before the crusade was inaugurated, and who still
laboured during the crusade, preaching the love of
God and salvation through His Son. Francis was not
mad. Bonaventura wrote : " Who can form a concep
tion of the fervour and the love of Francis, the friend
of Christ ? You would have said that he was burned
up by divine love, like charcoal in the flames." But
Bonaventura was a Franciscan and medieval. A modern
English writer, a master of criticism, free from religious
enthusiasms, has spoken of the " profound popular in
stinct which enabled Francis, more than any man since
the primitive age, to fit religion for popular use. He
brought religion to the people. He founded the most
popular body of ministers of religion that has ever
existed in the Church. He tranformed monachism
by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from
the bondage of property, and sending him, as a mendi
cant friar, to be a stranger and sojourner, not in the
wilderness, but in the most crowded haunts of men, to
console them and do them good. The popular instinct
of his is at the bottom of his famous marriage with
poverty. Poverty and suffering are the condition of
the people, the multitude, the immense majority of
mankind ; and it was towards this people that his soul
yearned. " He listens," it was said, " to those to whom
God Himself will not listen."
8

114 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Machiavelli, living amidst intellectual and spiritual
influences very different from those around Matthew
Arnold, declared in one of his discourses that Chris
tianity would have been almost extinct "if Francis
and Dominic had not renewed it and replaced it in
the heart of men by poverty and the example of
Jesus Christ. They saved religion, which the Church
had destroyed."
Francis saw, as clearly as Dominic, that a remedy
was needed for the malady attacking religion; and
though he had no plan for refuting heresy, he sought
to overcome worldliness and sin by inducing men to
live in imitation of Christ. Filled with the love of
Christ, he went to people such as those who heard
Christ gladly, and they received him with joy. In
the noble sense he was a popular preacher, proclaim
ing a gospel for the poor and desolate, for the simple
and unlettered ; and while he taught, he did what he
would have others do. Dominic was a preacher of a
different kind, from character and training. Men, too,
listened to him, and religion was quickened.
Many of the Franciscans, especially in the early
years of the Order, were unlettered, yet filled with an
enthusiasm which captivated the poor, among whom
they laboured. Formality was banished from their
religious services, and in their simplicity they carried
horns to summon the people to worship. The Do
minicans, on the other hand, were generally associated
with churches, and followed the recognised ritual.
They furnished the most noted preachers of the
thirteenth century, and the extent of their influence
is illustrated by the fact that in 1273 there were sixty
preachers in Paris, of whom thirty were Dominicans.

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 115
In the revival inspired by the two Orders, religion
was brought home to the hearts of individual men
and women ; and labouring, as the friars did, under
the authority of the pope, they fostered the interest
of their hearers, not in priests or bishops, but in the
Church of which the Roman Bishop claimed to be the
head, so that it became to them as the visible kingdom
of God. It was of no mean advantage to the cause of
religion in the thirteenth century that seekers for
truth were not bereft of their faith in the Church.
To these it stood as an institution worthy of honour,
and the pope was revered as the true vicar of Christ
when he commissioned the mendicants to go to men
and women and tell them of the love of God and the
mercy of Christ. Apostles in earlier centuries had
consecrated their labours to the conversion of the Jew
and the Gentile ; but it was a new thing within Chris
tendom itself for missionaries to seek the lost and
bring them to Christ. The mendicants, indeed, saved
the Church from destruction following in the train
of worldly policy, and spared Christendom a revolu
tion for which it was not prepared. Rome was not
yet ready to depart from that policy, and Boniface
vni. was to come. Political supremacy was not,
however, the one sole plan of the Church in the
middle of the thirteenth century, and evangelistic
work was added to ecclesiastical business. But apart
from institutions and policies, it is of outstanding
importance in the history of Christianity that the
mendicants helped men to know themselves responsible
to God, and to recognise themselves as more than parts
of a society finding God through ritual alone.
In the dreams of Francis, it is said, was the vision of

116 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
a brotherhood with members from all nations ; but a
powerful Order, dominated by the Bishop of Rome, was
not among his ideals. One morning, the Three
Companions relate, he called the small fraternity
together, saying : " Take courage, and shelter your
selves in God. Be not depressed to think how few we
are. Be not alarmed either at your own weakness or
at mine. God has revealed to me that He will diffuse
through the earth this our little family, of which He is
Himself the Father. I would have concealed what I
have seen, but love constrains me to impart it to you.
I have seen a great multitude coming to us, to wear
our dress, to live as we do. I have seen all the roads
crowded with men travelling in eager haste towards
us. The French are coming. The Spaniards are has
tening. The English and the Germans are running.
All nations are mingling together. I hear the tread of
the numbers who go and come to execute the commands
of holy obedience. . . . We seem contemptible and in
sane. But fear not. Believe that our Saviour, Who
has overcome the world, will speak effectually in us.
If gold should lie in our way, let us value it as the
dust beneath our feet. We will not, however, condemn
or despise the rich who live softly and are arrayed
sumptuously. God, who is our Master, is theirs also.
But go and preach repentance for the remission of
sins. Faithful men, gentle and full of charity, will
receive you and your words with joy. Proud and
impious men will condemn and oppose you. Settle it
in your hearts to endure all. things with meekness and
patience. The wise and the noble will soon join
themselves to you, and, with you, will preach to
kings, to princes, and to nations. Be patient in

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 117
tribulation, fervent in prayer, fearless in labour, and
the kingdom of God, which endures for ever, shall be
your reward."
Dominic, unlike Francis, organised an Order, placing
it under papal control, and though it was to see
corruption it fulfilled the purposes for which it was
established. Dante paid honour to the names of the
founders of the two great mendicant Orders, not with
prejudice, since elsewhere he showed the degradation
of the friars —
" Her, for her good, with two high chiefs endowed,
That they on either side her guides might be.
The soul of one with love seraphic glowed ;
The other by his wisdom on our earth
A splendour of cherubic glory showed."
The bulls of Sixtus iv., issued in 1474 and 1479,
marked the climax of the prosperity of the two
Orders, which were spoken of as the two rivers
flowing from Paradise, and as seraphim raised on
wings of heavenly contemplation above all earthly
things. Undoubtedly the purposes of Francis and
Dominic attracted the greatest men of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, among whom were Alex
ander Hales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas,
Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus.
The missionary labours, the chief glory of the
mendicants, were not confined within the pale of
the Church. Dominic himself, it is said, desired to go
to Persia, and though he did not pass out of Europe,
he inspired his followers with a zeal which carried
them to distant lands. After the death of the saint
the Dominicans met in Paris in 1222, and elected as

118 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
his successor Jordan of Saxony, who, in his short
reign, extended the sphere and influence of the
Brotherhood. Friars were sent to Germany, Venice,
Poland, and Denmark, where houses were erected, and
also to the Holy Land. Jordan himself was in the
habit of spending his Lent alternately at Bologna and
Paris, and of visiting other university cities, among
these Oxford; and at each place he preached to
the students, and sought to induce masters and
bachelors to join the Brotherhood. While he
endeavoured to increase the austerities in the daily
life of the friars, his reign was marked by evangelistic
zeal rather than by asceticism, and he himself perished
with some of his companions in an expedition to
Palestine. In 1225 there was a mission of the
Dominicans, as there was already one of the
Franciscans, in Morocco ; and at the same period
important work was done among the Nestorians and
other Eastern schismatics. In 1237 the Dominicans
gained distinction by bringing back some of the
Eastern Jacobites to the Church. The labour which
the Friars Preachers undertook was no easy task.
Ninety of them perished at one time in Eastern
Hungary; and yet there were ever men ready when
new sacrifices were required. There is a legend, and it
can be no more than a legend, that in 1316 some of
the Dominicans reached the kingdom of Prester John
in Abyssinia, where a church was established and one
of the princes appointed inquisitor-general. After
the conquest of America the Friars Preachers, true to
their traditions, sent forth evangelists to Mexico, New
Granada, and Peru.
The Franciscans, no less than the Dominicans, were

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 119
eager to convert the infidel. A bull of Alexander
IV., of date 1258, was addressed to the friars
among the Saracens, Pagans, Greeks, Bulgarians,
Cumans, Ethiopians, Syrians, Iberians, Alans, Cathari,
Goths, Zichori, Russians, Jacobites, Nubians, Nes
torians, Georgians, Armenians, Indians, Muscovites,
Tartars, Hungarians, and also to those labouring
among the Christians captured by the Turks. This
list, which is not a geographical enumeration, is
a witness of the extraordinary zeal of the Brother
hood. A bull of Clement VI., in 1342, gave the
Franciscans the guardianship of the holy places of
Jerusalem, and it was not unbecoming that those who
bore the name of Francis should be protectors of
places made sacred by Him whom the saint fervently
loved and dutifully served. Later in their history the
Minorites aided Columbus when he prepared his
expedition, and at Hayti a Franciscan opened the first
Christian church of the New World.
Everywhere the missionaries wandered, and mar
vellous was the tale of their bravery. Marco Polo
brought word of the good government of Kubla Khan,
and Gregory x., in 1274, sent out two Dominicans
to his kingdom. They, in 1289, were followed by
two Franciscans, and one of these, Joannes de Monte
Corvino, returning some years later, reported concern
ing his work. He had built a church with dome and
bells in Cambalu (Pekin), had taught Latin and Greek
to one hundred and fifty boys, and had converted six
thousand people, preparing breviaries and psalteries
for their use. He spoke of the tolerance of the native
priests, adding that they were more to be admired
than those of Italy. Raimund de Pennaforti, the

120 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Dominican general, who died in 1273, demonstrated at
once his love of learning and his practical wisdom
when he founded schools at Tunis and Murcia for the
training of friars in Oriental languages. No more
intrepid ambassadors of Christ ever carried the gospel
over the world than the followers of Dominic and
Francis. Cardinal Newman has thus pictured them —
" The friars, too, the zealous band
By Dominic or Francis led,
They gather and they take their stand
Where foes are fierce or friends have fled."
The life-work of a friar, in the years when the
mendicants were quickening the piety of nations, may
be illustrated from the biography of Antony of Padua.
This man, whose fame was spread abroad while he
lived, and not diminished when he died, was a
Portuguese, who changed his name from Ferdinand to
Antony on becoming a Minorite. He was educated by
the Augustinians, joining their Order, but passed to
the Franciscans when he heard that five of their
number had been martyred in Morocco. His
enthusiasm induced him to set out for Morocco, but,
suffering shipwreck, he was forced to return to
Europe. In Assisi he was fortunate to meet Francis
himself, from whom he received a blessing, which was
an inspiration. He was appointed to work in France
and Italy. Soon he became distinguished as a
preacher ; crowds assembled to hear him ; the business
of a town would cease for the hour that men might
flock to him. In the legend it is related that a noted
tyrant, Eccelino da Romano, prostrated himself at his
feet. Antony's friends thought he would be done to

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 121
death when he uttered the words : " How long, thou
cruel tyrant, wilt thou continue shedding innocent
blood ? Seest thou not the vengeance of God ready
to overwhelm thee, the sword of the Lord drawn to
smite thee ? Repent, or it will fall and destroy thee."
Antony laboured with singular earnestness among the
worldly and sinful in the Church, and at the same
time met in argument the heretics whom he found in
the cities of Italy. * At all times he was strict in
obedience to the Rule and customs of Francis, and
strenuously opposed Elias of Cortona in his attempt to
change the traditions of the Older. Broken in health
by his fervour in preaching and the vicissitudes of the
mendicant life, he retired to Padua, where at the
early age of thirty-six he died. Shortly after his
death, which took place in 1231, he was canonised, the
first Franciscan, after the founder himself, to be made
a saint. It is told of Antony that on one occasion the
fish gathered to hear him preach, as did the birds
in the history of Francis. It is also related that he
was preaching at a general chapter of his Order
when Francis appeared in the midst, his arms
extended and in an attitude of benediction.
The most eloquent of the first Dominicans was John
of Vicenza, who, while a student of law at Padua, heard
Dominic addressing a multitude in the great piazza of
the city. Immediately after the sermon he forsook
the study of law to receive the habit and enter the
new Order. He was sent to Bologna, and afterwards
returned to Padua, where he became famous. When
he preached, crowds were attracted; and the legend
has it that the angels were seen whispering in his ears,
and that when he spoke of the rosary a bright rose

122 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
appeared on his brow or a golden crown over his head.
He was called the Apostle of Lombardy, and to him
has been assigned the introduction of the well-known
salutation, " God save you," by which he hoped to foster
courtesy. The legend further relates that he converted
one hundred thousand heretics by his tale of Dominic's
life and miracles ; and that at Verona he addressed a
multitude of three hundred thousand, assembled to
swear peace, impressing them with Christ's words :
" Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."
The story of the translation of the body of Dominic
ascribes a special favour to this man. As he stood by
the coffin he made way for a bishop, when the body of
the saint turned in the direction of the great preacher.
Again he moved, and again the body turned, that it
might be seen that the saint counted sanctity higher
than ecclesiastical dignity. An apostle of peace though
Friar John claimed to be, he burned on one occasion
sixty of the Cathari in the piazza of Verona.
The history of the settlement of the Dominicans and
Franciscans in England serves to show in detail how
the mendicants entered upon a mission field. No
minute account has been preserved of the arrival of
the Dominicans, who preceded the Franciscans in
their labours in England. In the year 1220 or 1221 —
the date is disputed — Gilbert de Fraxineto with a
company of twelve Dominicans was received by
Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
tested their powers as preachers and was satisfied.
Oxford, the seat of a university, was evidently their
desired destination, as in that city they established
their first house in England.
Anthony Wood, in his treatise on the city of Oxford,

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 123
quotes from a MS. of Trivettus, an historian of the
reign of Edward in., giving this translation : " This
year (to wit, 1221) the Preaching Fryers were sent
into England. Who being in number thirteen, and
having for their priour Brother Gilbert de Fraxineto,
accompanied with the venerable Father Peter de
Rupibus, Bishop of Wynton, came to Canterbury.
Who when they had presented themselves to Stephen
(Langton), archbishop thereof, and (he) hearing that
they were Preaching Fryers, commanded Brother
Gilbert that he should make a sermon before him in
the church, in which he himself (as it should seem)
had purposed to preach the same day. With whose
words the archbishop was soe out of measure aedified,
that all his time afterward he with great love and
favour advanced the religion of these brethren. But
they, going forward, went from Canterbury to London,
where they arrived on the feast of St. Laurence.
And going beyond, they came to Oxon on the feast of
the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (15 Aug.), to
whose honor they there built an oratory and had
scholes, which are now called St. Edward's, in whose
parish they received an habitation in which they
continued for some time. But when there was noe "
opportunity of enlarging the place, they translated
themselves to another place granted to them by the
king, where now they inhabit without the walls."
According to Wood's narrative, the friars when they
approached Oxford prayed to God, with hands lifted
up to heaven, that, as they had hitherto been kindly
received by all, they might meet with courtesy from
the students. " At their entrance they applyed them
selves to the grandies of the Universitie, and at length

124 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
to the canons of S. Frideswyde's, those of Osney, and
to the chief burgesses of the towne. With the former
they obtained respect by reason of their learned parts
in philosophy and divinity ; with the said canons and
burgesses love and tendernesse, because of their simple
and saint-like carriage. At length diving into the
favour of all persons in these parts, they obtained a
seat in the priory, to the end that by their exemplary
carriage and gifts of preaching the Jewes of Oxford
might be converted to the Christian faith." The first
of their many benefactors was Isabell de Bulbeck, the
wife of Robert Vere, Earl of Oxford, who purchased a
plot of ground and gave freely of her money that
more land might be obtained, "whereon a mansion
for them might be built."
The famous Robert Grosseteste, probably chancellor
of the university at this time, was one of the first to
welcome the friars, and it is not unlikely that they
went to Oxford at his invitation. Three of his friends
joined the Order, and of one of them, John de St.
Giles, the story is told that, preaching on poverty, he
determined to show his sincerity. He accordingly
descended from the pulpit, assumed the Dominican
dress, and returned to finish the sermon.
The settlement of the Dominicans may be further
illustrated by the instance of Cologne. Jordan of
Saxony and Henry of Cologne, in 1221, opened a
hospitium near the stately cathedral, and officiated in
a little chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. The
chapel was soon filled, and though the archbishop was
asked by the local clergy to remove the friars, they
remained to enlighten the people and rouse the priests
to duty. The Dominican school of Cologne was to

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 125
become famous, numbering among its teachers Albertus
Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.
Before the organisation of the English mission the
Dominicans had settled in Paris. Little, however, is
known of this foundation. As early as 1217, at a
meeting at Prouille, seven friars were commissioned to
set out for Paris, which, famous for its university, was
suited as a residence and training school for men
desiring to be learned students and accomplished
preachers. One of the seven was Laurence, an English
man, who, discoursing on his heavenly visions, cheered
his companions during their march to Paris; and on
their arrival in the city, where grave difficulties were
encountered, Matthew, a Frenchman, was leader, and
he alone knew the city and the university. After ten
months, during which the Brothers occupied a small
house near the bishop's palace, they were befriended
by an Englishman, the Dean of St. Quentin. With
the consent of his colleagues he bestowed on the
friars, whose piety, humility, and eloquence he admired,
the hospital erected for pilgrims, on Mount St.
Genevieve, by John of St. Alban. They also received
the adjoining chapel, dedicated to St. James ; and these
two buildings formed the Convent of St. James, the
first of the Order in Paris. Here Albertus Magnus
wrote his commentary on the Sentences, and Thomas
Aquinas his Summa.
In September 1224, according to Thomas of Eccleston,
a band of Franciscans arrived at Dover. They were
poor, and provision for their journey across the
channel had been made by the monks of Fecamp. Of
this band, numbering nine persons, with four clerics
among them, the leader was Agnellus, an Italian, whom

126 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Francis himself had designated minister of the province
of England. The other three clerics were Englishmen,
of whom one, Richard of Ingworth, was a priest.
Among the laymen was Laurence of Beauvais, to whom
Francis on his deathbed had given his habit, as a
token of his affection. From Dover these men pro
ceeded to Canterbury, where they were entertained for
two days in the priory of the Holy Trinity, and then
were divided. Four went to London, while the others
continued in Canterbury, being lodged in the hospital
of the priests till a little chamber was given them
"in the house of the scholars, commonly called the
school-house." One may read how they boiled their
porridge, and mixed their beer, which was thick and
sour, with water, that it might go further; and how
they were merry in spite of poverty. Their ignorance
of English kept them at first from work. One of
them, however, was an Englishman, and though him
self too young to preach, he helped the others in their
studies, and all were ready in a short time to engage
in the mission.
By their sincerity and cheerfulness they won their
way in Canterbury, and a house was built. This they
would not accept, but borrowed it from the city
corporation, in whom it was vested for their use.
The four men who had gone to London had been re
ceived by the Dominicans, already settled in the city.
They spent a fortnight with these Friars Preachers,
after which, hiring a piece of ground in Cornhill, they
erected rude huts suitable to their profession, and lived
in the humblest fashion and on the meanest fare. In
the following year they were offered a large building
in the parish of St. Nicholas, which they accepted for

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 127
their use only when it had been made over to the
Corporation of London. The rule of poverty was
respected in these early days.
In the autumn of the year of their landing in Eng
land, or in 1225, as another account has it, Richard of
Ingworth and Richard of Devon, leaving their com
panions in London, set out for Oxford. Legend has
glorified their journey by telling how signs were given
that heaven was guarding them. As they approached
the university city, they found themselves in a large
wood, and as it was nightfall and they feared the
wild beasts, they sought a shelter with the monks of
Abingdon. The prior, thinking they were jesters and
not servants of God, would not receive them; but a
young monk, when his brothers had retired, showed
them a hayloft, giving them bread and beer. The
same night the monk dreamed that his brethren stood
before the judgment-seat of Christ, and "there came
a certain poor man, humble and despised, in the habit
of these poor friars, and he cried with a loud voice:
' 0 most impartial Judge, the blood of my brethren,
which hath been shed this night, crieth unto Thee.
The guardians of this place have refused them meat
and lodging, although they have left all for Thy sake,
and were now coming here to seek those souls which
Thou hast redeemed with Thy blood ; they would not,
in fact, have refused so much to jesters and mummers.'
. . . Then the Judge commanded them to be hanged on
the elm that stood in that cloister." In the morning
the dreamer awoke to find the monks dead, and shortly
afterwards he joined the Minorites.
The two Franciscans, of whom this legend is related,
reached Oxford, where they met with a reception from

128 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
the Dominicans very different from that given by the
monks of Abingdon. After a week spent with their
entertainers they obtained a house in the parish of St.
Ebbe, where they began to lecture and to preach, and
where they were joined by " many honest bachelors and
many notable men." Increasing rapidly, they required
another house ; and shortly after one had been obtained,
the owner " conferred the land and house on the com
munity of the town for the use of the Friars Minors."
The house was not a palace, since the infirmary was
" so low that the height of the walls did not much
exceed the height of a man." When the time came to
build a church the friars worked with their own hands,
and were assisted by a bishop and an abbot, who did
now, " soe zealous was their devotion for the promotion
of this sect, carry upon their shoulders the coule and
the hod, the one containing water, the other stones
and mortar for the spedier finishing of this structure."
A school was also established. The record is : " As
Oxford was the principal place of study in England,
where the whole body of scholars was wont to con
gregate, Francis Agnellus caused a school of sufficiently
decent appearance to be built on the site on which the
friars had settled, and induced Robert Grosseteste, of
holy memory, to lecture to them there ; and under him
they made extraordinary progress in sermons as well
as in subtle moral themes suitable for preaching."
Grosseteste, writing somewhere about 1238 to Gregory
ix., bore this favourable testimony to the work of the
friars : " Your Holiness may be assured that in England
inestimable benefits have been produced by the friars ;
for they illuminate the whole country with the light
of their preaching and learning. Their holy conversa-

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 129
tion excites vehemently to contempt of the world and
to voluntary poverty, to the practice of humility in
the highest ranks, to obedience to the prelates and
head of the Church, to patience in tribulation, abstin
ence in plenty, and, in a word, to the exercise of all
virtues. If your Holiness could see with what devotion
and humility the people run to hear the word of life
from them, for confession and instruction in daily life,
and how much improvement the clergy and the regulars
have obtained by imitating them, you would indeed
say that 'upon them that dwell in the shadow of
death hath the light shined.' "
Grosseteste, who did not enter either of the Orders,
was friendly to both. His strongest sympathies, how
ever, were with the Franciscans. He was the first
reader in their school; and while he endeavoured to
lead them in the path of learning, he insisted they
should be zealous in good works, as Francis had given
example. These friars, who made the name of Francis known
in England, were not morose while obeying their Rule ;
and in their first years at least, no scandal soiled their
fame. According to Eccleston, " the brethren were so
full of fun among themselves, that a mute could hardly
refrain from laughter at the sight. So when the young
friars of Oxford laughed too frequently, it was en
joined on one that as often as he laughed he should
be punished. Now it happened that, when he had
received no punishment in one day and yet could not
restrain himself from laughing, he had a vision one
night that the whole convent stood as usual in the
choir, and the friars were beginning to laugh as usual,
and behold the crucifix which stood at the door of the

130 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
choir turned towards them as though alive, and said :
' They are the sons of Corah, who in the hour of
chanting laugh and sleep.' . . . On hearing this dream
the friars were frightened, and behaved without any
noticeable laughter."
Before the close of the century the Oxford Fran
ciscans were reported to be the most learned body of
men in Christendom. Their fame attracted students
from Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
and Portugal ; and from time to time they despatched
teachers to the leading Franciscan schools in Europe.
From Oxford a mission was sent to Cambridge, where
the first convent was a disused synagogue situated
near the common prison. A larger building was soon
required, and one was erected on ground purchased for
ten marks granted from the royal exchequer. The
chapel was "one that a carpenter could build in a
day's time."
Five years after their landing the Franciscans had
houses in the chief towns of England, and within a
generation these houses numbered forty-nine.
Francis himself, according to the Speculum Vitas, had
shown what manner of houses he desired, and the
wishes of the saint were not forgotten by those who
first bore his name. " St. Francis said to Bonaventura,
who had given the friars a farm to build a convent
near Siena, ' Shall I tell you how the settlements of
the friars ought to be built ? When the brethren go
to any city where they have no place, and find some
one who is ready to give them so much land as is
sufficient for a building, a garden, and the like, they
must, above all things, be cautious not to grasp at
more than is necessary, always having regard to holy

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 131
poverty, and that good example which they are bound
to exhibit on all occasions. When they have a com
petent piece of ground, . . . and having obtained the
bishop's blessing, they shall go and make a deep ditch
all round the land on which they propose to build,
and a good fence instead of a wall, as an emblem of
their poverty. Then they shall build poor cottages of
mud and wood, and some few cells for the friars to
pray in and labour in for the eschewing of idleness.
They shall have small churches and not large ones,
either for preaching or on any other pretence. And if
ever prelates or clerks, or religious or secular men, visit
the brethren, their poor houses, cells, and churches
shall prove to them the best sermons, and they shall
be more edified by these things than by words." The
Franciscans of Paris, it is told, built a magnificent hall,
but Brother Agnellus prayed that it might be destroyed,
and it immediately fell.
The first Franciscan house in Rome was established
in 1229, in the hospital of St. Blasio ; and subsequently
Innocent iv., having evicted the Benedictines from the
Convent of St. Maria in Ara Coeli, bestowed it on the
Minorites. Gregorovius, the historian of Rome, has
shown us these friars : " Wearing the brown cowl, and
with the white cord around their bodies, triumphant
mendicant brothers entered the ancient capital, and
from the legendary palace of Octavian, on the summit
of the Tarpeian fortress, a barefooted 'general' of
mendicants issued commands to subject 'provinces,'
which, as in the time of the ancient Romans, stretched
from distant Britain to the seas of Asia."
The mendicants, largely through their zeal and
partly through their privileges, outstripped all other

132 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
religious societies in the Church. Among these privi
leges was the right to take into their ranks members
of any Brotherhood, while no friar could be withdrawn
from his own Order. Their advancement in the four
teenth century is illustrated by the story that the
students of Oxford were reduced from thirty thousand
to six thousand. Men decided that their sons should
not pass within the walls of the university lest they
should become friars. These figures are exaggerated,
and the Black Death and other causes helped the dim
inution of the students. None the less, the enthus
iasm for success led the mendicants to unjust deeds, if
we believe the charge of the Archbishop of Armagh.
In 1357 he appeared before the papal Court at
Avignon with this declaration : " Enticed by the
wiles of the friars and by little presents, these boys
(for the friars cannot circumvent men of mature age)
enter the Orders, nor are they afterwards allowed,
according to report, to get their liberty by leaving the
Order, but they are kept with them against their will
until they make profession ; further, they are not per
mitted, as it is said, to speak with their father or
mother, except under the supervision and fear of a
friar ; an instance came to my knowledge this very
day; as I came out of my inn an honest man from
England, who has come to this Court to obtain a
remedy, told me that immediately after last Easter,
the friars at the university of Oxford abducted in this
manner his son, who was not yet thirteen years old,
and when he went there, he could not speak with him
except under the supervision of a friar."
The popes, as a rule, would listen to no condemnation
of the men who were in a special way their servants,

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 133
and the accusations of the archbishop led to no remedy.
The university of Oxford, however, passed a statute
which, while attesting the zeal of the mendicants, pro
nounced it injurious to the prosperity of the univer
sity. The statute runs : " It is generally reported
and proved by experience, that the nobles of this
realm, those of good birth, and very many of the
common people, are afraid, and therefore cease, to send
their sons or relatives or others dear to them in tender
youth, when they would make most advance in prim
itive sciences, to the university to be instructed, lest
any friars of the Order of mendicants should entice
or induce such children, before they have reached
years of discretion, to enter the Order of the same
mendicants ; and because owing to the admission of
such boys to the mendicant Orders, the tranquillity
of the students of the university has been often dis
turbed; therefore the said university, zealous in the
bowels of piety both for the number of her sons and
the quiet of her students, has ordained and decreed,
that if any of the Order of mendicants shall receive
to their habit in this university, or induce, or cause
to be received or induced, any such youth before the
completion of his eighteenth year at least, or shall
send such an one away from the university or cause
him to be sent away, in order that he may be received
into the same Order elsewhere: then eo ipso no one
of the cloister or community of such a friar . . . being
a graduate, shall during the year immediately fol
lowing, read or attend lectures in this university or
elsewhere, where such exercises would count as dis
charge of the statutable requirements in this univer
sity; and this penalty shall be inflicted on all those

134 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of the Order of mendicants, and the associates of
all those, who shall be convicted by credible persons
of having withdrawn youths in any way from the
university, or from learning philosophy."
The mendicants were able to induce the king in
parliament to annul this statute, under certain con
ditions, and once more they triumphed.
The opposition which they excited may have been
due to the rivalry of the secular clergy, who were
powerful in the university ; but that opposition serves
to illustrate the reception which mendicant enthusiasm
provoked among the members of existing institutions.
Wiclif has been credited with continuing the opposi
tion of the archbishop. It was not, however, till 1381
that he came into conflict with the friars in regard
to transubstantiation. Yet in spite of quarrels he
was not unjust to their reputation when he pro
phesied : " I anticipate that some of the friars whom
God shall be pleased to enlighten will return with
all devotion to the original religion of Christ, will
lay aside their unfaithfulness, and with the consent
of Antichrist, offered or solicited, will freely return
to primitive truth, and then build up the Church,
as Paul did before them."
The progress of the two great Orders was extra
ordinary, exciting the jealousy of rivals, and fostering
their own pride. In the thirteenth century, when
there were multitudes of conversions, the kingdom
of God seemed to be coming with observation.
In 1825, at the close of six hundred years of history,
the Dominicans counted among their numbers four
popes, seventy cardinals, four hundred and sixty
bishops, four presidents of General Councils, twenty-

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 135
five legates a latere, eighty apostolic nuncios, and
one prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. They
claimed, too, four thousand writers of distinction,
though they placed many inglorious names on this
roll of fame. They were able to point to men of
illustrious reputation, like Thomas Aquinas ; and with
no small satisfaction numbered Antoninus, the first to
write a complete history of the world ; and Jacobus de
Voragine, whose Golden Legend has been translated
into all the languages of the West. Among artists
the brilliant names of Fra Bartolomeo and Fra Angelico
have been associated with the Order. In 1243, within
a generation after the passing of Dominic, one of the
Friars -Preachers, Hugh of Vienne, was created a
cardinal ; and another, Peter of Tarentaise, in 1276,
ascended the papal throne as Innocent V.
The Minorites relate that in 1381 they had fifteen
hundred houses, though another account has it that,
in 1264, there were eight thousand cloisters with two
hundred thousand friars. In their catalogue of distin
guished men are five popes, fifty cardinals, and a host
of minor prelates. The year 1289 saw in Nicholas IV.
the Franciscan as pope.
These ecclesiastical distinctions, while they appear
inappropriate to mendicants, indicate the vast influence
exercised by the friars of Dominic and Francis.
Apart from their exposition of the dogma when they
were found among the schoolmen, and their protection
of it when they acted as inquisitors, the Dominicans
earned and retained the reputation of cultured
preachers, and crowded the churches with hearers.
Legend played about the mission of John of Vicenza,
hiding him in signs and wonders; but no miracle

136 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
save the love of Christ inspired the lips of Savonarola,
who, in the closing years of the fifteenth century,
preached the gospel of repentance in Florence, gaining
distinction with persecution for himself, and enhancing
the fame of his Order.
The Minorite preacher, who for a time kept the
Florentines away from Savonarola, is not the type
of the true friars of Francis, who found their mission
not among the rich and noble, but among the un
lettered and the poor. Shakespere shows us two
friars in Romeo and Juliet. While the scene is
Italian, it is probable that use is made of the repu
tation of the English Minorites. Friar John calls
out, " Holy Franciscan friar ! brother ! ho ! " and thus
answers Friar Laurence —
" Going to find a bare-foot brother out,
One of our Order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth."
Centuries after the foundation of the Orders, Lord
Bacon wrote : " There is in man's nature a secret in
clination and motion towards love of others, which,
if it be not spent upon some one, or a few, doth
naturally spread it selfe towards many ; and maketh
man become humane and charitable; as it is seene
sometime in friars."
Professor Brewer, the editor of Monumenta Fran-
ciscana, has pointed out the influence exercised by
the Franciscans over the poorer classes of the medieval
towns, and has attempted to prove from the localities

PROGRESS OF THE ORDERS 137
of their convents in England that it was their pur
pose to labour among the humblest people. In these
towns there were masses of the unenfranchised, with
no part in municipal life ; and the trade guilds were
close corporations, to which entrance was difficult.
The tyranny of feudalism drove the impatient from
the rural districts to increase the poverty and dis
content of the cities, where the struggle for life,
the meagre rewards of labour, the pride of the rich,
made the poor the open enemies of the civil and
ecclesiastical rulers, and caused them to be ever ready
for religious and political change. "The sediment
of the town population in the Middle Ages," says a
modern writer, " was a dense slough of stagnant
misery, squalor, famine, loathsome disease, and dull
despair, such as the worst slums of London, Paris,
or Liverpool know nothing of."
The same writer, Dr. Jessop, in The Coming of the
Friars, gives a vivid description of the Franciscans
in England. "Outside the city walls," he says, "at
Lynn and York and Bristol; in a filthy swamp at
Norwich, through which the drainage of the city
sluggishly trickled into the river, never a foot lower
than its banks; in a mere barn-like structure, with
walls of mud, at Shrewsbury ; in the ' stinking alley '
in London, the Minorites took up their abode, and
there they lived on charity, doing for the lowest the
most menial offices, speaking to the poorest the words
of hope, preaching to learned and simple such sermons
— short, homely, fervent, and emotional — as the world
had not heard for many a day." This description,
founded on facts set forth in the Monumenta Fran-
ciscana, makes, indeed, for the conclusion that the

138 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Franciscan mission was primarily intended for the
outcasts and the poor. For these unfortunate men
there was practically, in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, no religious provision; and it is therefore
intelligible why, in France and Italy especially, where
the Church was richest and most powerful, heresy
flourished and was the sign of priestly neglect. The
churches were indeed open to all, but they were not
placed where the poor herded; and between the
worldly ecclesiastics and the dwellers in the slums
there was a violent social contrast, and neither
courtesy nor sympathy. To the destitute the friars
of St. Francis went with the gospel of Christ, and,
as not seldom they had renounced wealth and rank,
their sincerity was respected. They had indeed
houses as soon as they settled in a town, but luxury
was unknown and comfort there was none. Their
fare was scanty, their dress that of paupers. Many
were not priests, and none were worldly ecclesiastics.
And so they found their way to the weary and heavy
laden, and were welcomed. They preached the gospel
to the poor, in the name of the Son of Man, who
had not where to lay His head; and they told the
tale of Mary, tender and compassionate. They were
bearers, indeed, of glad tidings, of the love of God, the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the pity of the Virgin ;
and they who received them learned that though
despised on earth they were remembered in heaven.

CHAPTER VI
The Mendicants and the Inquisition
Innocent iii., Gibbon says, "may boast of the two
most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the
establishment of transubstantiation and the origin of
the Inquisition." The great pope, through whom the
papacy reached its height of political grandeur, opposed
arms to heresy when worldly policies had destroyed,
and priestly threatenings had failed to restore, the
unity of the Church. There was an inquisition, indeed,
among the Cathari, which preceded the crusade, but
wanting organisation it proved ineffective. The crusade
itself secured victims by the thousand, and yet when
the tale of blood was told, the progress of heresy had
still to be checked. Dominic worked in Languedoc,
and many have styled him the founder of the Inquisi
tion; yet it was not formally established till years
had passed after his death. His purpose, to raise up
learned expounders of the dogma, was realised through
his own enthusiasm and devotion to the Church. When,
however, the fervour he inspired had been chilled, and
meaner concerns interested and occupied the friars, it
was natural that these men with intellectual traditions
should be ready for service when Rome determined to
organise a magistracy for examining the faith of indi
viduals and assigning punishments. Right reason de-
139

140 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
manded that the dogma, judged by believers to be the
truth of God, should be expounded and defended by
trained men ; and an expectation was formed that this
truth would secure a signal success, if only its divine
character could be demonstrated. Dominic's scheme,
certainly no worthless one, was meant to secure the
victory of truth over error by lawful spiritual and
ecclesiastical means ; but it was violated when the
Inquisition crushed heretics and schismatics, and free
dom was opposed by crass authority.
The radiant love of Francis, which glowed on all God's
creation, had nothing akin to that stern spirit which
filled the men who touched the cruel work of the
Inquisition; and yet there were Franciscans who
became papal extirpators of heresy.
The crusade, as a religious war, failed in Languedoc,
and under the leadership of Simon de Montfort passed
into a territorial campaign, by which he enriched his
family and ultimately increased the domain of France.
Heresy was not vanquished ; and Rome, not content to
be less than victor, gradually built up the Inquisition,
with defined powers and regular officers, to be an engine
for destroying the enemies of the Church in France
and throughout Christendom.
The history of the Inquisition, whatever the motives
of churchmen may have been, reveals a long and varied
series of crimes against humanity. The number of the
victims of the Holy Office in any country cannot be
given, since accounts were not always kept, and some of
the actual records were destroyed in the fury of revolu
tions. Llorente, in his history of the Inquisition, asserts
that in Spain alone thirty -one thousand persons were
burnt, and two hundred and ninety thousand otherwise

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 141
punished. These figures have been examined by Prescott
and discounted by Hefele ; but no partisan, by reducing
statistics, has been able to remove the disgrace of the
Spanish Inquisition.
Significant is the fact chronicled by Motley : " Upon
the 16th of February 1568 a sentence of the Holy Office
condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to
death as heretics. A proclamation of the king, dated ten
years later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition and
ordered it to be carried into instant execution. . . .
Three millions of people, men, women, and children,
were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines." With
the Holy Office, as a spiritual or ecclesiastical Court,
the mendicants, and especially the Dominicans, were
associated ; and the praise or blame for its deeds was
theirs, even while the ultimate responsibility rested
with the Church.
Before the thirteenth century, by an arrangement
based on the Theodosian Code, the duty of securing
purity of belief was assigned to the bishop, who was
the accuser, and the civil magistrate, who was the
judge. The mendicants, however, acquired the right
to seek out and to punish heretics. Probably the
machinations of Frederick n. influenced the popes to
take into their own hands the treatment of their
religious enemies, many of whom had avowed them
selves imperialists.
The relation of the civil magistrate to religion, the
connection of Church and State, are questions variously
answered and provocative of prejudice and passion.
Rome demanded submission from governments; but
in sending out inquisitors it weakened its connection
with various States, and there were countries with

142 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
courage and strength to preserve their citizens from
the hands of the officials of religion. It was by no
violent assertion of prerogative that Innocent in. called
upon Raymond of Toulouse to crush the Albigenses,
nor, on the other hand, did Frederick n. usurp a right
when, to preserve the favour of the Church, he enacted
stern laws for the suppression of heretics ; but when
one pope after another sent the mendicants to exercise
functions which had belonged to civil magistrates, and
to treat useful and well-behaved citizens with barbaric
cruelty, the union of the Church with certain States
was weakened, and kings learned that their obedience
to the Bishop of Rome had defined limits. Philip the
Fair, to take one example, opposed the Dominican
inquisitors of Toulouse, when he was in open quarrel
with Rome, and released many of their prisoners. The
kings of England, with the pride and power of their
country, did not submit the liberties of their subjects
to the tyranny of a foreign and secret tribunal.
The usurpation by clerics of functions long exercised
by civil magistrates, and the disputes regarding the
nature of the cases falling under the jurisdiction of
the civil and ecclesiastical courts, caused disturbances
not easily settled. They had, moreover, far-reaching
effects, and may be taken as factors in the secularisa
tion of politics, as Lecky styles it, which is character
istic of the life of the modern world.
The bishops of the Church having failed to preserve
doctrinal purity, even in Rome, might have been ex
pected to welcome the mendicants as inquisitors, especi
ally the Preachers, with their training in theology ; but
a long and bitter strife began when a Dominican re
ceived a commission to examine a case of heresy.

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 143
The friars, having no monastic duties and no paro
chial attachments, were free to be the servants of the
Church; and scholarship was at first an excellent
preparation for the service to which they were called.
The leading heretics were not foolish and unlettered
men seeking for novelties in religion and dominated
by rash enthusiasm. Some were intelligent critics of
theological pretensions and skilled opponents of certain
doctrines set forth as truths of God, even though their
own systems of thought were at fault. The ordinary
bishop or priest, with no speculative interests and no
scientific education, was singularly unfitted to deal
with intellectual foes. He did not, as a rule, object
to cruel methods, and did not reckon argument his
only weapon with which to meet an enemy. He might
therefore have welcomed the aid of trained men, had
not his own province been invaded and his privileges
reduced. He accordingly opposed the functionaries,
while approving the establishment of the Inquisition.
The Dominicans were the first papal servants, after
the termination of the crusade, to receive a command
to labour among the Albigenses. It is to the year
1227, however, that the Inquisition may be assigned,
though some have associated its foundation with the
injunctions of the fourth Lateran Council to bishops
to search for and punish heretics. In that year atten
tion was called to Filippo Paternon, a prelate in whose
diocese, extending from Pisa to Arezzo, Catharism had
progressed, and from which it had passed to Florence.
In its early stage, in the year 1226, the case had been
tried before the Bishop of Florence and a magistrate.
Paternon, pleading guilty, was released without punish
ment ; but as he continued in his old ways, Gregory ix.

144 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
appointed a commission to examine the charges brought
against him, and gave the chief place in it to a
Dominican, Fra Giovanni di Salerno. The canons
fixed by the Lateran Council for settling the troubles
in Languedoc were to regulate the conduct of this
case. Fra Giovanni died in 1230, but a successor was
appointed and the work continued. It is this com
mission which may be reckoned the formal beginning
of the Inquisition, seeing that its members were named
and its powers defined.
The work of Fra Giovanni and his successor satisfied
Rome, and in 1233 Gregory ix. issued two bulls, which
have sometimes been taken as the foundation of the
Inquisition. A Council of Toulouse, 1229, had enacted,
in conformity with the injunctions of the Lateran Coun
cil, that each city should establish a board of inquisition,
composed of one cleric and three laymen. This arrange
ment, however, was set aside by the new decrees.
The first of these decrees, addressed to bishops, con
tained the words : " We, seeing you engrossed in the
whirlwind of cares, and scarce able to breathe in the
pressure of overwhelming anxieties, think it well to
divide your burdens, that they may be more easily
borne. We have therefore determined to send preach
ing friars against the heretics of France and the
adjoining provinces, and we beg, warn, and exhort you,
ordering you, as you reverence the Holy See, to receive
them kindly, and to treat them well, giving them in
this, as in all else, favour, counsel, and aid, that they
may fulfil their office." The second bull, addressed to
the "Priors and Friars of the Order of Preachers,
Inquisitors," proceeded thus: "Therefore you, or any
of you, wherever you may happen to preach, are em-

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 145
powered, unless they desist from such defence (of
heretics) on monition, to deprive clerks of their bene
fices forever, and to proceed against them and all
others, without appeal, calling in the aid of the secular
arm, if necessary, and coercing opposition, if requisite,
with the censures of the Church, without appeal."
Gregory did not see the consequences of his act when
he bestowed such extraordinary power ; and, at a later
time, to limit the number with this authority, was
compelled to instruct the provincials of the Order to
select specially qualified men.
It was deemed a wise and merciful arrangement
that bishops or priests should not preside over the
newly constituted tribunals, as they might act with
malice against private enemies, involving the innocent
with the guilty. The mendicants, on the other hand,
with no local connections where they laboured, might
be expected to do justly, and to be above suspicion of
avarice. And it is worthy of note that at the founda
tion of the Inquisition they were at their full height
of popularity, honoured as good and faithful servants
of religion.
In Languedoc, however, some of these friars laboured
in a fashion which stirred hatred and fury, and in
that place was begun the unholy reputation of the
Inquisition. The traditions of the crusade and the
religious character of the people stimulated the friars
to a rigour which was cruelty, and a zeal which was
brutality. Legal methods, even the crudities of medieval
times, were abandoned. False witnesses were heard ;
or at anyrate, the evidence of criminals was accepted.
The accused were entrapped by insidious questions, and
advocates were refused for their defence. In many
10

146 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
places there were riots, and, though in 1237 the pope
associated the milder Franciscans with the Dominicans,
the tumult continued, till for a time the Inquisition was
suspended. Another interest attaches to this raid on
unbelief. In Languedoc the inquisitors began the
regular use of the punishment of burning, which the
Church has made its own, improperly interpreting the
words: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them,
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
This punishment was not new, being known from the
period of the Council of Chalcedon, but it had been
rarely employed.
At the publication of the bulls of 1233 it was not
the intention of the pope to interfere with the
bishops, and at first there was no serious friction. In
that year certain rules were approved by Rome, con
taining provision that in every diocese the bishops
should act in name of the Church. In 1234 the Arch
bishop of Sens remonstrated against the invasion of
the friars as inquisitors into his territory, and Gregory
IX., revoking all commissions, simply advised the pre
late to make use of the Preachers. Further proof is
not wanting that Rome had no intention of interfering
with episcopal rights. Fra Ruggieri Calcagni, in 1243,
described himself as "inquisitor Domini Papse in
Tuscia," and elsewhere styled himself inquisitor of the
pope and the bishop. In spite of papal prudence, how
ever, the Dominicans were to come into collision with
the prelates, wresting from them and from the Francis
cans the supreme control of the Inquisition.
It is not strange, from the aggressive orthodoxy and
ecclesiastical zeal of Dominic, that his friars should

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 147
have become inquisitors ; but it is surprising that
followers of Francis should have engaged in the work
of crushing heretics. They may have been moved by
jealousy, grudging distinction to their rivals. In any
case, they acted as inquisitors ; and to them were
entrusted parts of France and Italy, and, later,
Bohemia and Dalmatia. In 1254, by the special
arrangement of Innocent IV., the care of Italy was
divided between the two Orders, and to the Franciscans
were assigned the central and southern districts.
Occasionally the Orders were associated, as in Aragon,
where the two provincials were appointed the chief
inquisitors of the kingdom, but this association
nowhere conduced to peace. It was inevitable that
offences should come, when servants of Rome were
associated with men, such as the French prelates, who
did not lightly yield to the pope. This association is
illustrated from the Council of Narbonne, 1243 or
1244, at which were representatives from the provinces
of Narbonne, Aries, and Aix.
The canons of this council were addressed to the
Dominicans, and these words were written by the
bishops : " We write this to you, not that we wish to
bind you down by our advice, as it would not be fitting
to limit the freedom accorded to your discretion by other
forms and rules than those of the Holy See, to the pre
judice of the business ; but we wish to help your devo
tion, as we are commanded to do by the Holy See, since
you, who bear our burdens, ought to be, through mutual
charity, assisted with help and advice." Further, the
inquisitors were to have the right to pass judgments
and impose sentences ; and this significant declaration
was made : " You are to abstain from these pecuniary

148 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
penances and exactions, both for the sake of the
honour of your Order and because you will have fully
enough other work to which to attend."
A provincial council could not bind the whole
Church, and very soon, indeed, the canons were
modified for use in the provinces represented in the
Council of Narbonne. A step of extreme import
ance was taken when a body of bishops entrusted
to the Dominicans definite powers of sentencing and
punishing heretics. The command to men to abstain
from imposing pecuniary penances, for the sake of the
honour of their Order, implies a rapid decline of
purity in the few years which had elapsed from the
time when the Dominican chapter accepted the rule
of poverty. In a provincial chapter, in 1242, it
was decided that money should not be touched or
pecuniary penances imposed. Yet temptation was
ever strong, and in 1245 Innocent IV. was forced to
ordain that the fines which were still continued should
be expended on building prisons and supporting
prisoners ; and, in 1251, the same pope had to take
the extreme step of forbidding their exaction. The
scandal, however, was not removed. Nicholas iv. gave
to bishops and inquisitors together a power to
nominate custodians and administrators of the money
wrung from heretics. Finally, the mendicants
triumphed when Benedict XI., in 1304, decreed that
they were to be freed from episcopal interference and
were to render their accounts directly to papal
deputies. Money was now extorted in every conceivable way,
and many were the scandals. Benedict himself
addressed a warning to the inquisitors of Padua and

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 149
Vicenza, from which complaints had been made to
Rome; and in 1311, at the Council of Vienne,
Clement v., after investigating charges against the
Dominicans, put on record that he was convinced they
were proven. A crisis was reached when Clement VI.,
in 1343, discovered that the inquisitors of Florence
and Lucca were defrauding the papal Court of its legal
share of fines. Avarice corrupted the mendicants, and
throughout the history of the Inquisition their zeal for
purity of doctrine was stimulated by love of money,
which they had vowed not to touch. It is impossible
to estimate, at any period, the wealth derived through
the Inquisition, the sale of indulgences or benefac
tions ; but the dealings of the English Franciscans
with Boniface viii. serve to show that the friars had
money when occasion demanded. These Franciscans
wished the pope to relax their Rule, so that they might
hold lands, and to purchase this relaxation they
deposited forty thousand ducats with certain bankers.
Boniface showed that a pontiff was not above sharp
practices. He pretended to consider the question,
and then, refusing the relaxation, seized the ducats on
the ground that the Franciscans had no right to possess
money. The example of the founders of the Orders,
the express directions of the Rules, and their vows,
were alike powerless to overcome cupidity.
The inquisitors had far-reaching powers to make
them feared. They were authorised to deal directly
with suspects, to summon any individual in a case ;
and were required to answer, when their fame was
highest, to the pope alone. The superiors of the
Orders, after long years of conflict, ceased to have
jurisdiction over the Brothers serving on the

ISO FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Inquisition ; and when Boniface vin. decreed that they
had a power of removal he was practically overruled,
tenacious of purpose though he was, when the friars
claimed that they must be tried and condemned, and
not simply deposed.
The Franciscan superiors endeavoured to preserve
their authority by granting commissions for a definite
number of years, but the Dominicans were persuaded
that such commissions were useless for men who were
to be papal servants. The inquisitors were ever in
touch with Rome, and their peculiar services, especially
the transmission of fines, secured powers which made
them independent of all authority save that of the pope.
To outward appearance the inquisitors were still
humble friars, as they wore the recognised garments
of their Orders, and professed to be poor. Yet their
humility was false, and a layman would use the most
extravagant phrases of courtesy, saying even : " Your
Religious Majesty," and showing himself ever ready
to flatter. They were not men to be loved, since
tragedy so often went with them ; and the local clergy
and priests, thinking of their own invaded rights, did
nothing to help them to be respected. Heretics saw
in them their judges and executioners, and pious
Catholics, satisfied to be at peace with their neighbours,
looked on them as destroyers of social order. Very
early it was said of the Dominicans: "They have
created a court of judgment, and whosoever attacks
them they declare to be a Waldensian ; they seek to
penetrate into the secrets of all men, so as to render
themselves dreaded."
The secular clergy had another grievance, apart
from invaded rights. As preservers of the faith the

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 151
inquisitors acted as ecclesiastical police, watching the
local priests and reporting on their work to the
bishops, who were required to act as ordered. The police
work might have produced excellent results, as it was
an episcopal service ; yet it simply created dispeace.
Men, too, severed from the things of the world, might
have been expected to direct prince and peasant alike.
Had the Orders been wise spiritual Brotherhoods, they
might have continued the missionary labours of the
founders, and their fervour might have created some
thing at least of that enthusiasm for piety which
crowned the efforts of Dominic and Francis. But
when the friars, in the years of unimpassioned faith,
were drawn from every class of society, without test
of qualification for Christ-like service, there was no
method of securing pious guides for the people.
Undoubtedly, among the mendicants, even when
spiritual degradation was the general mark, were to be
found the best religious teachers and guides within the
Church. Yet it must be asserted that, as a rule, the
inquisitors used their powers not to assist individual
souls in righteousness, but to spy into the ways
of families, to fashion the conduct of men and
women, so that the Church might be outwardly
reverenced and themselves obeyed. This domestic
superintendence made them detested among laymen,
as they were hated by the priests, into whose ways
they inquired.
The thoroughness and extent of the work of the
inquisitors may be discovered from the fact that in
1245 and 1246 examinations were held in six hundred
places in Languedoc ; and in a single locality, to take
an example, four hundred and twenty cases were tried.

152 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
In the Courts, in addition to heretics, magicians,
sorcerers, and soothsayers were tried ; and the examina
tions and punishments were the same for the accused,
whatever the charge preferred. The use of torture
in criminal examinations was extended by Innocentiv.
to heresy trials. In 1252 he enjoined civil magistrates
in Lombardy and Tuscany to employ torture for ex
tracting from prisoners confessions of guilt and also
information regarding their associates.
Mosheim gives a vivid description of the application
of torture. " The torture," he says, " was by the rope,
by water, and by fire. The rope was passed under the
arms, which were tied behind the back of the accused.
By this rope he was drawn up into the air with a
pulley, and there left to swing for a time, and then
suddenly let fall to within half a foot of the ground,
by the shock of which fall all his joints were
dislocated. If he still confessed nothing, the torture
by water was tried. After making him drink a great
quantity of water he was laid upon a hollowed bench ;
across the middle of this bench a stick of timber passed
which kept the body of the offender suspended, and
caused him most intense pain in the backbone. The
most cruel torture was that by fire, in which his feet,
being smeared with grease, etc., were directed towards
a hot fire, and the soles of them left to burn till he
would confess. Each of- these tortures was continued
as long as in the judgment of the physician of the
Inquisition the man was able to endure them. He
might now confess what he would, but still the torture
would be repeated, first to discover the object and
motive of the acknowledged offence, and then to make
him expose his accomplices. If when tortured he

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 153
confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit
from him unconsciously his offence. The conclusion
was that the accused, when he seemed to have satisfied
the judges, was condemned according to the measure
of his offence to death, or to perpetual imprisonment,
or to the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was
delivered over to the civil authorities, who were
entreated to spare his life, as the Church never
thirsted for blood ; but yet they would experience
persecution if they did not carry the decisions of the
Court into execution."
By a strange pretence the cleric who did not plead
for mercy for a prisoner became subject to ecclesiastical
censure. The custom was of ancient origin, traceable
to the time when it was not lawful for a Christian
to be the direct or indirect cause of a man's death.
The rule had to be relaxed for laymen, but was con
tinued for clerics, who delivered the accused to
punishment, and went through the form of asking
for mercy. Boniface viii. decided that bishops must
give over culprits to the secular arm, knowing at
the same time they would make appeals for pity which
would be futile ; and, long afterwards, Innocent vin.
excommunicated any magistrate who hindered the
execution of a sentence for which a plea of mitigation
of punishment had been tendered.
There is a tradition that Dante on one occasion
appeared before a tribunal of the Inquisition. The
story, which is more than doubtful, is that the
Franciscans, annoyed with what was said in the
Commedia regarding the degeneracy of the Order,
brought him to trial. He asked time to prepare a
defence, and in a few hours presented the poem,

154 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
" Dante's Confession of Faith." When it was read he
was at once acquitted. The authorship of the poem,
however, is as doubtful as the truth of the story.
Wherever they appeared the inquisitors made papal
authority paramount and the pope's name familiar;
but they also made that authority irksome and that
name greatly to be feared. The idea of Roman
supremacy was intruded into family life. Hilde
brand, seeing spiritual independence violated by
imperial hands, determined to obtain freedom ; and, in
the strife with Henry, tasting the pleasure of political
power, desired to secure lordship over all princes.
Now, after Innocent in. had been lord-paramount of
the West, his successors were sending their servants
into every house ; and, making their power real, caused
themselves to be feared, and not seldom detested,
vice-gerents of God though they were styled. The
mendicants, in their first years, carried glad tidings
to multitudes, and reverence was paid to him who,
professing to be Christ's vicar, was doing His work.
In the years when their piety was corrupted they
continued to declare the supremacy of the Bishop of
Rome over all Christendom, over all princes and all
prelates ; but they could not inspire respect for the
man who claimed to be the representative of Christ.
And when the Roman power was embodied in
inquisitors, and the pope's messengers were spies and
then judges, liberty was lost, family peace was ruined,
and the name of the Bishop of Rome abhorred.
Hated though they were, the inquisitors were eager
for their tragic mission, careless of danger and ready
for any death which could be hailed as martyrdom.
Their papal commission did not protect them when

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 155
men in their wrath rose up against them, heedless of
the quarter from which they had come. And some
times this wrath was furious, meaning danger to the
oppressors. As early as 1233 two Dominicans sent
to search for heretics in Cordes were slain; and in
Narbonne, in 1235, there was a rising in which the
Dominicans were driven from the city and their
convent sacked.
A dramatic incident occurred in 1235, illustrating
the fervour of the inquisitors and the obedience of the
friars. Guillem Arnauld, in his pursuit of heretics,
summoned twelve citizens of Toulouse to appear for
examination regarding their faith. The men happened
to be citizens of repute, and instead of obeying procured
a magisterial order to the inquisitor to leave the city.
Arnauld in turn would not depart, and was ejected. A
violent quarrel ensued, but his purpose was not to be
thwarted, and after some weeks he requested the
Dominican prior of Toulouse to send messengers to
intimate to the rebellious citizens that they must
appear at Carcassonne. The prior did not hesitate,
but, causing the convent bell to be tolled and the
friars to be assembled, addressed them, saying:
"Brethren, rejoice, for I must send four of you
through martyrdom to the throne of the Most High.
Such are the commands of our brother, Guillem the
Inquisitor, and whosoever obeys them will be slain on
the spot, as threatened by the consuls. Let those who
are ready to die for Christ ask pardon." Every friar
present threw himself on the ground to ask for pardon,
and then rose, offering himself to death. In the sequel
no one suffered injury. Arnauld, however, was reserved
for a death which his friends counted martyrdom, and

156 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
which might well be reckoned the just reward of
incessant cruelty. He and zealots like him pursued
their ways, as ready to die as to kill, and the guilt
fastened to the slayer of a cleric alone restrained the
hands of men constantly tempted to revenge. In 1242
Arnauld, with certain companions, Dominicans and
Franciscans among them, arrived at Avignonet, and
entered a castle where they were to hold a Court.
The chief man of the district, Raymond d'Alfaro, the
representative of Count Raymond, had his master's
cause to avenge. He arranged a plot for the destruc
tion of the inquisitors, who one and all, when darkness
had fallen, were slain in the hall of the castle. The
mace of d'Alfaro crushed the skull of Arnauld.
The career of St. Peter Martyr shows the inquisitor
in the unusual character of a saint. Piero da Verona,
born at the beginning of the thirteenth century, was
the son of a heretic. From his earliest years, the story
runs, he showed extraordinary attachment to the
orthodox creed, being moved by the Holy Ghost, and
in 1221 he became a member of the Dominican Order.
As a friar he was guiltless of sin, and also as an
inquisitor, and in his conduct he exhibited all the
virtues of the Christian life. Miracles were at his
command to aid him in his work of conversion. In
1233 he became inquisitor in Milan, and no long
time elapsed till his labours were crowned by the
burning of several heretics. So unwearied was he in
spiritual toil that his persecutions roused a tumult in
Milan, in 1242, which was almost destructive of the
city. From Milan he removed to Florence, where the
Inquisition may be said to have been founded, and
where the conspicuous effect was the increase of heresy.

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 157
Piero was delegated to assist Fra Ruggieri, who, enthusi
astic though he was, was soon eclipsed by the stranger.
Piero's preaching attracted crowds, and he was success
ful in organising a special guard of nobles for the
protection of the inquisitors. The heretics, as oppon
ents of the Church, were under the care of the
Emperor Frederick 11., and they also were organised.
Armed bands were not wont to keep the peace. Two
battles were fought in Florence, in both of which
Piero as captain was victorious, and heresy and
imperialism alike were for a time suppressed.
Frederick 11. died in 1250, and in the following year
the pope, rejoicing in the death of his great opponent,
who for political ends protected the heretics, com
manded the Inquisition to increase its vigour. Orders
were sent to Piero to proceed to Cremona, where, and
afterwards at Milan, he laboured so unceasingly that
a plot was organised for his murder. Assassins were
hired, and on a day when he was journeying with a
single companion he was set upon, and his head
crushed with a blow. Piero was a martyr, and before
a year was a canonised saint. Reverence for his
memory did not die. In 1340 the body was translated
to the Church of St. Eustorgius in Milan, where a
magnificent tomb had been raised for its reception;
and in 1586 Sixtus V. spoke of him as the second
head of the Inquisition, and styled him its first
martyr. Titian and Guido each selected the martyr
dom as a subject for his art.
Conrad of Marburg, the confessor of St. Elizabeth,
was a Dominican, according to certain writers,
though the statement is doubtful. Whatever his
ecclesiastical station may have been, he was pro-

158 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
bably the most fanatical of all the inquisitors who
employed wanton cruelty for the perfecting of the
saints, such as Elizabeth of Hungary, and sheer
brutality for purifying the Church from heretics.
He attempted to establish the Inquisition in Germany,
but the Germans, with love of freedom, would suffer
no tribunal governed by Rome to be erected in their
midst, and some of them, nobles they were, roused by
his atrocities, murdered him as an oppressor. He
thought like a madman, and acted as a fool, heedless
of the warnings of the German prelates; and there
were patriots to free their country from his unbridled
fury. The Spanish Inquisition, forming one of the darkest
chapters in the history of the Church, was entrusted
to the Dominicans. Under the influence of Thomas de
Torquemada, Queen Isabella applied to Sixtus iv. to
establish the Inquisition in Castile. A papal bull of
institution, published in 1478, decreed that the
members of the tribunal should be chosen by the
sovereigns, to whom all confiscated properties were
to be given. In 1483 Torquemada himself was
appointed chief inquisitor of Castile, and, a few years
later, of Aragon.
Every year, at the beginning of Lent, the clergy
were required to rouse the people to give information
against all persons suspected of heresy. Spies were
employed; false witnesses found their vocation;
torture was used to wring confessions.
In 1481 the Spanish holocaust began when six
victims perished at Seville, and before ten months
had passed two hundred and twenty-eight persons
were burnt in that city. In a few years the victims

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 159
throughout the country numbered two thousand,
while thousands of men, after fines, confiscation of
property, loss of civil rights and even of personal
liberty, were restored to the Church. The Jews, not
an insignificant portion of the population, suffered
terribly. Some of them had voluntarily accepted
Christianity, and not a few had attained high position
in the State. The Christianised Jews were the special
objects of Torquemada's suspicion, and the men who
remained true to their national faith were treated as
dangerous enemies of the Cross. A general order was
passed by the sovereigns, in 1492, that all Jews must
be baptized or, if steadfast in their religion, quit the
country. It has been reckoned that one hundred
thousand Jews left Spain, while as many remained
and were baptized. The unfortunate people suffered
that the Christian Church might be purified in the
eyes of Torquemada and his friars.
A contemporary painting shows a procession of Jews
and Jewesses to the stake, during the festivities in
Madrid, in 1680, which attended the marriage of
Charles II. One of the victims of 1680 was a beautiful
Jewish girl, in her seventeenth year. Passing to the
place of burning, she cried to the queen, who was a
spectator : " Great queen, is not your presence able to
bring me some comfort under my misery ? Consider
my youth, and that I am condemned for a religion
which I have sucked in with my mother's milk."
The queen did not answer, turning away her eyes.
The atrocities of Torquemada's rule increased, and
Rome again and again interfered, though with partial
effect. The Dominicans professed to be obedient
servants, but they were not easily controlled. The

160 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Inquisition continued as an ecclesiastical Court in
Spain till the year 1813, when it was finally abolished.
Long before that year, however, the tribunal had
become harmless.
In Spain there was a custom which illustrated the
wanton cruelty tincturing the orthodox theology.
The victim of the Holy Office was led to the flames,
dressed in garments covered with representations of
devils and scenes of torture, and these were intended
to show what the Most High had prepared for the
enemies of the faith. It was everywhere the same
teaching, that the earthly was the prelude to the
eternal punishment. " It is horrible," says Lecky, " it
is appalling, to reflect what the mother, the wife, the
sister, the daughter of the heretic must have suffered
from this teaching. She saw the body of him who
was dearer to her than life, dislocated and writhing and
quivering with pain ; she watched the slow fire creep
ing from limb to limb till it had swallowed him in a
sheet of agony, and when at last the scream of anguish
had died away and the tortured body was at rest,
she was told that all this was acceptable to the God
she served, and was but a faint image of the sufferings
He would inflict through eternity upon the dead."
The Inquisition had most noted apologists, among
whom was Thomas Aquinas; but it may be safely
affirmed that Francis, if not Dominic, would have con
demned its practices. The association of the Minorites
with persecution and cruelty was the sign of radical
change in their ideal. Imitation of the life of Christ
was for Francis the method of salvation, and in that
imitation was the winning of sinners to holiness by
the charm of love. He was content to be in the

MENDICANTS AND THE INQUISITION 161
Church, though alien to its paramount aims, so long
as he enjoyed liberty for the labours which charity
inspired. It is strange indeed that with his courage
he did not assail Innocent in. for the violence of the
crusade, which the pope himself justified by the
declaration : " He that taketh away the faith stealeth
the life; for the just shall live by faith." Francis,
however, was the director of a mission, not an accuser
of dignitaries or a critic of papal plans. The secret
of his power was charity, which could not contradict
itself through the atrocities of an Inquisition. When,
therefore, the Minorites engaged in cruelties, they
showed themselves fallen away from the high purposes
of their founder.
The Dominicans, too, as the stern ministers of the
Inquisition, forsook the aims of their saint. Dominic
was concerned to have religion taught so that men
might not be carried about with every wind of
doctrine, and that wanderers might be brought back
to recognised beliefs and established customs. The
force he desired to employ was intellectual or spiritual.
Persuasion rather than coercion was his method.
There is a sense in which the persecution of heretics
by the mendicants may be understood, though never
justified. Their teaching in the days of their religious
strength stimulated men to think, and to know them
selves as responsible beings. In the revival of thought,
when spiritual interests were awakened, there was
danger to the dogma. Heresy must not be suffered
to attack the truth, of which the Church was guardian ;
and they who had made attacks possible must prevent
them. Humbert de Romanis, a noted Dominican,
declared that, "even if the pope were a heretic, he

1 62 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
should be punished." An apologist may plead that
the mendicants guarded the sacred possessions of the
Church, persuaded that the sanctity of their mission,
the honesty of their purpose, and the worth of the
dogma justified their use of cruelty,
It would be idle to estimate the injury to religion
had there been no check to religious vagaries; idle,
too, on the other hand, to value the boon had freedom
of thought been permitted. Yet it is to be asserted
that had there been liberty to try the things of religion
the dogma would not have become a dead mass, and
the Reformation, as a revolt against an irrational
authority, might not have taken place.

CHAPTER VII
The Mendicants and Scholasticism
The mendicants, attracting good and clever men to
their Brotherhoods, gave masters to the different pro
vinces of activity; and an influence such as they
manifested in piety and politics was exercised in
philosophy and theology. An Aristotelian renascence
was affecting thought at the period of the foundation
of the Orders, and its significance was not to be
neglected by defenders of the Church. Philosophy
might attack and injure religion, and could not be
ignored. Theology, too, required rational treatment
at a time when ancient ideas were contrasted with
Christian, and received no slight commendation.
Before the appearing of the friars, speculation had
been deemed hostile to religion ; and the new Aristo
telians, the Arabic philosophers, recognising no priestly
authority, drew to their side many who cherished free
dom that they might follow after truth. This freedom
was counted dangerous, but it might be kept in check
were philosophy assigned the task of protecting religion
by vindicating the dogma. The purpose of the thinkers
in the ranks of the mendicants was to present in in
telligible form " the faith which was once delivered
unto the saints," and, as this aim demanded full and
thorough knowledge, they turned with enthusiasm to
163

1 64 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
learning and with eagerness to speculation. The thir
teenth century, which witnessed the changed and
friendly attitude of the Church to philosophy, is to
be reckoned an epoch in the history of thought.
The schools founded by Charlemain gave an impulse
to the education of the West. Logic was fostered, and,
where there were thinkers, esteem for the name of
Aristotle. Churchmen from the first had appreciated
the need of logic for the defence of the faith, but from
the second century, it is said, had looked on Aristotle
as an enemy of Christianity, and on philosophical
speculation as destructive of orthodox belief. There
is a tradition that two noted heretics of that century
styled him their teacher. The Church's attitude to
philosophy was generally hostile, and was maintained
down to the age when Abelard disturbed the tranquillity
of the pious Bernard.
By long tradition philosophy was thus associated
with heresy, and yet the mendicants braved this tradi
tion. They did more, however, than merely cast aside
a prejudice. Avicenna's adaptation of Aristotle, and
the interpretations of Averroes and other Arabic com
mentators, were rendered into Latin ; and of these the
mendicants, contrary to the fashion of churchmen, made
an intelligent and exhaustive study. Aquinas, too, with
a scholar's instinct and a philosopher's ambition for
truth, caused translations to be made directly from the
Greek. By the labours of the mendicants the reputa
tion of Aristotle was changed, and his influence trans
ferred to the defence of the faith.
While Aristotle was greatly suspected by the Fathers
of the Church and the guardians of the dogma, Plato,
with his idealism, was not alien to Christian faith

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 165
setting towards the unseen. Platonism, through the
Jewish-Alexandrian schools, left an impress on the
New Testament, and, later, affected directly the scien
tific presentation of the dogma. Neo- Platonism, too,
was not wholly divergent from Christian doctrine when,
for instance, it sought to bring God and man into a
unity of thought such as was implied in the Incarnation.
A lasting impulse to the study of Plato was given when
Augustine made use of fragments of his teaching. It
was, however, the controversy respecting universals
which made Plato and Aristotle prominent in the eyes
of churchmen. Boethius, translating from Porphyry,
wrote: "Next concerning genera and species, the
question indeed, whether they have a substantial ex
istence, or whether they consist in bare intellectual
concepts only, or whether if they have a substantial
existence, they are corporeal or incorporeal, and
whether they are separable from sensible things or
are only in those things, and subsisting about them,
I shall forbear to determine." The problem thus
stated was not simply one of philosophy, as was shown
in the controversy regarding the doctrine of the Real
Presence. John Scotus Erigena, the philosopher of the
ninth century, in the progress of this controversy, took
the position of champion of realism, a Platonist after a
fashion, but none the less his freedom of speculation
alarmed the orthodox. He contended that the true
religion is the true philosophy, and the true philosophy
the true religion. This identity made the pious suspect
Erigena and tremble for the faith, though he named the
name of Plato. Moreover, the hostility to philosophy
increased when, with its theories of universals, it
examined the doctrine of the Real Presence. The

1 66 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
theologians were alarmed when their assertions were
tested by reason.
The tenth century, pre-eminently the dark age, has
been described by Baronius as a time when Christ was
asleep in the ship. Gerbert, Pope Sylvester n., was a
student of physical science, and in the superstition
rampant at the close of that age he was judged to
be in league with Satan. At the end of the first
millennium of Christian history thought was re
awakened, and once more the problem of universals
attracted notice. Nominalism, at that time traced to
the Aristotelian teaching, was set forth as the theory
that our knowledge of things is given through the
senses ; and opponents were able to show it dangerous
to religion, because destructive of such doctrines as the
Incarnation and the Real Presence. Realism, on the
other hand, was used to defend these very doctrines.
Aristotle and Plato were once more put forward as the
opponent and defender of the dogma ; while discussions
passed into contests between reason and faith, freedom
and authority.
Anselm, distinguished in his own age and not yet
forgotten for his subtle thought, used the weapons of
a philosopher within the domain of theology. His
saying, Credo ut intelligam, established his orthodoxy,
and presented a method to thought ; yet the effort to
understand, though following belief, quickened specu
lation and endangered faith. His cherished purpose,
however, was to verify faith that it might become
truth for the intellect, and his trust in the divine
character of the dogma, which prescribed the content
of faith, made him fearless in his speculative mission.
Anselm, in part responsible for the changing attitude

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 167
of the Church to philosophy, did not carry the method
of free, scientific inquiry to theology, as the famous
Abelard professed to do. The dogma, indeed, suffered
nothing at the hands of Abelard ; his speculations were
pushed to no extravagant length and directed to no
fantastic topic, yet he was zealously watched as the
champion of freedom of thought. In his theory of
conceptualism there was nothing to alarm the most
prudent guardian of the faith. Battles of words, how
ever, were dear to him, and there was no sacred place
of belief guarded against his entrance. He did not
attack the Church's teaching, but sought a guarantee
of truth higher than the mere authority of a council or
pope. The dogma must be tried by reason, and when
he examined the doctrine of the Trinity he gave
Bernard of Clairvaux his opportunity to crush him
under ecclesiastical censure.
These two men represented authority and reason.
Bernard was a dogmatist. The faith had been en
trusted to official guardians, and must be preserved.
Abelard would try it, to see that it was the truth of
God. Their contrast bears yet a further significance.
The one stood for piety, the other for science; or
again, the one represented mystic, the other scholastic
theology. Abelard's strife was not in vain, and he
prepared the way for the mendicants, who in due time,
if they did not assert the supreme right of reason, re
cognised its use in the work of systematising and
explaining the dogma. Peter the Lombard, marking
a reaction from Abelard, though proving his influence,
helped in a limited degree the progress of theological
thought, Abelard had attempted to systematise in his
Theologia, and had appealed to the Fathers in his Sic

1 68 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
et Non, setting one against the other, and accepting or
rejecting their teaching at his pleasure. The Lombard,
on his part, collected testimonies, harmonised them, and
used them for a defence of the dogma. He was pro
gressive, in so far as he appealed not to the finding of
a council or pope or to the word of a dictator such as
Bernard, but to the collective wisdom of the best
thinkers of the Christian ages. He would not stifle
the clamour of reason: he would satisfy it, in a
fashion not dangerous to the Church. Authority
triumphed, while a semblance of freedom was
granted. The Lombard, in spite of his orthodoxy, was opposed
from different directions. Walter of St. Victor repre
sented those who rejected philosophy as dangerous to
religion ; while Joachim of Flora prophesied, and many
believed, that a time would come when contemplative
piety would conquer, crushing speculation and destroy
ing doubt.
The thirteenth century was an age of activity. In
the pontificate of Innocent in. the Latin kingdom of
Constantinople was established ; and, while it endured,
certain scholars of the West obtained facilities for
acquiring a knowledge of Greek and gaining acquaint
ance with ancient manuscripts. Before the establish
ment of that kingdom, however, there were indications
of the renascence of thought, traced to the influence of
the Arabic commentators on Aristotle. Heresy, as by
use and wont, accompanied this revival of speculation.
A system of pantheism, based, it was said, on Aristo-
telianism and Neo - Platonism, was enunciated by
Amalric of Bene and David of Dinant. In 1204 the
university of Paris condemned the doctrine, and, after

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 169
an appeal to Rome, Amalric was compelled to retract
his teaching. In 1210, by an order of the Synod of
Paris, the works of David of Dinant were burnt, and
at the fourth Lateran Council those who professed his
doctrine were condemned as heretics. In the year of
that Council, 1215, a papal legate prohibited the study
of Aristotle in the university of Paris ; and so late as
1231 Gregory ix. required that certain writings, among
these the physical books of Aristotle, should not be
read " until they shall have been examined and purged
from all heresy." A few years later, when the mendi
cants had appeared, works of Aristotle were among the
text-books in use in Paris, and the Aristotelian meta-
physic was employed in the service of orthodoxy.
Aristotle himself was no longer hated as the enemy,
but honoured as the forerunner of Christ.
The first of the mendicants to render important
service to theology, by the aid of philosophy, was
Alexander of Hales. A Gloucestershire man, he
wandered to Paris, where, after a career as student,
he continued to teach till his death in 1245. In 1222
he joined the Franciscans, and, refusing to renounce
his title of doctor, was the first of his Order to bear
the dignity. He was styled Doctor Irref ragabilis, and,
according to some, Theologorum Monarcha. In his
chief work, Summa Universes Theologies, God, creation,
redemption, the sacraments were among the subjects
treated. The book, though based on the Lombard's
Sentences, was more than a commentary. Using the
materials of the Lombard, he attempted a scientific
treatment of theology, and introduced ideas from the
metaphysic of Aristotle and methods from the logic.
He was the first churchman to show an extensive

170 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
knowledge of Aristotle, and to employ it in the
service of orthodoxy.
John Fidanza, or Bonaventura, as he is generally
styled, while aiming at no scientific presentment of
the dogma, illustrated the new position of the Church
in relation to philosophy. He was born in 1221, and,
according to tradition, owed his name to St. Francis,
who, after working in him a miraculous cure, gazed on
him and exclaimed, O buona ventura ! Joining the
Minorites in his twenty-second year, he was chosen in
1256 general of the Order. When he died in 1274 he
was Bishop of Albano and a cardinal of the Church ;
and, tradition says, he had refused the archbishopric of
York and, highest of all, the papal dignity. Two
centuries later he was canonised by Pope Sixtus iv.
It was said, in reference to his saintliness, that "all
men were born with original sin except Bonaventura."
The life of Francis by Bonaventura is the biography
of a loving disciple ; and, charmed by it, Dante drew
the picture of the saint in the Paradiso. The beauty
of his Latin hymns captivated admirers of literature,
and touched the hearts of the pious ; and in majestic
verses Bonaventura manifested the religion which
found help for action and ease for trouble in con
templation of the cross of Christ.
Thus did he sing of that cross —
" Quum quiescas aut laboras,
Quando rides, quando ploras,
Doles sive guadeas,
Quando vadis, quando venis,
In solatiis in pcenis
Crucem corde teneas."
In his metaphysic Bonaventura was a Platonist,

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 171
after the fashion of Augustine, holding that ideas are
not in rerum natura, but are thoughts in the divine
mind, according to which actual things are formed.
The characteristic of his teaching was the doctrine
of illumination, a metaphysic of mysticism. Reason,
he held, is able to discover certain truths, but it is
through illumination that what is highest is known.
As the purpose of the religious life is to reach union
with God through contemplation, so the greatest
attainment of the intellectual life is knowledge
acquired through illumination. The practice of the
Christian virtues is the necessary preparation for
illumination, which further requires prayer with con
templation passing into ecstasy. Mary, who sat at
the feet of Christ, and Francis, obtained the closest
union with the divine.
Bonaventura distinguished between the lumen in-
ferius, the means of sense-perceptions; the lumen
exterius, which gives us aptitude for the mechanical
arts ; the lumen interius, by which philosophical per
ception is attained ; and the lumen superius, which is
grace. This light of grace reveals, on the one hand,
the sanctifying virtues; and, on the other, shows us
universals in their reality in God. A limit is here set
to reason, and the highest truths are placed beyond
the reach of ordinary knowledge.
A mystic is not captivated by speculation, but in
seeking a justification of his system he must turn to
philosophy. Bonaventura, in the very act of demon
strating the imperfection of ordinary knowledge as a
means of reaching the highest truth, turned for aid
to Aristotle, while his doctrine of the light of grace
showed an impress of Plato. Willingly or unwillingly,

172 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
this Doctor Seraphicus, this apologist of the mystics,
entered on a rational demonstration of his theories,
illustrating at once the Church's treatment of philo
sophy in the thirteenth century, and the activity of
the mendicants in the realm of speculation.
While the Franciscans, Hales and Bonaventura, were
employing philosophy, the one to strengthen the dogma,
the other to justify mysticism, the Dominicans, repre
sented by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, were
christianising Aristotle, creating Christian Aristotel-
ianism. Recognising the fascination exercised by Aris
totle over speculative minds, and also the advantage
of pressing him into the service of the Church, they
adopted his philosophy, having made their own inter
pretation, and placed him as an authority alongside of
the Fathers. From the Fathers and Aristotle baptized
into their faith they endeavoured to satisfy every
objection to the dogma, thus giving to theology a cast
of reason. There was danger, no doubt, to orthodoxy
when innumerable objections were stated, even while
they were to be rejected, but there was also the
Inquisition to crush the unwary who should attack
official truth. The dogma was to be rationalised, or
shown to be not contrary to reason, and freedom of
discussion was to be allowed. At the same time, the
creed was to be preserved, and not one jot or tittle
was to pass away. The Dominicans were jealous for
the dogma, as the Pharisees aforetime for the law.
Albertus, son of Herr von BoUstadt, was born at
Laningen in Swabia in the year 1193, and was edu
cated in the university of Padua, some say Pavia.
For ten years he was a constant student of Aristotle,
and in 1221 or 1223, under the influence of Jordan

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 173
of Saxony, entered the Dominican Order and began
the systematic study of theology. His later life was
full of varied work, as he discharged the duties of a
professor in more than one university, laboured as
provincial of his Order in Germany, and occupied the
high position of Bishop of Regensburg. Apart from
his philosophical study, he earned the reputation of
being the most learned man of his time in natural
science, and for his wide erudition was styled Magnus,
and Doctor Universalis. His nickname, " Ape of Aris
totle," indicated the line of his study.
Albertus, as a commentator of Aristotle, presented
the novel spectacle of a thinker busying himself with
ideas outside the pale of theology, and working without
fear of the penalties of the Church. Old things, and
with them the suspicion of science, were passing away.
Before entering the Dominican Order, Albertus had
made a reputation in natural science. When he
became a friar he turned to theology, but the results
of his scientific investigations were gathered together
as a Summa Philosophies Naturalis, commonly styled
Philosophia Pauperum, since the intention was to
furnish the mendicants with a knowledge of Aristotle's
physics. As a theologian, Albertus, dealing with the problems
of the being of God, creation, the soul, sin, angels,
with the whole content of theology exclusive of re
vealed religion, showed himself the typical scholastic
rationalising the dogma. Aristotle, no longer the enemy,
was the forerunner of Christ; and the function of
philosophy, of Aristotelianism, was to set forth in
system the content of theology, and to demonstrate
the rationality of the doctrine of the Church. Revealed

174 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
religion came within the sphere of philosophy when
it was shown to be above but not contrary to reason.
Seeing clearly that the process of rationalising must be
confined to Christianity as natural religion, he placed
revealed religion outside any possible philosophical
system. Truth to which the philosopher attains is also
the possession of the theologian, but specific doctrines
of Christianity, the Trinity and the Incarnation, though
not opposed to it, are beyond reason. Thus did Albertus
mark off natural from revealed religion, and separate
philosophy from theology.
Albertus has been styled Magnus, and yet his fame
has been eclipsed by that of his distinguished pupil,
Thomas Aquinas. Between the two, however, though
jealousy might have produced estrangement, an un
broken friendship was maintained. Thomas, born in
1227, was one of the sons of Landolf, Count of Aquino.
In his sixteenth year he entered the Dominican Order,
and in due course taught in Cologne and then in
Paris, where he joined in the controversy with William
of St. Amour, defending the idea of mendicancy. After
a life of unceasing intellectual labour, during which
he was styled Doctor Angelicus, he died in 1274, and
fifty years later was canonised.
The medieval striving after unity is illustrated in
the life-work of Thomas. As one Church and one State
existed, in idea at least, so should there be one science,
with God as centre, correlating all knowledge. Philo
sophy, theology, and natural science, as members one
of another, could not and should not be opposed. The
Church, Thomas maintained, might of course pronounce
a theory untenable or a doctrine heretical, but its duty
was to welcome all knowledge and to foster all

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 175
scientific inquiry, that men might attain a fuller under
standing of God.
The famous Summa, based on the idea of a unity
of the sciences, dealt in the first portion with theology.
The second part was an ethical disquisition, in which
Aristotelian influence was predominant. The doctrine
of the mean found its place for discussion alongside
of the will, passion, habit. In yet another division of
the book the theological virtues, faith, hope, and
charity, were treated; while the active and contem
plative life, the status of priests, monks, and friars,
were examined.
The method adopted by Thomas in this work was
to set forth a thesis, to assail and defend it, and to
reach conclusions with the aid of authorities. Learning,
subtle ingenuity, philosophical acumen, were mixed with
childish argumentation and fanciful speculation. The
book was comprehensive, indeed, suggestive of a corre
lation of knowledge, but its completion was a task
beyond one man's power. None the less, it was a
monumental work, testifying to the intellectual char
acter of the writer and to the ambition of the age.
A demonstration of the faith of the Church for the
Church, the book was accepted by the Dominicans as
the scripture of orthodoxy, while the writer was
honoured as the first of theologians.
In spite of the ideal of unity, Thomas drew a line
between philosophy and theology. " It is impossible,"
he said, " for the natural reason to arrive at the know
ledge of the divine persons. By natural reason we
may know those things which pertain to the unity of
the divine essence, but not those which pertain to the
distinction of the divine persons, and he who attempts

176 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
to prove by the natural reason the trinity of persons,
detracts from the rights of faith."
He held, however, that it was the function of philo
sophy to show that reason was not contradicted in
the dogma. Assured that the authority of Christian
writers would appeal to none but orthodox believers,
he addressed to men outside the Church the work
variously styled, De veritate catholica, Summa philo-
sophica, Ad Gentiles. His purpose was to show that
subjects, such as God, creation, providence, could be
rationally demonstrated ; while, on the other hand, the
Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, baptism, and
the eucharist could be shown not to contradict reason.
In the age of quickened thought Thomas was pre
eminently the apologist of the dogma, and no Abelard
was found in his own day to impugn his logic. Though
he engaged in the impossible task of embracing all
knowledge in one science, he rendered service by his
scientific presentation of theology. His title to fame,
perhaps his greatest, rests on the fact that he welcomed
philosophy as a means to establish the truth in the
dogma. In reason itself he found a process of reve
lation, and did not set it in sharp opposition to the
specific revelations of Christianity. Knowledge de
rived through natural or supranatural means is one
and the same, and truth is not divided. Truth, he
maintained, can always be shown to be rational, or as
not contradicting reason.
While Thomas failed to reduce all knowledge to one
science, in which theology was to find a place, he
assisted in realising another ideal, of supreme import
ance in medieval times. Innocent III., as political dic
tator of the West, marked the supremacy of the Church,

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 177
and theology was of course its possession. Thanks
largely to Thomas, the Church now ruled philosophy
and science. Ecclesiastical influence doubtless stimu
lated thought for a time, but when it limited the
freedom of speculation it destroyed the necessary con
dition of progress. None the less, the work of Thomas
made for the advancement of thought. There was,
indeed, but an accidental fellowship between mendicancy
and philosophy; and yet to the mendicants, notably
the Dominicans at first, is to be ascribed the fostering
of science and the love of learning. From them came
Albertus, who recognised in Aristotle the forerunner
of Christ, and Thomas, who found in knowledge a
pathway to God.
Among the Thomists there were Augustinians and
Cistercians, and, at a later period, Jesuits and Carmelites
of Spain, who showed that the disciples and followers
of Thomas were not confined to the Dominican Order.
The greatest to be named with the Thomists was
Dante, who, though Franciscan in many sympathies,
turned to Albertus in natural science, and in theology
and philosophy to Thomas.
In the majestic verse of the Divine Comedy, Dante
told the story of the Empire and the Church judging
the dead ; and, as he passed through hell and purgatory
to paradise, discoursed now on politics, now on theology,
now on philosophy, as one who had learned as a pupil
and thought as a master.
It was natural, in the association formed between
philosophy and theology, that some one should attempt
to show that the reservation of revealed truth from
the examination and judgment of reason was impolitic
and needless ; and in due time the Franciscan Raymond

178 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Lully, born in 1235, came forward, contending that it
belongs to philosophy to give rational proof of the
whole dogma, the Trinity and the Incarnation included.
Lully attempted this proof, arguing at the same time
that it did not increase the value of belief to receive
things beyond rational demonstration. Philosophy and
theology, however, were not to be identified ; but, on
the contrary, as new thinkers arose, their close re
lationship was to be questioned.
It was possible with Lully to assert the supremacy
of philosophy, and it was also possible to narrow its
sphere. Duns Scotus marks a reaction from Thomas,
as he placed among the articles of faith certain
doctrines, such as the beginning of the world in time
and the immortality of the soul, which the great
Dominican had sought to prove. Duns set himself to
examine the speculative method of Thomas, that the
content of faith might be determined, and built up a
reputation as a critic, securing followers among the
Franciscans. Rivalry may have exerted little influence
on Duns himself, but undoubtedly it excited the Scotists
in opposing the Thomists.
The birthplace, even the country, of John Duns
Scotus is unknown, as Scotus is indefinite. He was
born in 1274; and in 1300 was in Oxford, a member
of the Franciscan Order, and in 1304 in Paris.
Wadding asserts that he proceeded to Cologne in 1305,
and to Toulouse in 1307, though these dates have
been questioned. Appearing in Oxford as a writer on
Aristotle, he became famous in Paris as the defender
of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, acquiring
the title of Doctor Subtilis. He is said to have ex
amined some two hundred propositions in reference to

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 179
this doctrine, and we are told that on one occasion
the Virgin herself bowed the head of an image in
reply to a prayer for aid in the argument.
Duns was a careful student of Aristotle, and it was
revealed to him that the Greek philosopher was not
the Christian before Christ whom Albertus and Thomas
had discovered. Aristotle as an aid to Christian thought
was tried and not seldom found wanting; and argu
ments based on misunderstandings of his teaching were
cast aside. The whole Thomist position was examined,
and criticism weakened, if it did not destroy, the
intimate association of philosophy and theology. Duns,
however, did not lay himself open to a charge of
heresy. On the contrary, he was zealous, as ever
Dominican was, for the stability of the dogma. While
he could reject arguments for the faith, whether de
rived from Aristotle or not, he found no difficulty in
professing to believe doctrines which had no biblical
foundation. It was enough that the Church should
determine objects for belief, since it was the living
voice of revelation, the organ of the Holy Spirit for
declaring truth. The decrees of the Church, and not
the Bible by itself, constituted for him the supreme
authority in religion. Duns saw with perfect clear
ness that this authority, and the doctrines established
by it, could have no philosophical justification, and
hence that theology was not akin to other sciences.
His strong assertion, however, of the Church's right to
determine the creed saved him from persecution, and
helped to guard the faith from the attacks of reason.
Thomas, distinguishing faith from reason, had made
this declaration : " Sacred doctrine uses human reason
not for proving faith, for through this the merit of

1 80 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
faith would be lost." His effort, none the less, was
to connect the two processes as steps leading towards
the knowledge of God. The result was that by
limiting the truths assigned to faith he lessened its
merit, and impaired the authority of the Church
which decreed the content of faith. Duns, on his
part, reduced the function of philosophy, rescuing
doctrines from its charge, a ad increased the merit of
faith, determining it as belief in truths above and
beyond reason. Theology in his judgment was not
a speculative science, and he asserted that what is
true for it might be false for philosophy. He showed,
too, the essential difference between the philosopher
and the theologian when, for example, he pointed out
that the one recognised the existing order as natural,
while the other viewed it as the result of the Fall.
Duns was an indeterminist in his doctrine of human
will, while he separated the understanding from the
will of God. The divine understanding, he maintained,
works naturaliter, and is the ground of what is
necessary ; while the will acts libere, and is the cause
of all that is contingent. There is no necessity in
the order of things, which is simply dependent on
the divine will. As this is a world of contingen
cies, and God might act otherwise than He does, there
can be no rational justification of certain parts of the
dogma, and these therefore become objects of faith.
The creation of man, the Incarnation, to take examples,
have in them no element of necessity. Further, good
is good, evil is evil, because of the will of God. This
doctrine was contrary to that of Thomas, who taught
that the divine will is rationally determined, and that
God orders what is good because it is good.

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 181
In regard to universals, Duns agreed with Albertus
and Thomas, that they exist ante rem, in re, and post
rem. He refused, however, to recognise with them that
matter is the determining principle of individuality.
An animal becomes man, he argued, by addition of
humanity; man becomes Socrates by addition of
Socratitas. Not matter but form is the essence of
individuality. In the teaching of Thomas the in
dividual, by its characteristic of matter, is essenti
ally defective. Duns, substituting form for matter,
saw in the individual the realised purpose or end
of nature.
This recognition of the value and dignity of
individual things had important bearing on the
teaching of William of Occam, who was at once the
disciple and opponent of Duns.
Duns is remembered in the history of thought as
a critic rather than as a system maker, though men
were called by his name. Without openly declaring
in favour of the divorce of faith from reason, he aided
the separation by his doctrine of double truth. He
was not, however, to be the saviour of philosophy.
In reality he was a strong defender of the Church.
The man of simple understanding, bewildered when
dialecticians argued and theologians wrangled, required
guidance in faith, and Duns, if he did no other work,
fostered the assurance of the Church in the value
of its own authority, and its power to minister peace
to the doubter.
The declaration of the separation of philosophy from
theology, in a sense the death blow of scholasticism,
is associated with the name of William of Occam.
William, styled of Occam from his birthplace in

1 82 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Surrey, was born probably in one of the last years
of the thirteenth century, and died — again the date is
uncertain — in 1349. He was a student and teacher
at Oxford, a teacher also at Paris, and a member of
the Franciscan Order.
William was an ardent student of logic, a keen
opponent of realism. The individual, he held, is the
only reality. The universal is but "a mental con
ception signifying univocally several singulars," and
has no reality apart from the mental act which pro
duces it. Universalia in mente do not therefore exist
as distinct entities ; and universalia ante rem are
not substantial existences in God, but are His know
ledge, not of universals, but of singulars which alone
have existence. Occam was an individualist, though
he and his followers were styled Nominalists. From
his doctrine of individualism the separation of philo
sophy and theology followed. That which exists is
the individual, and our knowledge cannot transcend
experience. Belief in that which is beyond experi
ence belongs to faith, and we have no rational
knowledge of the content of revealed religion. Thus
the dogma is separated from reason, theology from
philosophy. Occam's denial of the existence of universals in
the mind of God, antecedent to and separate from
individual things, associates itself with his doctrine
of the divine will. Ideas with a separate existence in
the divine mind, as models of things, would determine
the divine will, destroying its freedom. That will is
undetermined, according to Occam, and there is no
necessity in God's actions. Necessity does not there
fore lie at the root of such doctrines as the Incarnation,

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 183
and these doctrines therefore admit of no rational
exposition. Philosophy has no function to demon
strate the truths of revealed religion, since necessity
is not bound up with their nature. It follows, too,
that since God acts from mere good pleasure, there
is no necessity to be found in the precepts of morals.
They must be obeyed because God orders them, but
it is conceivable that good might have been evil, or
evil good, since God exercises His will according to
pleasure and not according to necessity. Occam, too,
like Duns, was an indeterminist in his doctrine of
human will.
The chasm between reason and faith was made
apparent in the teaching of Occam, especially as an
examination of specific doctrines showed to his satis
faction that they were contradicted by reason. Thomas
had assailed, and at the same time successfully defended,
every doctrine of the Church. Occam, on the other
hand, attacked, but offered no rational defence. Trans
ferring the dogma to the region of faith more effec
tively than Duns, he, too, helped to strengthen the
Church's authority, and avoided the charge of heresy by
professing the doctrine of double truth. This doctrine
was in the last degree dangerous to the stability of
the dogma and to morals, but it secured its adherents
from persecution, and the Church was content that
its creed should be alienated from reason.
The teaching of Occam had an important bearing on
religion, which was no longer confused with either
knowledge or speculation. By checking argumenta
tion it directed attention to the facts of the gospel.
In this manner religion gained, but there was also
serious loss. For spiritual truth no basis was shown

1 84 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
except the Church's authority. Philosophy was not
even required to demonstrate, as the earlier scholastics
hoped it would, that the dogma was not opposed to
reason. On the contrary, philosophy, as an exercise
for logicians, might reduce the creed to a set of
irrational propositions, and leave it with no defence
save the assertion of its truth by the representatives
of an institution. The Church, however, was all-
powerful, rejoicing in the pride of authority ; and not
yet were philosophy and science to have freedom to
pursue their mission, but were even excluded from
serving as aids to faith.
In the century before Occam appeared Roger Bacon
had sought to pursue science, and had suffered and
failed. Albertus Magnus, by the studies of his earlier
years, gave an impulse to research ; and it was possible
that some one would arise, eager for science for its own
sake, determined to investigate nature without priestly
guidance or interference. Roger Bacon did not and
could not separate from the Church. In spite, how
ever, of professions, of ecclesiastical or theological
interests, his mastering desire was to observe and
understand the things of nature. Unfortunately for
it and him, the fulness of time had not yet come for
science. Bacon was born, it is conjectured, in Ilchester in
1214. He studied in Oxford and Paris, and entered
the Franciscan Order. He roused suspicion among the
Brothers by engaging in experiments in physics; and
it is chronicled that by the year 1267 he had spent two
thousand librae " on secret books and various experi
ments and languages and instruments and tables." The
Superior enjoined him to discontinue his researches

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 185
and not to publish his discoveries. A forced exile
of ten years in France probably implied that he had
disobeyed the injunction. Pope Clement iv. befriended
him, asking him to set forth his views on philosophy,
but giving him no substantial help for his experiments.
In fifteen or eighteen months works known as Opus
Majus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium were prepared,
in spite of difficulties, and sent to Rome. The
difficulties were real. The Franciscans, he wrote,
"kept me on bread and water, suffering no one to
have access to me, fearful lest my writings should
be divulged to any other than the pope and them
selves." Clement died and Bacon was left without
help. In 1278, at a chapter of the Order at Paris,
he was condemned "propter quasdam novitates,"
and was imprisoned, probably till 1292, the date of
the last of his numerous writings. After that year
there is no definite information regarding him, though
there is the report that at his death he was buried
among the Minorites at Oxford.
In his Opus Majus Bacon set forth his conception
of the true method of study, and demanded that all
presuppositions founded on authority and custom
should be cast aside. The relations of theology and
philosophy were considered, and he had no convic
tion that reason should not minister to faith. With
scholarly instinct he contended, in connection with
theology, that Hebrew and Greek should be learned as
preliminaries to the study of the Bible and Aristotle.
In the same work he dealt with arithmetic, geometry,
astrology, music, and optics. Bacon's fame rests, how
ever, on the fact that he was an experimental scientist.
To him the thirteenth century awarded that reputation

1 86 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of trafficking in magic which the tenth century had
given to Pope Sylvester n. Bacon, without exaggera
tion, may be styled a martyr, who lived in an age when
the study of the physical works of Aristotle led to
talk but not to investigation, and when superstition
was too rampant to tolerate even the crude experi
ments of the beginnings of science.
He is worthy to be remembered, if for nothing
else, on account of the enthusiasm which inspired him,
amidst natural difficulties and the persecution of
enemies, to pursue science for its revelations. In
one of his letters addressed to the pope he wrote:
" But how often I was looked upon as a dishonest
beggar, how often I was repulsed, how often put
off with empty hopes, what confusion I suffered
within myself, I cannot express to you. Even my
friends did not believe me, as I could not explain the
matter to them ; so I could not proceed in this way,
Reduced to the last extremities, I compelled my poor
friends to contribute all that they had and to sell many
things and to pawn the rest, often at usury, and I
promised them that I would send to you all the details
of the expenses and would faithfully procure full pay
ment at your hands. And yet owing to their poverty
I frequently abandoned the work, frequently I gave it
up in despair and forbore to proceed."
William of Occam was the last of the mendicants
deserving to be named in the history of philosophy.
In him we have the complete separation of philosophy
from theology, the demonstration of the impossibility
of rationalising the dogma and including it in the
content of philosophy. His writings were proscribed
by the university of Paris, yet his doctrines became

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 187
popular, attracting men beyond the ranks of the
Franciscans. Some rejoiced to see piety freed from
the subtleties of logic; others recognised that philo
sophy had been enfranchised, even though the Church
was still strong to crush all dangerous speculation.
These subtleties Erasmus described as " quibblings
about notions, and relations, and formalitations, and
quiddities, and hsecceities, which no eye could follow
out but that of a lynx, which is said to be able in
the thickest darkness to see things that have no
existence." In the domain of dogmatic theology the great
schoolmen were pre-eminent, primarily • interested as
they were in the creed of the Church. The work
of Thomas Aquinas, for example, included the present
ment of the doctrines of the Trinity, the person of
Christ, redemption, the sacraments, grace. The
Thomists, among whom the Dominicans were con
spicuous, accepted his expositions, while his formidable
critics were the Scotists, who, for the most part, were
Franciscans. The Dominican spirit manifested itself
in conservative orthodoxy; and, on the other hand,
the more democratic and progressive Franciscans
indulged in criticism and welcomed novelty. This
characteristic difference suggests an essential opposi
tion between the Orders, and certainly the idea of
rivalry is with difficulty excluded. Preachers and
Minorites, in any case, were frequently ranged on
opposite sides, as when the immaculate conception of
the Virgin was a burning question, or when the infinite
or finite magnitude of the first sin was a problem.
The activity of the mendicants in the work of
theology may be illustrated from their treatment

1 88 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
of the doctrine of redemption. Aquinas, admitting
the death of Christ to be not the only possible means
for the remission of sins, argued that it was the most
fitting, since it won for men "justifying grace" and
" the glory of beatitude." He debated whether Christ
suffered as to His divinity or humanity, and further,
examined His death under the conception of satisfac
tion and in relation to merit. Christ, he maintained,
since His suffering was voluntary, merited exaltation ;
and, seeing that exaltation could not be conferred
on Him, the reward due to merit passed to the Church
of which He is Head. " The head and members are,"
he said, " as it were, one mystical person, and thus the
satisfaction of Christ belongs to all believers, just
as to His own members." Duns, in opposition to
Thomas, contended that satisfaction and merit have
value according to the estimate of the person to whom
the satisfaction is made, and that the value of Christ's
death was judged according to the good pleasure of
God. That value could not be infinite, seeing that
sin, for which the death took place, is committed by
finite beings; and again, seeing that Christ suffered
in His human or finite nature. Then, too, an infinite
merit is not possible, as everything is good or bad,
small or great, according to God's will, and is not
needed, since He can determine the worth of merit at
His pleasure. The death of Christ has not, therefore,
according to Duns, a merit which passes to the Church,
to the members of His mystical body.
Controversy in theology has not been confined to
the days of the schoolmen, but the rivalry of the
Orders undoubtedly gave sharpness to their strife.
The friars wrangled, and many of their disputations

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 189
were mere battles of words. These men, however, are
not to be ignored, since the history of theology in the
pre-Reformation centuries is a chapter in the larger
history of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders.
In the period of the decline of scholasticism, before
Erasmus satirised the quibblings of the schoolmen, the
German mystics marked the attempt of piety to free
itself from the grasp of logical formulae, from hard
syllogistic expression or presentation, in order to
become living religion acceptable to and intelligible by
the people. While seeking to change the method and
expression of thought, these men did not represent a
recoil from metaphysics, a reaction against speculation.
On the contrary, in the sermons in which they sought
to popularise theology, they indulged in disputation ;
and Eckhart, the most noted preacher among the
mystics, was a thinker whose teaching disturbed the
peace of the Church.
Eckhart was born, it is supposed, in Thuringia,
somewhere about the year 1260, and was a student
and teacher in Paris. He entered the Dominican
Order, and in 1304 was provincial in Saxony, and in
1307 vicar-general in Bohemia. His fame as a
preacher was spread abroad through Germany. In
1317 the Bishop of Strasburg condemned his doctrine ;
and at last, in 1327, he was summoned, at the
instance of the Archbishop of Cologne, to answer
before the Inquisition. Agreeing to recant whatever
he had taught contrary to the faith, he appealed to
Rome ; he died before the papal answer was published,
in which twenty-eight theses set forth by him were
declared to be heretical. Eckhart, perhaps through
the bias of his nationality, was not concerned to

190 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
uphold the authority of the Church as a basis of
doctrine. His aim was to give an intelligible account
of Christianity, and, as a preacher, to present it in
attractive form. He was a student of Aristotle,
according to the prevailing fashion of his age ; but he
found in Platonism or Neo-Platonism the ideas which
led him to mysticism and caused him, on account of his
teaching that God is all and in all, to be suspected of
Pantheism. According to Eckhart, the absolute becomes God
only when it utters itself, becomes God as Trinity in
the act of self-knowledge. The word which God
utters is the Son, and that which binds Father and
Son is the Spirit. The act of self-knowledge is God
as subject beholding Himself in the Son as object,
while the love of the one to the other, springing
from this act, is the Spirit. In the Son as the object
of this act of self-knowledge is included the totality
of things. Thus all things exist in God from the
beginning. Yet apart from the world existing in
image in His mind, is the world created in time out
of nothing. The independent existence of this
created world is only apparent, though Eckhart does
not explain the apparent independence. He insists
that were God to withdraw Himself from the things
existing in time they would become nothing. They
do not become nothing, however, because there is in
them a divine element, which marks an identity with
God. That identity is not perfect, on account of an
other and sensuous element which creates a dualism.
In the nature of things, in virtue of God being their
essence, communicated by grace, there is the tendency
to overcome this dualism and to return to Him. The

MENDICANTS AND SCHOLASTICISM 191
return is possible through the human soul, the
representative and highest of creation, having the
power to think all things and so to make them lose
their limitations. The life of the soul is a return to
God, and final union can only follow the death of the
body. God must be the one object of thought, the
human will must suffer negation that it may become
one with the divine will. Individuality is in this
fashion to be lost, that all creatures may be one ;
and this one is the Son whom the Father has begotten.
In the ethics of Eckhart, asceticism, exemplified in
the fastings and vigils prescribed by the Church, was
at most a preparation for the union of the soul with
God. The assertion, he declared, that such works
effect salvation is the statement of the devil. Eckhart
repudiated the Church as a necessary agent in salvation,
which is unity with God ; and claimed for himself the
right, apart from any accredited system, to think
out the truths of Christianity.
Eckhart was the master of mystics such as Tauler,
the inspirer of the German Theology which Luther,
in 1518, caused to be published. The unknown author
of that work quickened the thought of Luther, pre
paring him for the revolt ; and so the analysis of
history places the mystic piety of Eckhart among the
innumerable causes of the Reformation, links together
the revivals of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries,
and brings into one association of religion Dominicans
and Reformers.
Hales, Bonaventura, Albertus, Thomas, Bacon,
Duns, Occam, Eckhart, friars each of Francis or
Dominic, are not the least in the kingdom of thought.

CHAPTER VIII
The Degradation of the Orders
The intense zeal of Dominic and the fervent piety of
Francis, in the custom of experience, continued in
individuals but departed from the crowd; and con
sequently, though the founder's name was preserved in
each Order, many of the friars had neither zeal nor
piety. The natural history of a revival shows the
periods of birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death,
and in the mendicant movement these stages, if perhaps
we omit the last, may be marked. Mendicancy, a
religious revival, was associated with organisations
which endured after the extinction of the fire of
enthusiasm which had blazed at their foundation.
They endured, but their character and reputation
changed. Chaucer and Langland, Dunbar and
Lindsay, Erasmus and George Buchanan, each held
up the friars to scorn ; but before Chaucer wrote " The
Sompnoures Tale " the degradation of the Orders had
begun. As early as 1233 Gregory ix. reminded the
Dominicans that their vow of poverty was taken to
be kept. In the middle of the thirteenth century the
Benedictine, Matthew Paris, wrote in this fashion:
" It is horrible, it is an awful presage, that in three
hundred years, in four hundred years, even in more,
the old monastic Orders have not so entirely

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 193
degenerated as these fraternities. The friars, who
have been founded hardly forty years, have built,
even in the present day in England, residences as lofty
as the palaces of our kings. These are they who,
enlarging day by day their sumptuous edifices,
encircling them with lofty walls, lay up within them
incalculable treasures, imprudently transgressing the
bounds of poverty, and violating, according to the
prophecy of the German Hildegard, the very funda
mental rules of their profession. These are they who,
impelled by the love of gain, force themselves upon
the last hours of the lords, and of the rich whom
they know to be overflowing with wealth ; and these,
despising all rights, supplanting the ordinary pastors,
extort confessions and secret testaments, boasting of
themselves and of their Order, and asserting their vast
superiority over all others. So that no one of the
faithful now believes that he can be saved unless
guided and directed by the Preachers or Friar Minors.
Eager to obtain privileges, they dwell in the courts
of kings and nobles, as counsellors, chamberlains,
treasurers, bridesmen, or notaries of marriages ; they
are the executioners of the papal extortions. In their
preaching they sometimes take the tone of flattery,
sometimes of biting censure ; they scruple not to reveal
confessions or to bring forward the most rash accusa
tions." These are the words of a member of one of the
old monkish Orders, but as he had praised the friars
at an earlier period they may have been dictated by a
passion higher than jealousy. Another witness may
be cited, one certainly not moved by a sinister passion.
In 1257, Bonaventura, the general of the Franciscans,
lamented that his Brotherhood was the object of
!3

194 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
popular dislike on account of greed, idleness, worldli
ness, and scandalous conduct. Ten years later he
wrote, after noting certain grave faults : " It is a foul
and profane lie to assert oneself the voluntary
professor of absolute poverty and then refuse to
submit to the lack of anything, to beg abroad like a
pauper and to roll in wealth at home." In the
fourteenth century things were not better, since St.
Brigitta in her Revelations, at that time recognised
as divinely inspired, spoke thus of the two Orders:
" Although founded upon vows of poverty, they have
amassed riches, place their whole aim in increasing
their wealth, dress as richly as bishops, and many of
them are more extravagant in their jewellery and
ornaments than laymen who are reputed wealthy."
The love of money was prominent among the causes
of the corruption of the mendicants. It captured
them, in spite of the vow of poverty. As early as
1230, four years after the death of the saint, certain
Franciscan Brothers solicited a papal interpretation of
the Rule in respect of the holding of property.
Ugolini, Gregory ix., in the bull Quo elongati, decided
that Francis could not bind his successors, that his
Testament was simply a private interpretation of the
official Rule, and that agents acting for donors could
hold property and spend money on behalf of the friars.
This decision marked a relaxation of the vow of
poverty, and issued in decadence with evil repute.
The decision, moreover, was in accordance with the
papal policy to reduce the enthusiasm of the mendi
cants, especially the Franciscans, to practical sense, so
that representing poverty without suffering extreme
hardship, and marking no violent contrast between

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 195
themselves and the secular priests, they might be
revered for piety, and recognised as worthy servants
of the Church. The consequences of this policy were
far-reaching. The Dominicans retained the n&me
without the character of mendicants, as they ministered
to social classes for whose sake it was not necessary
to be poor. It was different, however, with the
Franciscans, because poverty stamped them as
virtuous in the eyes of the people among whom they
laboured. The papal policy divided them, and while
some listened to Rome, others opposed popes, sided
with Imperialists, disobeyed ministers-general, and,
endeavouring to keep the vow without subterfuge or
attempting to make poverty the cardinal virtue,
suffered even torture and death.
One of the lucrative sources of income was the
traffic in indulgences. Neither Dominic nor Francis
condemned this system of pardons, though the sale
was contrary to their professed ideals. Gregory ix.,
at the translation of the body of Francis, granted
indulgences to visitors to the church built by Elias
of Cortona, and inaugurated the custom, followed by
one pope after another, of enriching the Brothers by
associating indulgences with the shrines of saints who
had been members of one or other of the Orders. ' The
Portiuncula was the most noted of all the indulgences,
as legend ascribed its suggestion to Christ, and
gradually its privileges were extended. So wide
spread was the system that the Dominicans counted as
their own three hundred and eighty-two different
indulgences granted before the close of the reign of
Leo X., and each of these meant wealth. And, as if
this wealth did not suffice, Boniface viii. gave the

196 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
Dominicans, when re-building a church in Rome,
certain monies obtained from usurers. The friars
profited where the defrauded suffered.
Very early in the history of the Orders privileges
began to be bestowed, many of which were contrary to
/the vow and spirit of poverty. Honorius in. gave the
Dominicans the right to celebrate mass, when the
secular priest was silent, in districts under censure and
interdict ; and in 1241 they obtained permission to beg
within the territories of the excommunicated. Again,
while bishops were commanded to absolve the friars
after confession, the superiors of the Orders were
enabled to free them from penance or ecclesiastical
punishment. By other privileges, gradually acquired,
the friars were allowed to preach, to hear confessions,
and also to bury the dead in the churches of the
Orders, and for these offices to exact dues. The result
of these benefits was that, from their first intrusion into
the various dioceses, the friars were at open feud with
the parochial clergy, who found their authority and
their incomes alike diminished. Yet these clerics were
as a rule ignorant, and sometimes vicious, and it was
a relief to laymen to have spiritual guides with a
reputation of decency and piety. Innocent in., in a
sermon at the Lateran Council, declared that the
priests were the chief corrupters of the people, and
the statement was endorsed by Honorius in. ; while
Bonaventura and Aquinas, to take later examples,
each denounced the ignorance of the churchmen. So
long as the pious reputation continued, laymen flocked
to the friars, who had difficulty at first in meeting
their wants. And even in the days of their corruption
they were in constant requisition, since there were

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 197
many who preferred to confess to strangers, whom
they probably hoped never again to see.
In addition to preaching, hearing confessions, and
officiating at burials, the mendicants administered the
sacraments ; and naturally, as things spiritual had
their price, the priests had no dealings with them. For
a short time there was a disputation among the
schoolmen regarding the right of the popes to bestow
priestly privileges on their new favourites. The
argument, however, caused little stir, as the parish
clergy, whose province was invaded, were seldom
respected. Yet the bishops sided with them, as they
also were suffering loss. In the system of confession
many cases — reserved cases they were styled — were
referred to them. The mendicants, however, disposed
of all such business to the financial loss of the episcopal
judges, and thus increased the number of their
enemies. It was of advantage to the cause of religion that the
dispensers of sacraments and the hearers of confessions
should be worthy of honour, and the sanctity of the
function might have been expected to conduce to
spiritual decency ; but none the less the friars, in
performing duties for which they obtained money,
suffered from the general corruption of the Church.
When dogma was but the letter of religion and ritual
a masquerade, the Dominicans arose to substitute the
spirit for the letter, and the Franciscans to show the
beauty of deeds of righteousness; but when they
assumed the functions of the seculars their piety lost
intensity and their power passed into the conventional
authority of churchmen.
Innocent iv., by a bull styled Crudelissimum edictum

198 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
by the Dominicans, curtailed the privileges of the
friars, and, dying soon after its publication, was said
to be done to death by their prayers ; while the proverb
had vogue, " a litaniis prsedicatorum libera nos
Domine." John xxi., at a later date, showed
antagonism, and when the falling roof of his palace
destroyed him the friars saw the intervention of God.
Honorius iv., too, perished when he was about to issue
an order regarding preaching and hearing confessions.
There was no continuity in the papal policy, but the
Orders, down to the period of the Reformation,
suffered but temporary loss of privileges once gained.
Boniface vin., with characteristic imperiousness,
unrepressed by the tragic fate of predecessors,
ordained that a friar, before preaching in a parish
church, must obtain permission, that a bishop could
prohibit him from hearing confessions, and that a
quarter of the fees or gifts he received in a district
must be given to the priest. The struggle was not
yet ended, and one pope after another was involved.
Clement vi. received a petition signed by cardinals,
bishops, and priests, asking him to abolish the Orders
or revoke their privileges, and made answer —
" And if their preaching be stopped, about what can
you preach to the people ? If on humility, you your
selves are the proudest of the world, arrogant and
given to pomp. If on poverty, you are the most
grasping and most covetous, so that all the benefices
in the world will not satisfy you. If on chastity — but
we will be silent on this, for God knoweth what
each man does and how many of you satisfy your
lusts. You hate the mendicants and shut your doors
on them lest they should see your mode of life, while

to

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 199
you waste your temporal wealth on pimps and
swindlers. You should not complain if the mendicants
receive some temporal possessions from the dying to
whom they minister when you have fled, nor that
they spend it in buildings where everything is ordered
for the honour of God and the Church, in place of
wasting it in pleasure and licentiousness. And because
you do not likewise, you accuse the mendicants, for
most of you give yourselves up to vain and worldly
lives." Clement's words were a rebuke to men who had
shamefully neglected duty. The Black Death had
mown down multitudes, and everywhere the friars
acted as ministers of mercy, gaining gratitude with
substantial reward, while the parish priests fled from
service. When at last the plague had passed, the
priests, seeing the gains of their opponents, sought
Clement's aid, and received a deserved rebuke. Two
centuries later the plague of 1528 showed that the
Franciscans had not forgotten the traditions of their
Order. It is difficult, indeed, to understand how men
corrupted by wealth should have displayed the zeal
for which they were commended by Clement. The
explanation, of course, might be that their evil repu
tation was undeserved. This, however, is certain, that
while there were always men in the Orders to soil their
fame, there were also men, few at times though they
were, who proved themselves worthy to bear the name
of Dominic or Francis ; and in days of trouble the
worthier sort carried with them the baser, who,
knowing how to sin, knew also how to obey.
The struggle between the mendicants and the
parochial clergy, which continued till the Reforma-

200 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
tion, presented within the domain of Christianity the
unholy spectacle of a contest for privilege. At the
fifth Lateran Council a vigorous attempt was made
to end the strife in favour of the clergy ; but Leo x.,
while forced to listen to the woeful tale of the clergy,
feared to injure the friars, who could make or mar
the authority of a Bishop of Rome.
With fine courtesy Dante put the praise of Francis
into the lips of Thomas Aquinas, who at the same time
pronounced a condemnation of the Dominicans. Some
had returned to the ways of Dominic —
" But so few they be,
That little cloth would make their cowls, I trow."
It was Bonaventura whom Dante chose to utter
the commendation of Dominic and the censure of
the Franciscans. As a Dominican had described his
own Order, it was fitting that this characterisation of
the Franciscans should proceed from one of them
selves —
" His Brotherhood, that once straight onward moved
And in his footsteps trod, now turns so far
That what was foremost now is hindmost proved."
Dante suffered no punishment devised by the
Inquisition, but it is not surprising that there should
be a story that he was required to give assurance of
his faith.
Receiving many favours from Rome, the mendicants
were not slow in their gratitude to emphasise the
papal theory, the divinely appointed headship of the
pope. It was necessary, too, that they should justify
the power which bestowed their privileges. The
Franciscan Alvarus Pelagius, to take an example from

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 201
the fourteenth century, demanded adoration for the
Bishop of Rome as a divine person, declaring, at the
same time, that from the days of St. Peter the Imperium
Romanum belonged to his successors. Among medieval
writers, however, it was Thomas Aquinas who stated
most clearly the theory that the Church is centred in
the pope ; and it was laid down by him, " that to be
subject to the Roman pontiff is essential to salvation."
Long after the days of the schoolmen, when the
Councils of Constance and Basel had pronounced
against it, Cardinal Torquemada wrote a defence of
the papal theory, basing his argument on the teaching
of Aquinas, and securing the laudation of Rome. The
infallibility of the pope might indeed have been the
official doctrine generations before the Vatican
Council, had not certain men occupied the papal
chair. The Babylonish Captivity, the Great Schism,
and the degradation of the age preceding the Reforma
tion were fatal to the progress of that doctrine ; as the
libertinism of the Court of Avignon, the feuds of rival
pontiffs, and the vices of men like Alexander VI. and
Julius n. destroyed popular esteem of the papacy, and
silenced the advocates of infallibility.
The relaxation of the vow of poverty destroyed the
harmony of the Franciscan Order. Pope Gregory ix.
found in Elias of Cortona an agent for his purposes.
The earliest biographer of Francis, writing while Elias
was powerful, represented the saint and the Brother as
friendly associates. It is difficult to understand how
Francis could have mistaken the man, who was to aid
in changing the character of the Brotherhood founded
amidst glowing piety and poetic enthusiasm. There
is no need to think of Elias as another Judas. He was

202 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
anxious for a religious reformation, but the love of
power ruined him when he came to govern. Even
while he lived in splendour no charge of avarice was
preferred against him, and it is evident that he be
lieved the sin of worldliness could be combated though
the Order had great possessions. For five years he had
governed, with the title of vicar, when Francis died ;
and it was he who announced the fact of the stigmata
to the Brothers, and set about the erection of the
splendid basilica which was to contain the body. In
spite of his prominence, however, the upholders of the
Rule rejected him in 1229, and chose Giovanni Parenti
as minister-general. Their fury was roused when they
learned that money was being gathered to meet the
expense of the basilica. In front of the building Elias
had placed a marble box for the gifts of visitors, and
it is related that Friar Leo went to one of his com
panions, asking if he should break it. The answer
was : " Yes, if you are dead ; but if you are alive, let it
alone, for you will not be able to endure the persecu
tions of Elias." Leo, however, did not wait till he was
dead, but with his associates broke the box.
Elias directed the raising of the great church, which
was worthy of the fame of the saint, though singularly
out of harmony with his poverty ; and at last, in 1232,
he was elected minister-general. In his official work
he proved a tyrant. While vicar he had caused
Antony of Padua to be scourged, and now he cast
Caesarius of Spires, the provincial of Germany, into a
prison, where he died. In arbitrary fashion he refused
to summon the chapter, till at last the pope interfered.
The opposition to him was widespread, as the zealous
upholders of the Rule were joined by the moderate

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 203
reformers, such as the friars in England, who desired
a relaxation in regard to the pursuit of learning and
the holding of property. These moderate men he had
harassed in their religious work, and they determined
to have him removed. At last, in 1239, Gregory caused
a chapter to be held, at which he demanded the resig
nation of the minister-general. The pope and his
former ally were now at enmity. Elias hastened to
Frederick il, the opponent of the political power of
the papacy, and with him suffered excommunication.
In the legend of Francis it is narrated that the saint
learned through a vision that Elias was to revolt
against the Order and the Church, and was to be
damned. He was able, however, to have the divine
sentence reversed, so that Elias, enlightened in his last
hour, died pardoned by the pope, and clothed in the
Franciscan habit. Before this final reconciliation with
the Church, Elias was the supporter of Frederick in
his strife with Rome, and was even on one occasion
his ambassador at the Court of Constantinople ; but on
the death of the emperor he returned to Cortona, where
he built a magnificent church for the Franciscans.
Amidst the troubles within the Order two parties
were formed, the Spirituals, as they were after
wards named, who professed strict adherence to the
Rule, and the Fratres de Coinmunitate, afterwards
known as Conventuals from living in convents, who
desired its relaxation as experience dictated. One
party was in power, and then another. Thus Cresen-
tius, who was minister-general from 1244 to 1248,
followed the example of Elias, and, loving the display
of wealth and showing a special aversion to poor
dwellings, erected splendid monasteries. At the same

204 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
time he tried to induce the friars to pursue learning.
John of Parma, who followed, was welcomed by the
Spirituals as a saviour of the Order.
The question of poverty continued to disturb the
Franciscans down to the century of the Reformation.
It affected imperial politics when Lewis of Bavaria
and John xxn. were at strife, and called forth a mass
of writings, associated with such names as Alexander
of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Occam.
Hales, one of the writers of the Declaratio Quatuor
Magistrorum, sought to justify the changes inspired
by Gregory ix. ; but he failed to pacify the rigorous
Spirituals, who would allow no relaxation, thinking
to work out their salvation through the severities of
asceticism. They belonged to the great order of fana
tics, existing before and through the Christian cen
turies, who for a spiritual offering render to God the
sacrifice of their emaciated or broken bodies. The
temperament which led them to asceticism led them
to rebel against the Church, which fostered the Con
ventuals in their freedom; and their pride of faith
prepared them for the doctrine that a new religious
era was at hand. This doctrine was ascribed to
Joachim of Flora, the Baptist of St. Francis, as Renan
styled him, whose reputation in the middle of the
thirteenth century reached a prominence to which it
had not attained in his own generation.
In three prophetic writings Joachim, who lived in
the last generation of the twelfth century, declares
that there are three ages in the world's history, — the
first under the rule of the Father, the second under
that of the Son, and the third under that of the Holy
Ghost. The second age, of the Son, was to endure for

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 205
1260 years, while the third was to be the age of per
fection. In 1254 a book was published, The Everlasting
Gospel, containing Joachim's three writings with an
introduction, in which the evils of the Church were
displayed and his prophetic warnings applied. The
Order of St. Francis, it was set forth, was to absorb
all other Orders, and was to take the place of the
Church itself. In this religious society men were to
live at peace, were to have all things in common, and
misery was to disappear from their midst. That
which was most characteristic was the statement that
the eternal gospel was revealed by Francis, the angel
of Revelation xiv. 6, and that in 1260 it would replace
Christ's gospel. John of Parma, charged with being
the writer, was compelled to resign his office of
minister-general, though the real author, as was
afterwards believed, was Gherardo da Borgo San
Donnino, who was condemned to imprisonment for
life for the crime of publishing the book. John of
Parma himself was tried, but acquitted. The book
was officially condemned in 1255 ; but none the less,
on account of its expression of opposition to the
Church, and its promise of an ideal age of simplicity,
it intensified division among the Franciscans.
The Conventuals, taking advantage of the troubles
caused by the publication of The Everlasting Gospel,
instigated Alexander iv. to renew the interpretation
of the Rule, made by Innocent IV., so as to allow
agents to manage and the Holy See to hold property
for the Order. Gregory x., in 1275, endeavoured to
reverse this policy, and to secure strict obedience to
the Rule, but his effort was vain. Nicholas in., under-

206 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
taking a final settlement of the question, published
the bull Exiit qui seminat, which simply continued
the arrangement proposed by Innocent IV. The
significant declaration was made that Christ and the
apostles had renounced the possession of all property.
In due time a statute of the Order enacted that
there should be a procurator attached to each house,
to receive money for the friars in name of the Church.
This was done "to preserve the Order in its purity,
and prevent the brethren being immersed in secular
affairs." In spite of the bull the strife was not
finished. Brothers who refused to beg for money
were imprisoned by their superiors. At last the
Spirituals appealed to Clement V. to disjoin them from
the Conventuals. The pope was sympathetic, and
though not agreeing to separation, issued a decree
protecting them from persecution. During the nego
tiations the extremists among the Italian Spirituals
seceded in their impatience and elected a minister-
general. Clement was enraged, and the machinery
of the Inquisition was put in use. His successor,
John xxn., resolved on stamping out insubordination,
issued a bull, Quorumdam, giving superiors the right
to determine the vestments of the friars, and also the
amount of grain, wine, and oil to be stored in a
convent. Vestments and stores were burning ques
tions, and the pope answered them in common sense
fashion. The extreme Spirituals, however, holding
that the garments should be but the simplest cover
ings, and that storage of food indicated a mistrust in
providence, denied the right of the pope to interfere
with what they counted gospel teaching regarding
poverty. The pope declared in reply, that the rejec-

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 207
tion of the bull would be punished as a heresy. Thus
was a new heresy created, and the inquisitors, Domin
ican and Franciscan, pursued many of the Spirituals
to death.
In the south of France there were violent opponents
of Pope John, who saw in him the anti-Christ, and in
the Church the harlot of the Apocalypse. These men
had been moved by the prophecies of Peter John Olivi,
who had arisen in the latter half of the thirteenth
century, and by his disciple Ubertino of Casale, who
identified the papacy with the beast which rose out
of the sea (Rev. xiii.). Under the teaching of Olivi,
himself influenced by Joachim of Flora, some of the
extreme Spirituals of his own day, obtaining per
mission from Coelestine v., settled in Greece and on
some of the islands of the Archipelago. There they
continued, and Boniface vin., endeavouring to dislodge
them, met with violent resistance.
The application of the idea of anti-Christ to a pope
was not new. In Swabia, in the thirteenth century,
the Dominicans had taught that Innocent iv. was anti-
Christ, and the emperor his scourge. " There were two
Churches," to use the words of the French Spirituals,
quoted in a papal bull, " one carnal, overburdened with
possessions, overflowing with wealth, polluted with
wickedness, over which ruled the Roman pontiff and
the inferior bishops : one spiritual, frugal, without un-
cleanness, admirable for its virtue, with poverty for
its raiment ; it contained only the Spirituals and their
associates, and was ruled by men of spiritual life
alone." The pope, John xxn., not content with the
bull from which these words are taken, resorted to
the Inquisition. His enemies were violent, and he

208 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
would silence them ; but, far off though they were,
they helped to prepare the way for the Reformation,
when attacking the sanctity of popes and making
common the thought that the existing Church was not
identified with true religion.
While the Inquisition was doing its dread work,
events presented a new and serious issue. A Domin
ican condemned the statement, made by one of the
heretics, that Christ had no possessions. The Fran
ciscans, led by Berengar Taloni of Narbonne, delib
erated, and in the general chapter held in 1322
formally decided in favour of the doctrine. The bull
of Nicholas in. was brought forward, which declared
that Christ and the Apostles possessed nothing. In
due course an appeal was made to John, who, without
definite pronouncement on the question regarding
Christ, discussed the practice of the Roman See
holding property for the Order, and, in spite of
the declarations of predecessors, decided that it must
cease. A protest was made, and in the reply — the
bull Cum inter nonnullos, issued 1323 — John asserted
that the doctrine that Christ possessed nothing was
contrary to scripture. The Franciscans as a Brother
hood were now in open revolt from the pope ; while
the Spirituals, along with Michael of Cesena, the
minister-general, and William of Occam, going further,
supported Lewis of Bavaria, who had been excom
municated for assuming the title of King of the
Romans. In the Protest of Sachsenhausen, inspired
by Franciscans, Lewis examined the pope's treatment
of the Order, charged him with heresy, and demanded
a General Council. A spiritual opposition against the
papacy had now been created.

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 209
The battle continued. Michael of Cesena, in a
" Tractate against the Errors of the Pope," declared
that popes can err, and advocated the calling of a
council for the reform of the Church. William of
Occam entered the contest, and in many writings
denied the claim of the popes to interfere in politics,
declared an earthly headship of the Church to be
unnecessary, and rejected papal infallibility. The
most powerful of the disputants was Marsiglio of
Padua, who in the Defensor Pads separated the
temporal from the spiritual power, and so limited the
spiritual as to destroy the idea of the papacy. Thus
again, in the contest regarding the Franciscan Rule,
were heard the distant sounds of the Reformation.
In due time the Conventuals returned to papal
obedience, while the extreme Spirituals, as the Fraticelli
in Italy, were treated as heretics. The general chapter
of 1329 deposed Michael of Cesena, and once more
adopted the theory that the Order had the use with
out the ownership of property. William of Occam,
who had been excommunicated, remained till 1347
with Lewis of Bavaria, and in 1349, stripped by
death of many of his companions, and feeling the
pain of isolation, sought reconciliation with the
Church. Mendicancy in itself was doubtless an economic
blunder, even a vice, and Wiclif in England openly
condemned it. Poverty, not licensed mendicancy,
entered into the ideal of Francis; and certainly
the combination of possessing property and begging
alms formed no part of his scheme of life. The
Conventual was worldly, the Spiritual fanatical, and
neither followed the founder. It was by no illogical
14

210 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
step, however, that the extreme Franciscans, holding
the true Church to be a religious society, opposed the
institution with the pope as head. Their dominant
theory required all clerics to be poor, to be stripped
of social privileges, and cut off from political concerns.
Hence, too, there was no contradiction when they
ranged themselves with the emperor as the reformer
or destroyer of a Church denying the virtue of
poverty. The persecution of the Spirituals was continued by
one pope after another. Ultimately they triumphed
when the Brethren of the Hermitages, strict observants
of the Rule, obtained confirmation. At the Council
of Constance, some years after Bernardine of Siena,
their recognised founder, had attained notoriety, the
Observantines were formally recognised and their separ
ation ratified. The powerful Conventuals objected to
an arrangement which curtailed their authority, but
little respect was paid to men with a reputation which
made Pius n. declare, that while excellent as theologians
they were little concerned with virtue. At last Leo x.,
to end the strife, gave the Observantines the right to
select a minister-general.
The Observantines, in the century before the Re
formation, attracted men zealous for austerity of con
duct, and their organisation marked a revival in the
degraded Franciscan Order. Capuchins, Cordeliers,
Alcantarines were names testifying to the strictness
with which in varied degree the Rule of St. Francis
was observed.
No fierce contest regarding property divided the
Dominicans, who, shortly after their organisation,
ceased in all but name to be poor. A chapter held

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 211
in Paris, 1228, determined the Consuetudines fratrum
prcedicatorum, according to which houses of moderate
size were to be occupied, though no other property
was to be held. No time elapsed, however, till the
Dominicans, agreeing with the Conventuals, decided
that the Brotherhood, exclusive of individuals, had
rights of possession. This decision produced no zealots
eager for a harsh ascetic ideal.

CHAPTER IX
The Degradation of the Orders — continued
The decadence of the friars was illustrated in their
service as ecclesiastical police. That degradation,
however, was not as gross as the corruption by
wealth. None the less, it told the tale of lost ideals,
of spiritual enthusiasm sunk into official activity, of
devotion to Christ lowered into zeal for the Church.
The mendicant revival had quickened piety, but it
had neither elevated clerical life nor purified papal
policies, though the inefficiency of priests and the
worldliness of popes had created the need for Francis
and Dominic. Ugolini's determination to attach the
Minorites to the Roman Curia, unnecessary in the
case of the Preachers, resulted in the loss to many
of the Brothers of that unconventional zeal for the
cure of souls which the genius of Francis had inspired.
It became a custom with popes to depute Franciscans
or Dominicans to deal with local disputes ; and while
it was beneficial to have reliable commissioners, it was
mean work for evangelists to act as parochial judges,
and to serve as police prying into the ways of prelates
and priests. The popes, however, learned the use and
clung to the advantage of having at their command
an army to enforce their authority over all clerics in
Christendom.

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 213
Never were the mendicants further from the pur
poses of the founders of their Orders than when
acting as servants of the Roman bishops, with their
schemes of temporal supremacy. In the protracted
and fierce quarrel between the Church and the Emperor
Frederick n. friars made themselves conspicuous, and
unholy was their work. Now they had to preach
as apologists for the Church's action, now to stir the
emperor's subjects to rebellion, telling scandalous tales
to soil his fame. Frederick had taken the crusader's
vow in the time of Innocent ill., promising to lead
a host to the East; and this vow he renewed when
crowned by Honorius in. He was in no hurry, how
ever, to seek the Holy Land; and when he set sail
at last, in 1227, it was only to turn back his ships
after two or three days on the sea. Gregory ix., the
successor of Honorius, thereupon passed sentence of
excommunication. Frederick was little disturbed by
the thought that he was now a spiritual outcast, and
after the lapse of a year departed to visit the places
hallowed by the Saviour's steps. Probably he expected
to be freed from the ecclesiastical ban when by
diplomacy or arms he had crowned the crusade with
success, but his hope was frustrated on learning that
Gregory had commissioned two Franciscan friars to
warn loyal churchmen in the East to hold no converse
with the excommunicated man. The Franciscans, out
stripping Frederick, executed their business with
singular zeal. The emperor was shunned as an out
cast from Christ, scorned as an enemy of His cross.
Returning to Europe, Frederick banished the Fran
ciscans from the kingdom of Naples, of which he was
sovereign, as they were involved in a rebellion. The

214 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
leaders, indeed, were certain Franciscan and Dominican
professors of the university. A peace was soon
negotiated with the Church, but in the enmity from
rival interests Gregory, in 1239, renewed the excom
munication, and henceforth there was open strife
between the Hohenstaufen and the popes, till the
House of Swabia fell. The publication of the ban
was entrusted to the Franciscans, whose minister-
general, Elias of Cortona, had just sought refuge
in the imperial Court; and after preaching revolt in
Guelf and even in Ghibelline cities, they were again
expelled from the kingdom.
Gregory died, and in due time Innocent IV., eager in
his spite to humiliate and in his pride to crush the
emperor, sent out the friars as tale-bearers. They
were commissioned to tell how Frederick neglected
the exercises of religion, was a heretic favouring Mo
hammedanism, and as a follower of the Prophet kept
a harem of Saracen women. Effective scandalmongers
they proved, and, acting for a pope, were not ashamed.
Innocent, however, was not content with mere defama
tion, and, after renewing the excommunication at
the Council of Lyons, in 1245, desired to pose as
another Hildebrand and cast down the mighty. The
imperial throne was declared vacant by the lips of
Dominican emissaries, who spoke as for the vicar of
Christ. Then the prelates of the Rhine, assuming
the function of the electors of the Holy Roman
Empire, named, with his own consent, Henry Raspe,
Landgrave of Thuringia, the king of the Romans.
The pope requiring confidential agents, chose them
from the Franciscan and Dominican Brothers, who
passed from Rome to Germany carrying messages

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 215
and money; and desiring preachers to declare the
cause of Henry to be the cause of religion, found them
among the friars. The papal plot, however, came to
nothing when Frederick's son, Conrad, defeated the
Landgrave. Though the scheme failed, the wrath of
the Bishops of Rome against the House of Swabia
seemed as if it could not die ; and in 1251, when
Frederick was dead, the Franciscans were despatched
in one direction and the Dominicans in another to
inaugurate a crusade against the prince, who had dared
to oppose the " clergy's king."
The political services of the friars were not con
fined to the campaign against Frederick. Matthew
Paris, referring to the year 1236, wrote : " The Fran
ciscans and Dominicans were counsellors and envoys
of princes, and even secretaries to our lord the pope,
thus securing to themselves too much secular favour " ;
and again, naming the year 1239, " at that time
Dominicans and Franciscans were the counsellors
and special envoys of kings; and as formerly those
clothed in soft raiment were in kings' houses, so at
this time those clothed in vile raiment were in the
houses, the halls, and the palaces of princes." In
France the Dominicans acted as royal confessors till
1387, when trouble arose on account of their opposition
to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin. The same position they occupied in Spain, till
they were supplanted by the Jesuits.
The association of the Orders with the university of
Paris forms a remarkable episode in their history,
illustrating the masterful and assertive character which
roused jealousy, and testifying to the spirit which
neglected poverty for position, and forsook humility

216 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
for traffic in privilege. Within the first generation of
the Brotherhoods the members were at strife with the
leaders of the university of Paris, who sought to
preserve their independence and to retain the estab
lished privileges for the secular clergy. The new
favourites of Rome were loaded with many benefits,
and in protest the university authorities laboured first
to prevent their invasion as teachers, and then to limit
their seizure of chairs, asserting for the Church of
France, at a later period, that partial autonomy known
as Gallicanism, and setting forth the theory of the
supremacy of the Catholic Church over popes, which
was informally adopted by the councils of the fifteenth
century, and widely accepted by thoughtful men in
the dawn of the Reformation.
The contest between the mendicants and the univer
sity of Paris began in 1229, when, owing to a quarrel
with the civic authorities, the university was closed.
The Dominicans, led by Roland of Cremona, using the
opportunity to their own advantage, not only refused
to cease from teaching, but welcomed to their classes
students unattached to their Order. When the uni
versity was reopened a second Dominican chair was
erected, and filled by John of St. Giles, the friend of
Grosseteste ; while Alexander of Hales, a former master
among the seculars, having joined the Minorites, began
to teach in the convent of the Brotherhood. The
seculars, determined to conserve their privileges,
limited the licences to doctors, which carried the
right to lecture. In vain, however, they struggled
against men with the favour of Rome, and in 1250 a
papal bull enjoined the chancellor of the university
to bestow the licence upon such friars as he found

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 217
qualified. The troubles were not at an end. The
mendicants refusing, on the occasion of another riot,
to side with the authorities, were excluded from the
Society of Masters. Again, they would not take the
oath of obedience to the statutes, and were expelled
from the university. An appeal to Rome secured the
usual help to the friars, but the university in turn
proved disobedient to the bull requiring the restora
tion of the teaching rights. Alexander iv. at last, in
1255, by the bull Quasi lignum vitce, established the
mendicants in all the privileges which had been lost,
and thus for a time rendered them victorious in their
contest with the secular clergy in the university.
In the midst of the appeals to Rome a translation of
The Everlasting Gospel was published in Paris, and as
the Introduction was ascribed to John of Parma, the
seculars secured an opportunity of opposing the Fran
ciscans, and criticising the whole system of mendicancy.
They demanded the condemnation of the book, but in
the controversy into which they entered they were
defeated. Their champion, William of St. Amour,
having attacked the Preachers and Minorites, irritat
ing them by abusive sermons, was himself in danger
of being censured or punished when it was known
that he had written or inspired The Perils of the Last
Times. In this tract the pope was blamed for allow
ing vagrants to preach and hear confessions, and the
flattery and lying in mendicancy were exposed. The
friars were described as the precursors of anti-Christ, as
the false teachers of the last times, and were likened
unto the Pharisees. They were confronted with the
precept, " If any man would not work, neither should
he eat." " It is a work of perfection," the writer said,

2i 8 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
" for Christ's sake to leave all and follow Him in doing
that which is good, not by begging, for this is a thing
forbidden by the Apostle Paul. He who has renounced
all earthly goods in order to strive after perfection,
must either support himself by the labour of his
own hands or seek his maintenance in a monastery."
Another argument, not without force, was used :
" Were it a sin to wear, under befitting circumstances,
a costly garment, Christ would not have worn that
seamless coat, which in relation to His poverty must
have been costly enough."
Thomas Aquinas, in the treatise Contra impug-
nantes Dei cultum et religionem, justified the intrusion
of the Dominicans into the province of the clergy,
and defended them from charges of immorality. He
maintained that few of the seculars had studied the
scriptures, and that pious men did not exist among
them to serve all the parishes, while, as a contrast, the
mendicants had destroyed heresy in many places,
converted infidels, instructed the ignorant, and turned
the careless to repentance.
For the Franciscans, Bonaventura appeared, pointing
in De paupertate Christi to the example of Christ as
a plea for poverty and mendicancy, and assailing in
the Libellus Apologeticus the seculars for worldliness
and vice.
The controversy in defence and attack displayed the
divisions of the Catholic Church, revealing the degrada
tion of the secular clergy, and at the same time the
tyranny and avarice of the mendicants.
The king of France submitted St. Amour's tract to
the pope, and the university, though knowing the
writing would be condemned at Rome, sent commis-

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 219
sioners, among whom was St. Amour himself, in its
defence. The Everlasting Gospel, with the Introduc
tion, was the first of the books to be censured, and
then came the papal pronouncement on The Perils of
the Last Times, which was declared to be scandalous
and pernicious. St. Amour was silenced, and the
seculars lost their champion. The mendicants, on the
other hand, were undisturbed by the condemnation
of the new gospel of the extreme Franciscans, and lost
none of their privileges.
Summing up the results of the quarrel, the author
of the Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages
says : " Till now there had been no reason whatever
for any hostile feeling against the papacy on the part
of the university. . . . The alliance between the Holy
See and the mendicants sowed the seeds of Gallicanism
in the university which was to be its stronghold."
It may have been ambition which prompted the
mendicants to intrude themselves into the university of
Paris, and certainly they pursued a high-handed policy
in securing recognition as teachers. Their action,
however, may bear another interpretation. The Aristo
telian renascence threatened danger to the dogma, so
long as the Church wantonly abused philosophy ; but
the mendicants had wisdom to see the advantage of
pressing philosophy into the service of religion. It
was a noble purpose, then, if the mendicants struggled
for university recognition, that there might be men to
rescue Aristotelianism from the hands of the heretics
and employ it in the cause of truth. Yet whatever
end in view they had, and it may have been worthy
of seekers after wisdom, the Dominicans sought
privileges as if they were not consecrated to poverty,

220 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
and the Franciscans engaged in strife as if they had
never meant to conquer the world by love.
The darkest page in the story of the friars is the
record of their licentiousness. Legend tells that one
of the Brothers learned through revelation that the
devils met in council once a year to devise means
for destroying the Franciscan Order, and that three
special means were always favoured, "familiarity
with women, reception of unprofitable members, and
handling of money." There were indeed men, through
out the whole history of the Orders, who, quickly
losing their pious enthusiasm, or never having had
either piety or enthusiasm, found in mendicancy oppor
tunities for vice, and dishonoured the rank to which
they had attained. Bonaventura's many warnings
to his Brothers to keep themselves unspotted from
sensuality showed the extent and gravity of their
offences. Other men were tempted into the Orders
by a love of wealth, which condemned their profession.
The unprofitable servants were many, and gave to the
Brotherhoods that evil reputation, from which the
good men who had taken the name and had the mind
of Francis or Dominic could not be saved. George
Buchanan, in the verse of Franciscanus, set forth that
those who entered the Order were the law-breaker,
the ignoramus, the gambler, the voluptuary, the
wretch diseased in mind and body. Erasmus, lashing
the mendicants with his scorn, aided the cause of the
Reformation. His pictures of the Franciscans shows
the base condition to which they had been lowered
by lust, greed, ignorance, and pride.
" St. Francis," he wrote in one of his epistles, " came
lately to me in a dream and thanked me for chas-

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 221
tising them. He was not dressed as they now paint
him. His frock was brown, the wool undyed as it
came from the sheep; the hood was not peaked, but
hung behind to cover the head in bad weather. The
cord was a piece of rope from a farmyard ; the frock
itself did not reach his ankles. He had no fine shoes.
His feet were bare. Of the five wounds I saw not
a trace. . . . They (the friars) go about begging with
forged testimonials, which serve for a passport, and now
they have made the notable discovery that a rich man,
alarmed for his sins, may buy a share in the merits of
the Order if he is buried in the Franciscan habit. They
demand admission at private houses, to come and go as
they please, invited or uninvited, and the owner dares
not refuse. What slavery is this ! A man with young
sons and daughters, and a wife not past her prime, must
take a stranger into his family whether he likes it or
not — Spaniard, Italian, French, English, Irish, Scotch,
German, or Indian — and the secrets of his household
are exposed to all the world. Wise men know that in
such a multitude not all are pure. Monks are often
sent on their travels because they have misconducted
themselves ; and, even supposing them sober and chaste,
they are made of the same flesh as other men. I have
heard many stories of what has happened in such
circumstances. They pretend that they have no other
means of living. Why should they live at all ? What
is the use of these mendicant vagabonds ? Not many
of them teach the gospel, and if they must needs
travel, they have houses of their own Order to go to."
The fulness of time was reached for a religious
revolution in the sixteenth century, and successors of
the men who quickened piety in the thirteenth century,

222 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
and widened the bounds of Christianity by heroic
missions, were of those who made reformation the one
thing needful for the Church. They were not sinners
above all men, but professing much were accordingly
judged. Many were luxurious who had taken the vow
of poverty, unclean when they should have been pure,
haughty instead of lowly, and the good deeds of the
Orders were overshadowed by the sins. Had Dominic
come back to earth he would have chastised his
Brothers ; and Francis, had he returned, would have
found a mission to lead his friars to Christ.
At the Reformation the Orders were not swept
away, but before the day of Martin Luther their glory
had departed, and within the Roman Church the
Jesuits were to take the place of distinction. Ignatius
Loyola kept the example of Francis and Dominic
before his eyes, and it is recorded that he asked
himself: Quid si ego hoc agerem quod fecit beatus
Franciscus, quid si hoc quod beatus Dominicus ? — What
if I should do as St. Francis, what if I should do as
St. Dominic did ?
Protestantism roused the Dominicans to fierceness,
and preserved them for many years to notable service
in the Church. Their passion for the Inquisition
burned again, and Spain under Philip n. licensed their
carnage. The Cardinals Caraffa and Burgos, members
of the Dominican Order, counselled the pope to
establish the Inquisition in Rome, as the one sure
means of crushing throughout Italy the spirit of
inquiry, which was touching established doctrines.
"As St. Peter," said Caraffa, "vanquished the first
heresiarchs nowhere but in Rome, so ought Peter's
successors to trample down all the heresies of the

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 223
world in Rome." The Inquisition was set up and did
its work with ruthless vengeance, ending the religious
revival, such as it was, which was quickened at the
renascence of letters and fostered in some measure by
the Protestantism of Germany. Italy was purged of
heresy. " Nearly the whole Order of Franciscans,"
Ranke reports, " were obliged to submit to retracta
tions." The democratic character of the Minorites,
illustrated throughout the whole course of their history,
led them away from steadfast opinion, and as an
Order they had no help to offer the Church in its
time of danger.
Pope Paul iv. instituted the Feast of St. Dominic,
but there was no tribute to the name of Francis. The
old rivalry of the Orders perished in Italy as the
Franciscans succumbed to the coercive power of the
conquering Dominicans. There was indeed a recru
descence not of the tender pity and winning love of
Francis, but of the cruel zeal which made the
Franciscan an Inquisitor, in the Minorite who at the
Diet of Worms, in 1545; addressed the emperor. The
preacher, painting the Lutherans as monsters, turned
to Charles, crying : " Now, 0 emperor ! — now is the
time to fulfil your duty ; enough of trifling, enough of
loitering on the way ; long ago you should have done
the work : God has blessed you with power ; He has
raised you on high to be the defender of His Church.
Up, then ! Call out your armies ! Smite and destroy
the accursed generation ; it is a crime to endure longer
these venomous wretches crawling in the sunshine, and
venting their poison over all things." The voice of
the friar was the voice of one crying to an emperor
impotent to stem a current of the ages ; and passion,

224 FRANCIS AND DOMINIC
inflamed by taunts of satirists and condemnations of
reformers, went out of the Order, when it died in this
man. The dissolution of the monasteries was the death
blow of mendicancy in England. A regenerated spirit,
but more probably confirmed apathy, dictated the
submission of the Franciscans to the king. They pro
fessed to be convinced " that the perfeccion of Christian
livyng dothe not consiste in dome ceremonyes, weryng
of a grey coatte, disgeasing our selffes aftyr straunge
f assions, dokynges, nodyngs, and bekynges, in gurdyng
owr selffes wythe a gurdle full of knots, and other like
papisticall ceremonyes, wherin we have byn moost
pryncipally practysed and misse-lyd in tymes past;
but the very tru waye to please God, and to live a
tru Christian man, wythe owte all ypocrasie and
fayned dissimulacion, is sinceerly declaryd unto us by
oure Master Christe, his evangelists and apostoles."
The yielding of the Franciscans to the Inquisition in
Italy, and in England to the Reformation, was
significant of the weakness of the Order; and when
the milder manners and gentler customs of modern
centuries rejected the use of violence for the protection
of the dogma, the Dominicans were left as men without
a purpose. The Brotherhoods, existing to-day and
still recognised by the Church, are relics of societies
which once were profitable in Christendom. Francis
loved his Lord, and therefore served his fellow-men ;
and the Minorites, led by his spirit, carried Christ to
the hearts of the weary and heavy laden. Dominic,
eager to vanquish error, laboured as a guardian of the
faith, and the Friars-Preachers, filled with his zeal,
guarded the dogma as the truth of God. The kingdom

DEGRADATION OF THE ORDERS 225
of heaven was seen in the midst of men, while the
power of these saints endured. But the advancing
years beheld lust joined with love and lies with truth,
saw the ruin of high aims, and witnessed a harvest of
ignoble traditions. The Franciscan wandered far
away from the Poor Penitent of Assisi, and the
Dominican from the Master of the Sacred Palace.

15

LITERATURE
The following books may be consulted on the subject
of this work : —
Speculum perfectionis seu S. Francisci Assisiensis legenda
antiquissima auctore fratre Leone. Nunc primum edidit
Paul Sabatier. Collection de documents pour I'histoire
religieuse et litteraire du moyen age, tom. i.
Fratris Francisci Bartholi de Assisio tractatus de indulgentia
S. Mariae de Portiuncula. Nunc primum integre edidit
Paul Sabatier. Accedunt varia documenta. Collection
d'etudes et de documents pour I'histoire religieuse et
litteraire du moyen age, tom. ii.
Speculum Vitae S. Francisci et sociorum ejus.
Fioretti di S. Francesco.
The Little Flowers of Saint Francis : English translation of
the " Fioretti," by T. W. Arnold.
The Mirror of Perfection : English translation of the " Spec
ulum perfectionis," by Sebastian Evans.
Sabatieb, Vie de S. Francois d' Assise.
 (English translation, by L. S. Houghton.)
 tin noveau chapitre de la vie de Saint Francois d'Assise
(Revue ChrStienne, 1896).
Sur des Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, ecrites en 1216.
(Memoires de 1' Academie Royale de Bruxelles, 1849.)
Renan, Nouvelles Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse.
Lacoedaiee, Vie de Saint Dominique, pr^cddee du memoire
pour le r^tablissement en France de l'ordre des frferes
precheurs.
Heltot, Histoire des ordres monastiques religieux et
militaires.
Wadding, Annales Minorum.
Acta Sanctorum. 227

228 LITERATURE
Analecta Bollandiana.
Dollingee, Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters.
Muller, Die Anfange des Minoritenordens und der Buss-
bruderschaften.
Cheisten, Leben des heiligen Franciscus von Assisi.
Ozanam, Les poetes franciscains en Italie au treizieme sifecle.
Thode, Francis von Assisi und die Anfange der Kunst der
Renaissance in Italien.
Hase, Franz von Assisi. Ein Heiligenbild.
Beewee, Monumenta Franciscana.
Villemain, Histoire de Gr^goire vii.
Gebhaet, L'ltalie Mystique.
Kiezlee, Die literarischen Widersacher der Papste zur Zeit
Ludwig des Baiers.
Kuenen, Hibbert Lecture.
Dante, Commedia : translation by E. H. Plumptre.
Newman, Historical Sketches.
Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln.
Brtce, The Holy Roman Empire.
Moeison, The Life of Saint Bernard.
Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.
Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.
 Sacerdotal Celibacy.
 Auricular Confession and Indulgences.
 Superstition and Force.
Peaeson, The Ethic of Free Thought.
Ruskin, Mornings in Florence.
Arnold, Essays in Criticism.
 Poems.
Lecky, The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe.
Ranke, The Popes of Rome.
Loed Lindsay, Sketches of the History of the Christian Art.
Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire
Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (Camden Society).
Vaughan, The Life and Labours of S. Thomas of Aquin.
Hampden, Bampton Lecture.
Hume Brown, George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer.
Knox Little, St. Francis of Assisi : his Times, Life, and
Work.

LITERATURE 229
Addeeley, Francis, the Little Poor Man of Assisi.
Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic.
Deane, The History of St. Dominic.
Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages.
Feoude, Life and Letters of Erasmus.
 Lectures on the Council of Trent.
Haenack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte.
Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Reformation.
 Early Renaissance in England.
Jameson, Legends of the Monastic Orders.
Fishee, The Medieval Empire.
Oliphant, Francis of Assisi.
Jusseeand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages.
 Chaucer's Pardoner and the Pope's Pardoners (Chaucer
Society).
Maitland, The Dark Ages.
 Facts and Documents illustrative of the History,
Doctrine, and Rites of the Ancient Albigenses and
Waldenses.
Macleae, A History of Christian Missions during the Middle
Ages.
Baeing-Gould, The Lives of the Saints.
SYMONDsand Goedon, The Story of Perugia (Medieval Towns).
Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, and other Historical Essays.
Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Anthony Wood, Survey of the Antiquities of the City of
Oxford, vol. ii.; Churches and Religious Houses (Oxford
Historical Society).
Little, The Greyfriars in Oxford (Oxford Historical Society).
Day, Monastic Institutions : their Origin, Progress, Nature,
and Tendency.
Milman, History of Latin Christianity.
Lechlee, John Wycliffe and his English Precursors.
Church Histories — Fleury, Mosheim, Neander, Gieseler,
Kurtz, Robertson.
Neandee, Lectures on the History of Christian Dogmas.
Histories of Philosophy — Maurice, Ueberweg, Erdmann, Win-
delband.
Chuech, Saint Anselm.
Remusat, Saint Anselme de Cantorbery.

230 LITERATURE
Haueeau, Histoire de la Philosophic Scolastique.
Aquinas, Opera.
Bonaventura, Opera.
Duns Scotus, Opera.
Francois D'Assise — I. Vie de S. Francois, par le R. P.
Le6pold de Cherance. II. S. Francois apres sa Mort —
(a) L'Ordre de S. Francois, par le R. P. Henri de Grezes ;
(6) Les Fils de S. Francois, par le T. R. P. Ubald de
Chanday ; (c) S. Francois dans l'Art, par M  .

INDEX

Abelaed, 11, 164, 167, 176.
Abingdon, 127-28.
Abyssinia, 118.
Africa, 101.
Agnellus, 125, 128, 131.
Agnes of Meran, 12.
Aix, 147.
Alans, 119.
Albano, 170.
Albertus Magnus, 117, 125, 172-74,
177, 179, 181, 184, 191.
Albigenses, 86-7, 89, 94, 100, 113,
143.
Aleantarines, 210.
Alexander n., 87.
„ ill., 85.
iv., 41,58, 119, 205,217.
vi., 201.
Alexander of Hales, 54, 117, 169,
172, 191, 204, 216.
Alvarus Pelagius, 200.
Amalric of Bene, 168-69.
America, 118.
Ancona, 34.
Angelico, Fra, 135.
Anselm, 166.
Anthony Wood, 122-23.
Antoninus, 135.
Antony of Padua, 66, 106, 120-21,
202.
Apostolici, 31.
Apulia, 37.
Ara Coeli, 131.
Arabic philosophers, 163-64, 168.
Aragon, 12, 93, 147, 158.

Archipelago, 207.
Arezzo, 143.
Aristotelians, 163, 173, 219.
Aristotle, 164, 166, 168-69, 170-74,
177-79, 185-86, 190.
Aries, 147.
Armagh, 132.
Armenians, 119.
Arnold of Brescia, 11, 31, 39, 95.
,, of Citeaux, 87.
Asia, 131.
Assisi, 16, 18, 22, 27, 32-33, 35,
40, 46, 61, 70, 76, 85, 120, 225.
Augustine, 5, 97, 164, 171.
Augustinians, 36, 120, 177.
Avignon, 96, 132, 201.
Avignonet, 156.
Babylon, 38.
Baronius, 166.
Bartholomew Abbizzi, 60, 68.
Bartolomeo, Fra, 135.
Basel, 201.
Baur, 111.
Beatrice, 77.
Belgium, 83.
Benedict xi., 148.
„ St., 22, 77.
Benedictines, 112.
Berengar Taloni, 208.
Bernard of Quintavalle, 25, 28.
St., 10-11, 31, 84, 112,
164, 167-68.
Bernardine of Siena, 210.
Bernardone, Pietro, 16-7, 85.

231

232

INDEX

Bethlehem, 75.
Blasio, St., 131.
Boethius, 165.
Bohemia, 11, 47, 189.
Bollandists, 92.
Bologna, 42, 54, 55, 101-2, 104-5,
108, 118, 121.
Bonaventura, 35, 38, 42, 60, 79,
113, 130, 170-72, 191, 193, 196,
200, 218, 220.
Boniface viii., 6, 8, 71, 115, 149,
150, 153, 195, 198, 207.
Brewer, Prof., 136.
Brigitta, St., 194.
Brindisi, 34.
Bristol, 137.
Britain, 131.
Buddha, 80.
Bulgarians, 119.
Burgos, Cardinal, 222.
CfflSARius of Spires, 202.
Cahors, 91.
Calaruega, 81, 105.
Calixtus II., 9, 87.
Calmaldolese, 10.
Cambalu, 119.
Canossa, 6.
Canterbury, 123, 126.
Capuchins, 210.
Caraffa, Cardinal, 222.
Carcassonne, 90-1.
Carthusians, 10.
Cassian, 82.
Castelnau, 87-9.
Castille, 97, 107, 158.
Cathari, 86, 89, 90, 119, 122, 139.
Catharine of Siena, 60, 109.
Catherine of Aragon, 63.
Chalcedon, 146.
Charlemain, 2-3, 53, 164.
Charles ii. of Spain, 159,
Chaucer, 192.
Cimabue, 75.
Cistercians, 10, 29, 112, 177.
Clairvaux, 112.
Clara, St., 32, 58, 62, 76-7, 103.
Clarissas, 40, 57.
Clement iv., 185.
v., 149, 206.

Clement vi., 119, 149, 198-99.
Cluny, Monastery of, 3-4.
Coelestine in., 11, 12, 29.
v., 207.
Cologne, 124, 174, 189.
Columba, St., 73.
Columbus, 119.
Conrad of Marburg, 93, 157.
,, of Swabia, 215.
Constance, 201, 210.
Constantine the Great, 9.
Constantinople, 12, 29, 168, 203-4.
Conventuals, 203-4, 206, 209-11.
Corah, 130.
Cordeliers, 210.
Cordes, 155.
Cornhill, 126.
Cremona, 103-4, 157.
Cresentius, 203.
Cumans, 119.
Dalmatia, 147.
Damian, St., 21-2, 40-1, 62.
Damietta, 37.
Dante, 18-9, 40-50, 56, 63, 70-1,
75, 77, 93, 117, 153-54, 170, 177,
200.
David of Dinant, 168-69.
Denmark, 118.
Dominic, St., 8, 27, 49, 51, 60, 64,
77, 81-110, 111-14, 117, 120,
122, 133, 135, 139-40, 146, 151,
160-61, 191-92, 195, 199, 210,
212, 220, 222-24.
Dominicans (Friars-Preachers), 45,
54-5, 59, 63-4, 84, 92, 97-8,
101, 104-5, 114, 117-19, 122-26,
128, 135, 141-44, 146-50, 155-
56, 158-59, 161, 172, 175, 177,
187, 189, 191-92, 195-98, 200,
207, 211-12, 214-19, 222-25.
Dominic of Silos, 81.
Dover, 125-26.
Dunbar, 192.
Duns Scotus, 117, 178-80, 181
183, 188, 191.
Durand of Huesca, 29, 96.
Ebbb, St., 128.
Eccelino da Romano, 120.

INDEX

233

Eccleston, 25, 129.
Eckhart, 189-91.
Edward 111., 123.
Edward's, St., 123.
Egidius, Brother, 34.
Egypt, 101.
Elias of Cortona, 37, 39, 46, 52,
59, 61-2, 121, 195, 201-3,
214.
Elizabeth of Hungary, 56, 157-
58.
England, 6, 83, 85-7, 122, 127-
30, 132, 137, 142, 193, 203, 209.
224.
English, 116.
Erasmus, 187, 189, 192, 220.
Europe, 56, 120, 213.
Eustorgius, St., 157.
Ethiopians, 119.
Fanjeaux, 90.
Fecamp, 125.
Felix Guzman, 81.
Filippo Paternon, 143.
Fioretti of St. Francis, 25-6, 32,
57, 61, 66, 70, 78, 104.
Florence, 143, 149, 156-57.
France, 41, 79, 82, 86, 89, 92,
96-7, 101, 106, 120, 131, 138,
140, 144, 147, 185, 215-16.
Francis Bernard Delitiosi, 60.
„ St., 6, 8, 16-80, 85, 101-8,
111, 113, 115, 117, 119-21, 126,
129-30, 135, 138, 170, 191-92,
194, 199-206, 209-10, 212, 214,
220, 223-24.
Franciscans (Friars Minor, Minor
ites, Penitents of Assisi), 23, 25,
28-9, 32, 34, 36, 42-3, 46, 55-9,
64, 70, 84-5, 102, 114, 118-19,
122, 125, 127-31, 136-37, 146-47,
149, 153, 156, 160, 161, 169-70,
172, 178, 185, 187, 189, 193-95,
197, 200, 204-5, 208, 210, 212-18,
220, 222-23, 225.
Franks, 2.
French, 116.
Fraticelli, 209.
Frederick 1. (Barbarossa), 2, 9-10,
31.

Frederick 11., 11, 50, 141-42, 147,
203, 213, 215.
Frideswyde's, St., 124.
Gall, St., 73.
Genevieve, St., 125.
George Buchanan, 192, 220.
„ St., Church of, 62.
Georgians, 119.
Germans, 116, 157.
Germany, 2, 79, 83, 97, 106, 118,
130, 158, 189, 202, 214, 223.
Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino,
205.
Giacopone di Todi, 70, 79, 111.
Gibbon, 86, 139.
Gilbert de Fraxineto, 122-23.
Giotto, 18, 27, 58, 75-6.
Giovanni di Salerno, 144.
,, Parenti, 202.
Goethe, 72.
Goths, 119.
Greece, 207.
Greeks, 119.
Gregorovius, 131.
Gregory vn. (Hildebrand), 1, 3-8,
10-11, 13, 15, 30, 154,
214.
„ ix. (Ugolini), 36-7, 39,
41, 43, 45, 48, 52, 58,
62, 64, 105, 107, 128,
143-45, 169, 192, 194-
95, 201, 203, 209, 213-
14.
„ x., 119, 205.
Grosseteste, 124, 128-29, 216.
Guido, 157.
Guillem Arnauld, 155-56.
Hadeian iv., 6, 9-10, 31.
Hallam, 112.
Harnack, 71.
Hase, 59.
Hayti, 119.
Hefele, 141.
Heine, 20.
Henry 11. of England, 6.
,, in. (Emperor), 3.
,, iv. (Emperor), 5, 6, 154.
„ v. (Emperor), 8, 9.

234

INDEX

Henry the Deacon, 84.
, , of Cologne, 124.
Hermitages, Brethren of, 210.
Hildegard, 193.
Hohenstaufen, 214.
HoUand, 80.
Holy Land, 23, 118, 213.
Honorius in., 23, 52, 88, 92, 98-
100, 105, 107, 196, 213.
Honorius iv., 198.
Hugh of Vienne, 135.
Humbert de Bomanis, 161.
Hungarians, 119.
Hungary, 12, 82, 106, 118.
Iberians, 119.
Ignatius Loyola, 222.
Ilchester, 184.
Indians, 119.
Ingeburga, 11-2.
Innocent n., 11, 87.
in., 1, 6, 8, 10-5, 27-9,
32, 36, 43, 82-3, 87,
89, 92, 97-8, 107,
139, 142, 154, 161,
168, 176, 196, 213.
iv., 48, 131, 147-48,
197, 205-7, 214.
„ v., 135.
,, viii., 153.
Ireland, 6, 130.
Isabell de Bulbeck, 124.
Isabella of Spain, 158.
Italy, 2, 6, 9, 17, 20, 30, 41,83,
86, 100, 103, 120, 130, 147,
223-24.
Jacoba, Lady, 58.
Jacobites, Eastern, 118-19.
Jacobus de Voragine, 135.
Jacques de Vitry, 23, 36, 38.
Janus, 76.
Jerome, 58.
„ St., 77.
Jerusalem, 22, 119.
Jessop, 137.
Jesuits, 215, 222.
Jewish- Alexandrian schools, 165.
Jews, 93, 124, 159.
Joanna of Aza, 81.

Joannes de Monte Corvino, 119.
Joachim of Flora, 29, 168, 204-5,
207.
John xxi., 198.
,, xxn., 60, 204, 206-8.
,, Friar, 136.
, , of Capella, 42.
,, of England, 6, 12.
,, of Parma, 204-5, 217.
, , of St. Alban, 125.
„ of St. Giles, 216.
„ of St. Paul, 28, 36.
,, of Vicenza, 121, 135.
,, Scotus Erigina, 165.
Jordan, 92, 101, 118, 124, 172-
73.
Julius II., 201.
Kamel, 38.
Kubla Kahn, 119.
Euenen, 80.
Lacordaire, 93.
Landolf, Count of, 174.
Langland, 192.
Languedoc, 82, 84, 86-7, 93, 97,
139-40, 145, 151.
Laningen, 172.
Laurence, Brother, 125, 136.
,, of Beauvais, 126.
,, St., 123.
Lateran Church, 2.
„ Council n., 87.
m., 87.
IV., 12-3, 29,
36, 93, 95-7,
143-44, 169,
196.
v., 200.
Laura, 71.
Lecky, 142, 160.
Legnano, 9.
Leo x., 195, 200, 210.
,, xiii., 48.
,, Brother, 78-9, 202.
Leon, 12.
Lewis of Bavaria, 204, 208-9.
Limoges, 95.
Liverpool, 137.
Llorente, 140.

INDEX

235

Lombards, 2, 37.
Lombardy, 106, 122, 152.
London, 123, 126-27, 137.
Lord Bacon, 136.
,, Lindsay, 58.
Louis, St., 49.
Lucca, 149.
Lucius in., 85.
Lully, Raymond, 177-78.
Luther, 191, 222.
Lutherans, 223.
Lynn, 137.
Lyons, 214.
Machiavelli, 114.
Madrid, 107, 159.
Mahomet, 37.
Manichaeans, 86.
Marco Polo, 119.
Marsiglio of Padua, 209.
Masseo, Brother, 32.
Matthew Arnold, 69, 71, 114.
„ Brother, 125.
Paris, 192, 215.
Mexico, 118.
Michael of Cesena, 208-9.
Milan, 146-47.
Milton, 64.
Montefeltro, 63.
Montpellier, 82.
Moors, 93.
Motley, 141.
Morocco, 37, 118, 120.
Mosheim, 152.
Murcia, 120.
Muret, 91, 96.
Muscovites, 119.
Naples, 213.
Narbonne, 87-8, 90, 147-48,
155.
Nestorians, 118-19.
Netherlands, 141.
New Granada, 118.
Newman, Cardinal, 120.
Nicholas, St., 126.
,, Convent of, 105.
m., 205, 208.
iv., 48, 100, 135, 148.
Normandy, 97.

Norwich, 137.
Nubians, 119.
Observantines, 210.
Octavian, 131.
Oliver, 53.
Osma, 82, 105.
Osney, 124.
Otto of Brunswick, 11.
„ the Great, 1-3, 10.
Oxford, 25, 56, 99, 118, 122, 124,
127-30, 131-33, 178, 182, 185.
Ozanam, 70.
Paoifico, Brother, 68.
Padua, 121, 148, 172.
Palencia, 82.
Palestine, 118.
Paris, 99, 101, 117-18, 125, 131,
137, 168-69, 178, 182, 186, 189,
211, 216-17, 219.
Paschal n., 8.
Patarines, 30, 86.
Paul, St., 86, 218.
„ iv., 223.
Paula, 71.
Paulicianism, 86.
Pavia, 172.
Pekin, 119.
Persia, 117.
Peru, 118.
Perugia, 18, 98.
Peter de Brueys, 83-4.
,, de Rupibus, 132.
,, John Olivi, 60, 207.
,, of Tarentaise, 135.
„ St., 200, 222.
„ the Lombard, 167-69.
Petrarch, 71.
Pharisees, 172, 217.
Philip n. 222.
„ Augustus, 11, 12.
„ Brother, 41, 43.
,, of Swabia, il.
„ the Fair, 142.
Pica, 16.
Piero da Verna, 156-57.
Pierre Cella, 91.
Pietro di Catana, 46.
Pisa, 60, 143.

236

INDEX

Pius II., 210.
Plato, 160, 164-65, 171.
Platonism, 165, 190.
,, Neo-, 165, 168, 190.
Poland, 12, 118.
Poor Catholics, 29, 96.
Porphyry, 165.
Portiuncula (St. Mary of the
Angels), 22-4, 26, 28, 33, 40,
61, 77, 195.
Portugal, 12, 130.
Prescott, 141.
Prouille, 88, 93, 97-8, 102,
125.
Provence, 16, 17, 106.
Prussians, 100.
Puritans, 85.
Pyrenees, 82.
Qt/entin, St., Dean of, 125.
Raimund di Pennaforti, 119.
Ranke, 223.
Raoul, 87.
Raphael, 75.
Raspe, Henry, 214-15.
Ravenna, 49.
Raymond d'Alfaro, 156.
Lully, 177-78.
„ of Toulouse, 89, 142.
Regensburg, 173.
Reginald, Brother, 102.
Renan, 59, 64, 74, 79.
Rhine, 214.
Richard of Devon, 127.
,, of Ingworth, 126-27.
Rieti, 60-1.
Rivo Torto, 32-3.
Robert Vere, Earl of Oxford, 124.
Roger Bacon, 117, 184-86, 191.
Roland, 53.
,, of Cremona, 216.
Romagnuolo, 106.
Romans, 131.
Rome, 2, 5, 13, 27-9, 31, 34, 42,
64, 82-4, 97-8, 103, 115, 131,
139-42, 146-47, 149, 150, 158-59,
169, 185, 189, 194-96, 200-1,
214, 216-17, 222-23.
Ruggieri Calcagni, 146, 157.

Ruskin, 68, 74.
Russians, 119.
Sabatier, 73.
Sabina, St., 99, 108.
Sachsenhausen, 208.
Salerno, 7.
Saracens, 119.
Savelli, 99.
Savona, 6.
Savonarola, 136.
Saxony, 189.
Scholastica, 77.
Sciffi, 40.
Scotists, 187.
Scotland, 130.
Segovia, 101, 106.
Sens, 146.
Seville, 158.
Shakespere, 136.
Shrewsbury, 137.
Sicily, 37, 71.
Siena, 130.
Silvester ii., 166, 186.
„ Brother, 32.
Simon deMontfort, 87,91-2, 94, 140.
Sir David Lindsay, 192.
,, Launfal, 20.
Sixtus iv., 60, 117, 158, 170.
„ v., 92, 157.
,, St., 99.
Socrates, 181.
Spain, 41, 82, 93, 99, 101, 105-6,
130, 140, 159-60, 215, 222.
Spaniards, 116.
Speculum Vitae, 130.
Spoleto, 18-9.
Stephen Langton, 122-23.
St. James, Convent of, 125.
Strasburg, 189.
Surrey, 182.
Sutri, 3.
Swabia, 172, 207, 214-15.
Syria, 37.
Tartars, 119.
Tauler, 191.
Tertiaries, 47-50.
Teutons, 6.
Thode, 79.

INDEX

237

Thomas Agmnas, 92, 117, 125, 135,
160, 164, 172, 174-81,
187-88, 191, 196, 200-1,
204, 218.
,, of Celano, 33, 46, 70.
,, of Eccleston, 125.
Thomists, 177, 187.
Three Companions, 116.
Thuringia, 189, 214.
Titian, 157.
Torquemada, 158-59, 201.
Toulouse, 88, 91, 94, 99, 102, 142,
144, 155, 178.
Tours, 87.
Trivettus, 123.
Troubadours, 17-8, 65, 68, 72.
Tunis, 120.
Turks 119.
Tuscany, 37, 56, 146, 152.
TJbertino of Casale, 207.
Umbria, 16, 28, 34, 71.
Urban 11. ,8, 10.

Vallombrosians, 10.
Venice, 104, 118.
Verna, 56.
Verona, 85, 122.
Vicenza, 149.
Vienne, 149.
Wadding, 29, 178.
Waldenses, 28, 32, 84-5, 87, 95-6,
150.
Waldo, 85.
Walter of Brienne, 18.
„ of St. Victor, 168.
Wiclif, 63, 134, 209.
William of Occam, 181-84, 18 6
191, 204, 208, 219.
of St. Amour, 174,217-
19.
Worms, 9, 223.
York, 137.
Zichori, 119.

THE WORLD'S
EPOCH-MAKERS. EDITED by
OLIPHANT SM EATON.

MESSRS. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
have much pleasure in announcing an
important new Series, under the title of
" THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS."
The Volumes composing it will constitute, when their
issue is complete, a valuable conspectus of the origin
and progress of the most prominent movements that
have taken place in theology, philosophy, and the history
of intellectual development from Buddha to the present
day. Each Volume will record the initiation and trace the
Evolution of some particular phase of human thought
and culture. The various subjects have in every case
been assigned to writers who have made a special study
of them. The Publishers, therefore, confidently expect
that the successive Volumes will present the latest and
most reliable information on the topics whereon they
treat, and that the Series as a whole will be found to
afford a valuable guide to the consecutive study of the
leading Epochs in the moral, intellectual, and spiritual
development of humanity.

For List of Volumes see foUowing pages.

THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS.
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
The First Bursting of the Fetters of Ignorance and Superstition.
By Arthur Lillie, M.A., London. [Now ready.
SOCRATES. The Moral Awakening of the Western World. By Rev. J. T.
Forbes, M.A., Edinburgh.
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE.
A Contrast and Appreciation. By Professor D. G. Ritchie,
M.A., University of St. Andrews.
MARCUS AURELIUS AND THE LATER STOICS.
The I^ast and the Greatest Age of Stoicism. By F. W.
Bussell, D.D., Vice-Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford.
ORIGEN AND GREEK PATRISTIC THEOLOGY.
By Rev. W. Fairweather, M.A.
AUGUSTINE AND LATIN PATRISTIC THEOLOGY.
By Professor B. B. Warfield, D.D., Princeton.
MAHOMET AND MAHOMETANISM.
By P. De Lacy Johnstone, M.A. (Oxon.).
.ANSELM AND CUR DEUS HOMO.
By Rev. A. C. Welch, B.D.
FRANCIS AND DOMINIC AND THE MENDICANT ORDERS.
By Professor J. Herkless, D.D., University of St. Andrews.
[Now ready.
SCOTUS ERIGENA AND HIS EPOCH.
By R. Latta, Ph.D., D.Sc, Professor of Moral Philosophy
in the University of Aberdeen.
-WYCLIF AND THE LOLLARDS.
By Rev. J. C. Carrick, B.D.
JHE MEDICI AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.
By Oliphant Smeaton, M.A., Edinburgh.
THE TWO BACONS AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE.
Showing how Roger Bacon prepared the way for Francis
Bacon, Lord Verulam. By Rev. W. J. Couper, M.A.
SAVONAROLA. ByG. M'Hardy, D.D.
' [Continued on next page.

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS— CONTINUED.
LUTHER AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION.
By Professor T. M. Lindsay, D.D., U.F.C. College, Glasgow.
[Now ready.
CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.
By A. D. Innes, M.A. (Oxon.), London. [Now ready.
CALVIN AND THE REFORMED THEOLOGY.
By Principal Salmond, D.D., U.F.C. College, Aberdeen.
-PASCAL AND THE PORT ROYALISTS.
By Professor W. Clark, LL.D., D.C.L., Trinity College,
Toronto.
.DESCARTES, SPINOZA, AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
By Professor J. Iverach, D.D., U.F.C. College, Aberdeen.
.WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK.
By James Sime, M.A. , F. R.S.E. [Now ready.
-WESLEY AND METHODISM.
By F. J. Snell, M. A. (Oxon. ). [Now ready.
LESSING AND THE NEW HUMANISM.
Including Baumgarten and the Science of ^Esthetics. By
Rev. A. P. Davidson, M.A.
HUME AND HIS INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY AND
THEOLOGY.
By Professor J. Orr, D.D., Glasgow.
ROUSSEAU AND NATURALISM IN LIFE AND THOUGHT.
By Professor W. H. Hudson, M.A., Leland Stanford
Junior University, California.
KANT AND HIS PHILOSOPHICAL REVOLUTION.
By Professor R. M. Wenley, D.Sc, Ph.D., University of
Michigan.
SCHLEIERMACHER AND THE REJUVENESCENCE OF
THEOLOGY.
By Professor A. Martin, D.D., New College, Edinburgh.
HEGEL AND HEGELIANISM.
By Professor R. Mackintosh, D.D., Lancashire Independent
College, Manchester.
NEWMAN AND HIS INFLUENCE.
By C. Sarolea, Ph.D., Litt. Doc, University of Edinburgh.

New York : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.