FRANCISCANS

the members of the religious order established by St. Francis of A isi about 1210. They are also called Minorites, or Fratres Minores (‘le er friars’), which was the name given them by their founder in token of humility, and sometimes Grey Friars, from the colour of their garment. The order was distinguished by vows of absolute poverty and a renunciation of the pleasures of the world, and was intended to serve the Church by its care of the religious state of the people. The rule of the order destined them to beg and to preach. The popes granted them extensive privileges, and they had an evil repute as spies, frequenting the courts of princes and the houses of noblemen, gentry, . They appeared in Great Britain in 1220. \ Early in the fifteenth century the Francis cans split up into two branches, the Conventuals and the Observants or Sabotiers. The former went barefooted, wore a long grey ca ock and cloak and hood of large dimensions, covering the breast and back, and a knotted girdle. The Observants wore wooden sandals, a ca ock, a narrow 562 FRANCIS XAVIER, ST.. 5 hood, a short cloak with a wooden clasp, and a brown robe. In France the members of the order not belonging to any particular sect are called Cordeliers, from the cord which they tie about them. The Capuchins, so called from the peculiar kind of hood or cowl (capuce) which they wear, originated in a reform introduced among the Observantists by Matteo di Ba i in the early part of the sixteenth century. Although it received the approbation of different Popes within a_ short time after its foundation, it did not receive the right of electing a particular general and become an independent order till 1619. _ St. Francis himself collected nuns in 1209. St. Clara was their priore ; hence they were called the nuns of St. Clara. The nuns were also divided into branches, according to the severity of their rules. Urbanists were a branch founded by Pope Urban IV; they revered St. Is a belle, daughter of Louis VIII of France, as their mother. St. Francis also founded in 1221 a third order, of both sexes, for persons who did not wish to take the monastic vows, and yet desired to adopt a few of the easier observances. They are called Tertiarians or Tertiaries, and were very numerous in the thirteenth century. From them proceeded several heretical fraternities, as the Frati cell i and Beghards. The whole number of Francis cans and Capuchins in the eighteenth century amounted to 115,000 monks, in 7,000 convents. At the di olution of the monasteries in England there were sixty-five houses of the Francis cans. The order has given five Popes and more than fifty cardinals to the Church. There are now several houses in Great Britain and Ireland. Friar Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus. St. Bona venture, Alexander of Hales, and William of Ockham were Francis cans. —BIBLIOGRAPHY: lL. Wadding, Annales Minorum Fratrum; Brewer, Monument a Francis can a; Cusack, St. Francis and the Francis cans; A. G. Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford; J. Sever, The English Francis cans wnder Henry VIII. IMG:fig563_1.jpg: