franchisement

[Eng. franchise; -ment.] A release or setting free from any burden or restriction; freedom; liberty. frăn'-çic, a. [Fr. Francique.] Of or pertaining to the Franks or their language; Frankish. frăn-çis-ca, frăn-çis' que (que as k), s. [Fr. francis que.] Archœol.: The ancient Frankish battle-ax. It differed from the modern ax in the angle at which it was joined with the handle. Frăn-çis'-can, a. & 8. [Fr. Francis cain ; Ital. Franciscano ; Lat. Francis can us =pertaining to St. Francis of A isi. (See def.)] A. As adj.: Pertaining or relating to St. Francis. [B.] B. As substantive : 1. Sing.: A member of the order described under 2. 2. Pl.: The followers of St. Francis, who was born in 1182, at A isi, in Umbria, and spent his youth in di olutene ; but being affected with serious sickne in his twenty-fourth year, and repenting of his sins, devoted himself to a religious and ascetic life. Hearing accidentally in 1208, in a church the words of the Savior (Matt. x. 9, 10), he considered that the e ence of the Gospel was absolute poverty, and founded an order on this basis, which ultimately became one of the four, nay, even one of the two, great fraternities of mend i cant friars. To manifest his humility he would not allow his followers to be called brethren (in Lat. fratres ), but only little brothers (Ital. fra tri cell i ; in Lat.fra . terculi or fratres minores ), a designation which they still retain. Pope Innocent III., in 1210, and a council of Later an, in 1215, approved of his rules for the govern. ment of his order, which enjoined poverty, chastity, and obedience, and in 1223 Pope Honor i us III. i ued a bull in his favor. He died, at A isi, in 1226, and in 1230 was canonized by Pope IMG:content-0106.jpg:[graphic][merged small] Gregory IX., the anniversary of his death, October 4, being fixed as his festival. Even while he lived his order had become very powerful, and spread over the whole Western Church. In 1219 it is stated that 5,000 friars were present at a chapter which he held. In that year, or more probably in 1224, Francis cans went over to England. From 1228 till 1259 they contended with the Do mini cans about precedency. When in 1274 Gregory X. reduced the mendicants to four orders the Francis cans were one of the four. At the suppre ion of the monasteries in England under Henry VIII., A. D. 1536 to 1538, the Francis cans had sixtysix abbeys or other religious houses. Their dre persons to be incorporated and subsist as a body politic. their ankles, and a gray cowl, covered when they Other franchises are to have a manor or lordship; to have went into the streets with a cloak. From the prev a 2. A privilege; a right granted by the head of government to an individual or to a body; an immunity or exemption from ordinary jurisdiction. "Franchise and liberty are used as synonymous terms; and their definition is royal privilege or branch of the sovereign's prerogative, subsisting in the hands of a subject; the kinds of them are various, and almost infinite. To be a county palatine is a franchise, vested in a number was a loose garment of a gray color, reaching to of persons. It is likewise a franchise for a number of waifs, estrays, royal fish: to have a fair or market; or to lence of gray in their dre they were called Gray have a forest, warren, or fishery, endowed with privileges friars. The order, in the course of its history, split of royalty."- Black stone : Comment., bk. ii., ch. 2. into various branches. qu = kw franciscea