§ 68. The Mendicant Orders. For literature, see §§ 69, 72.
A powerful impulse was imported into monasticism and the life of the mediaeval Church by the two great mendicant orders,1 the Dominicans and the Franciscans, who received papal sanction respectively in 1216 and 1223. In their first period they gained equally the esteem of scholars, princes, and popes, and also the regard of the masses, though not without a struggle.2 Dante praised them ; great ecclesiastics like Grosseteste welcomed their coming to England as the dawn of a new era. Louis IX. would have divided his body between them. But it has been questioned whether the good services which they rendered in the first years of their career are not more than counterbalanced by their evil activity in later periods when their convents became a synonym for idleness, insolence, and ignorance.
The appearance of these two organizations was without question one of the most momentous events of the Middle Ages,3 and marks one of the notable revivals in the history of the Christian Church. They were the Salvation Army of the thirteenth century, and continue to be powerful organi zations to this day. At the time when the spirit of the Cru sades was waning and heresies were threatening to sweep away the authority, if not the very existence of the hierarchy, Francis d'Assisi and Dominic de Guzman, an Italian and a Spaniard, united in reviving the religious energies and
1 Ordines mendicantium.
2 The practice of mendicancy was subsequently adopted by the Carmelites, 1245, the Augustinian friars, 1256, and several other orders. In 1274 Greg ory X. abolished all mendicant orders except the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinian friars, and Carmelites.
3 Wilhelm Kothe: Kirchliche Zustdnde Strassburgs im 14ten Jahrhundert, Freib. im Br., 1903, says the mendicant monks were distrusted in Strassburg from the beginning and the Dominicans had to remain outside of the walls till 1250, and their attempt at that time to build a chapel stirred up a warm conflict.
380 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
strengthening the religious organization of the Western Church. As is usually the case in human affairs, the person alities of these great leaders were more powerful than sol emnly enacted codes of rules. They started monasticism on a new career. They embodied Christian philanthropy so that it had a novel aspect. They were the sociological reformers of their age. They supplied the universities and scholastic theology with some of their most brilliant lights. The prophecies of Joachim of Flore were regarded as fulfilled in Francis and Dominic, who were the two trumpets of Moses to arouse the world from its slumber, the two pillars ap pointed to support the Church. The two orders received pa pal recognition in the face of the recent decree of the Fourth Lateran against new monastic orders.
Two temperaments could scarcely have differed more widely than the temperaments of Francis and Dominic. Dante has described Francis as an Ardor, inflaming the world with love ; Dominic as a Brightness, filling it with light.
The one was all seraphical in Ardor, The other by his wisdom upon earth A Splendor was of light cherubical.1
Neither touched life on so many sides as did Bernard. They were not involved in the external policies of states. They were not called upon to heal papal schisms, nor were they brought into a position to influence the papal policy. But each excelled the monk of Clairvaux as the fathers of well-disciplined and permanent organizations.
Francis is the most unpretentious, gentle, and lovable of all monastic saints.2 Dominic was cold, systematic, austere. Francis is greater than his order, and moves through his per sonality. Dominic was a master disciplinarian, and has ex erted his influence through the rules of his order. Francis
1 Paradiso, canto XI. Longfellow's trans.
2 Harnack says : " If ever man practised what he preached, that man was Francis." Jfonachixm, p. 08.