§ 68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 381
has more the elements of a Christian apostle, Dominic of an ecclesiastical statesman. Francis we can only think of as mingling with the people and breathing the free air of the fields ; Dominic we think of easily as lingering in courts and serving in the papal household. Francis' lifework was to save the souls of men ; Dominic's lifework was to increase the power of the Church. The one sought to carry the min istries of the Gospel to the masses ; the other to perpetuate the integrity of Catholic doctrine. Francis has been cele brated for the humbleness of his mind and walk; Dominic was called the hammer of the heretics.
It is probable that on at least three occasions the two leaders met.1 In 1217 they were both at Rome, and the curia proposed the union of the two brotherhoods in one organization. Dominic asked Francis for his cord, and bound himself with it, saying he desired the two orders to be one. Again, 1218, they met at the Portiuncula, Francis' beloved church in Assisi, and on the basis of what he saw, Dominic decided to embrace mendicancy, which his order adopted in 1220. Again in 1221 they met at Rome, when /y, Cardinal Ugolino sought to manipulate the orders in the in terest of the hierarchy. This Francis resented, but in vain.
It was the purpose neither of Francis nor Dominic to ' reform existing orders, or to revive the rigor of rules halfobeyed. It may be doubted whether Francis, at the outset, had any intention of founding an organization. His object -»— was rather to start a movement to transform the world as with leaven. They both sought to revive Apostolic practice.
The Franciscan and Dominican orders differed from the older orders in five important particulars.
The first characteristic feature was absolute poverty. Mendicancy was a primal principle of their platforms. The rules of both orders, the Franciscans leading the way, for-
1 Karl MUller accepts the evidence which Sabatier gives. See Literatur- Zeitung, 1895, p. 181.
382 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
bade the possession of property. The corporation, as well as the individual monk, was pledged to poverty. The in tention of Francis was to prohibit forever the holding of corporate property as well as individual property among his followers. 1
The practice of absolute poverty had been emphasized by preachers and sects in the century before Francis and Domi nic began their careers, and sects, such as the Humiliati, the Poor Men of Lombardy, and the Poor Men of Lyons, were advocating it in their time. Robert d'Abrissel, d. 1117, had for his ideal to follow " the bare Christ on the cross, without any goods of his own.'' 2 One of the biographers of Bernard of Thiron, d. 1117, calls him "Christ's poor man," pauper Christi, and says that this " man, poor in spirit, followed unto death the Poor Lord."3 Likewise the follow ers of Norbert, the founder of the Premonstrant order, were called the " poor men of Christ," pauperes Christi. Of an other itinerant preacher, Vitalis of Savigny, who lived about the same time, his biographer said that he decided to bear Christ's light yoke by walking in the steps of the Apostles.4 The minds of select men and classes of men were deeply moved in the thirteenth century to follow closely the exam ple of the Apostles, and they regarded Christ as having taught and practised absolute poverty. Arnold of Brescia's mind worked in the same direction, as did also the heretical sects of Southern France and Northern Italy. The imita tion of Christ lay near to their hearts, and it remained for Francis of Assisi to realize most fully this pious ideal of the thirteenth century.5
1 This does not mean that the Franciscans in their early period were idlers. They were expected to work. Sabatier, 8. Francois, VIII. p. 138.
2 nudus nudum Christum in cruce sequi, Walter, Wanderprediger.
3 Pauperem dominum ad mortem pauper spiritu pauper sequebatur, Wal ter, II. 44.
4 Levejugum Christi per apostolorum vestigia ferre decrevit, Walter, II. 83. 6 Walter, Wanderprediger Frankreichs, p. 168, has brought this out w.ell.