§ 68. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 387
of the Inquisition. Torquemada was a Dominican, and so was Konrad of Marburg. As early as 1232 Gregory IX. confided the execution of the Inquisition to the Dominicans, but the order of Francis demanded and secured a share in the gruesome work. Under the lead of Duns Scotus the Franciscans became the unflagging champions of the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary which was pronounced a dogma in 1854, as later the Jesuits became the unflagging champions of the dogma of papal infallibility.
The rapid growth of the two orders in number and in fluence was accompanied by bitter rivalry. The disputes between them were so violent that in 1255 their respective generals had to call upon their monks to avoid strife. The papal privileges were a bone of contention, one order being constantly suspicious lest the other should enjoy more favor at the hand of the pope than itself.
Their abuse of power called forth papal briefs restricting their privileges. Innocent IV. in 1254, in what is known among the orders as the " terrible bull," l revoked the per mission allowing them to admit others than members of the orders to their services on festivals and Sundays and also the privilege of hearing confession except as the parochial priest gave his consent. Innocent, however, was no sooner in his grave than his successor, Alexander IV., announced himself as the friend of the orders, and the old privileges were renewed.
The pretensions of the mendicant friars soon became un bearable to the church at large. They intruded them selves into every parish and incurred the bitter hostility of the secular clergy whose rights they usurped, exercising with free hand the privilege of hearing confessions and
1 Potthast, II. 1280. Innocent died a few weeks after issuing this bull and, as is said, in answer to the prayers of the mendicants. Hence came the saying, "from the prayers of the Preachers, good Lord, deliver us." A litanis prcedicatorum libera nos, Domine.
388 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1294.
granting absolution. It was not praise that Chaucer in tended when he said of the Franciscan in his Canterbury Tales, — He was an easy man to give penance.
These monks also delayed a thorough reformation of the Church. They were at first reformers themselves and offered an offset to the Cathari and the Poor Men of Lyons by their Apostolic self-denial and popular sympathies. But they degenerated into obstinate obstructors of progress in theology and civilization. From being the advocates of learning, they became the props of popular ignorance. The virtue of poverty was made the cloak for vulgar idleness and mendicancy for insolence.
These changes set in long before the century closed in which the two orders had their birth. Bishops opposed them. The secular clergy complained of them. The uni versities ridiculed and denounced them for their mock piety and vices. William of St. Amour took the lead in the opposition in Paris. His sharp pen compared the mendi cants to the Pharisees and Scribes and declared that Christ and his Apostles did not go around begging. To work was more scriptural than to beg.1 They were hypocrites and it remained for the bishops to purge their dioceses of them. Again and again, in after years, did clergy, bishops, and princes appeal to the popes against their intrusive insolence, but, as a rule, the popes were on their side.
The time came in the early part of the fifteenth century
:In his treatise de periculis novissorum tcmporum, "The Perils of the Last Times," Basel, 1555, William has been held up as a precursor of Rabelais and Pascal on account of his keen satire. He was answered by Bonaventura and by Thomas Aquinas in his contra impugnantes religionem. Alexander IV. ordered William's treatise burnt, and in the bull, dated Oct. 5, 1256, declared it to be "most dangerous and detestable," valde perniciosum et detestaltUem. See Potthast, II. 1357. When an edition of William's treatise appeared at Paris, 1632, the Mendicants secured an order from Louis XIII. suppressing it. William was inhibited from preaching and teaching and retired to Franche-Comte, where he died. See Chartularium Univ. Parisiensis, I. Nos. 295, 296, 314, 318, 321, 332, 339, 343, 345, etc.