The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Redemption of Captives (Lat. Fratres Ordinis sanctae Trinitatis et redemptionis captivorum), generally known as the Trinitarian Order, was a redemptionist religious order founded by St. John of Matha (1154-1213) at the end of the twelfth century. It was the first church institution whose main purpose was the redemption of Christian captives from the Muslims, by means of ransom, charity, and mercy. The Rule of the order was devised by John of Matha but was modified over time. According to monastic tradition, the hermit St. Felix of Valois was the cofounder of the order and was instrumental in establishing its first house in the desert of Cer-froid, some 80 kilometers (50 mi.) northeast of Paris. John based his Rule on his own monastic experiences in Cerfroid, which was soon joined by two other communities at Bourg-la-Reine and Planels. The Rule was approved by Pope Innocent III in the bull Operante Divine dispositionis (17 December 1198), and a modified version of it was confirmed by Pope Urban VI in 1267.
The distinctive element of the white Trinitarian habit was a red and blue cross. By the 1250s some fifty Trinitarian monasteries had been founded in France, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Scotland, and England. Soon the Trinitarians also dedicated themselves to the various services of mercy, hospitality, care of the poor and sick (Lat. cura hospitum et pauperum), education, and even preaching. The Rule required every Trinitarian community to devote a third of its income for the purpose of ransoming, which also was the main object of fundraising. The friars took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. During journeys they were allowed to ride a donkey.
The general chapter of the order was held every year at Pentecost. The monastery of St. Mathurin located near the Sorbonne in Paris became its main house. By the end of the Middle Ages, there were some 150 houses within twelve provinces throughout Europe. The order received numerous endowments from the various Iberian rulers, notably King Peter I of Aragon (d. 1213) and his son James I the Conqueror (d. 1234), and maintained close relations with the Iberian monarchies to the end of the Reconquista (the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims).
The initial character of the order was the dedication to redemption of Christian captives, mainly crusaders or those taken by Muslim pirates on the Mediterranean Sea. The total number of rescued captives is hard to estimate, but can be counted in the thousands. The redemption missions to the North African coast, mainly undertaken by Spanish friars, were organized and carried out with the financial support (from alms and specific donations) of the order’s other provinces, as well as of the local magnates and knights. The redemption missions were sometimes connected with trading activity (e. g., in textiles and jewelry), organized at the request of Spanish or North African rulers. Their contacts with the Muslim world allowed the Trinitarians to develop theological and apologetic studies of Islam. They were involved in redemptionist activities until the middle of the nineteenth century. For example, friars of the Polish-Lithuanian province organized eighteen great redemption missions in 1688-1782 to the Crimea, the Golden Horde, and Turkey and succeeded in ransoming over 500 Christians. Another important element of Trinitarian activity was the maintenance of hospitals for the poor and sick, established since the very beginning of the order, for example, at Marseilles, Arles, Saint-Gilles, Lerida (Lleida), Toledo, and Burgos. The hospitals could also be used to accommodate freed captives.
Political, economic, and religious changes between the late fifteenth century and the mid-sixteenth century brought about a period of decline for the Trinitarians. All of their houses in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as some of those in Germany, were suppressed as a consequence of the Protestant Reformation. A move toward reform could be observed after the Council of Trent, when the Spanish, Portuguese, and French houses issued new, reformed provincial statutes. The new revised versions were published as Regula et statuta in 1586 at Douai. According to this book of statutes there were 154 monasteries distributed in provinces: Ile de France (12), Champagne (11), Picardy (14), Normandy (14), Languedoc (14), Provence (10), Aragon (26), Portugal (5), Old Castile (15), and New Castile and Andalusia (21), as well as so-called domus antiquae (former houses) in the provinces of England (6) and Scotland (6), which by that time had been suppressed.
A strong and vital reform movement among the Trinitarians, known later as the Recollection (Lat. Reformato-rium), was led by the zealous John Baptist of the Conception (1561-1613). It resulted in the establishment of the Spanish Discalced Trinitarians, soon followed by the French Dis-calced Trinitarians (1622). The Discalced (barefooted) Trinitarian reform movement followed the example of the Dis-calced Carmelites and symbolized the Christian virtues of poverty and chastity. Pope Clement VIII in his letter Ad mil-itantes ecclesiae (20 August 1599) recognized this new observance officially as the Congregation of the Reformed and Discalced Brothers (Lat. Congregatio fratrum reformatorum et discaleatorum). By the time of the death of John Baptist, as many as eighteen convents had joined his reform movement, which also flourished in the Habsburg territories and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The suppression of religious communities in 1782-1783 by Joseph II of Austria, followed by the French Revolution (1789) and Spanish and Portuguese suppressions in the 1830s, brought about the near total destruction of the order. After the dissolution of the surviving Polish monasteries in the 1860s, the Trinitarians were restricted to Rome, where the monastery of the Spanish friars survived (S. Carlino alle Quattro Fontane). The restoration of the order began at the end of the nineteenth century in France, Spain, Italy, and Austria and resulted in the unification of the discalced and calced branches in 1900.
-Rafal Witkowski
Bibliography
Cipollone, Giulio, “Les Trinitaires: Fondation du Xlle siecle pour les captifs et pour les pauvres,” in Fondations et oeuvres charitables, ed. Jean Dufour and Henri Platelle (Paris: CTHS, 1999), pp. 75-87.
Grimaldi-Hierholz, Rosaline, L’Ordre des Trinitaires: Histoire etspiritualite (Paris: Le Sarment-Fayard, 1994).
Gross, Joseph J., The Trinitarian Apostolate of Ransom-Activity and Mercy Work during the Order’s First Centuries (Rome: Trinitarian Historical Institute, 1982).
Marchionni, Isaia, Note sulla storia delle origini dell’Ordine della SS. Trinitd (Roma: Arti Grafiche dei Fiorentini, 1973).
Pujana, Juan, La Orden de la Santisima Trinidad (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca: Fundacion Universitaria Espanola, 1993).
World History
