Mendicants

The name mendicant (from mendicare, to beg) is applied to religious men and women who have taken vows of common renunciation of goods, chastity and obedience. The earliest orders were the Franciscans (founded by Francis of Assisi (c. 1172-1226) and approved in 1209), and the Dominicans (founded by Dominic of Caleruega (1170-1221) and approved in 1216). By the midcentury they also included the Carmelites who had originated from groups of hermits (Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) living in Palestine on the slopes of Mount Carmel, who migrated to Sicily, Italy, France and England in the 1230s. In 1247 their General, Simon Stock, approached Innocent IV for a modification in the Rule which allowed them to settle anywhere (including the towns), to lead a cenobitical style of life and adopt an active pastoral role in the towns. Similarly, groups of hermits in Lombardy, Tuscany and Romagna were united in 1256 with the Bonites, a congregation of penitents, who lived a life of preaching and mendicancy in north Italy. They also ministered to the townspeople of Europe (primarily in Italy but with priories in Spain, Germany, France, England and Scotland) and were renamed the Order of Friars Hermits of St Augustine.

The mendicant orders aimed to reintroduce the apostolic life of the gospels (or imitation of Jesus and the first apostles) into the growing towns of thirteenth-century Europe. Poverty, voluntarily embraced, was one intention, as was the idea of preaching to the unconverted or those who had strayed. The movement first emerged in Italy but quickly spread throughout Christendom. The mendicants were generally welcomed with enthusiasm but at times faced opposition from secular clergy because of the threat of competition, particularly after 1267 when Clement IV renewed their privilege of preaching, hearing confession and accepting burials without having to obtain diocesan consent. However, the papacy, usually supportive, sought to resolve such conflicts with bulls such as Super cathedram issued in 1300, which ordered that licenses must first be obtained before undertaking such activities.

The friars settled initially outside the walls of a city and moved into the centre from the 1230s onwards, into pre-existing sites, often derelict, which had been lent by a sympathetic local bishop, an individual or a city corporation. The first purposely built mendicant churches were tiny and simple and were quickly outgrown, thus necessitating the rebuilding which was executed in a new architectural style which recalled Cistercian models. This plan was ideally suited to preaching, with a spacious nave (single or aisled), optional transept and terminating in an apse or apsidal chapels at the east end.

Apart from their contribution to preaching, sermon-making and education, their artistic contribution was immense—each mendicant order attracted extensive patronage from families and confraternities which commissioned works of art in return for masses and/or burial. The Dominicans and Franciscans, in particular, had a considerable impact upon all subsequent forms of religious life including the Tertiaries. These, the Third Order, were groups of lay people who led a life of piety and charity and continued to live in their homes, married or not, and attached themselves to the mendicants for liturgical services.

L. Bourdua