THIRD
638
THIRD
living in community must be mentioned Blessed
Louis Morbioli of Bologna (d. 1495).
The canonical institution of the third order dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, when a community of Beguines at Guelders sought affiha- tion to the order, and Blessed John Soreth, General of the Carmelites, obtained a Bull (7 Oct., 1452) granting the superiors of his order the faculties enjoyed by the Hermits of St. Augustine and the Dominicans of canonicaUy estabhshing convents of "virgins, widows, beguines and manteUatae". Fur- ther legislation took place in 1476 by the BuU "Mare magnum privilegiorum", and under Bene- dict XIII and his successors. The rule observed by the tertiaries, whether living in the world or gathered into communities, was originally that of the friars with modifications as required by their status. Theodor Stratius, General of the Calced Carmelites, composed in 1635 a new rule, revised in 1678, which is still observed among the tertiaries of the Calced and the Discalced Carmel- ites. It prescribes the recitation of the canonical office, or else of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, or, in its place, of the Pater noster and Ave Maria to be said thirty-five times a day, five times in lieu of each of the canonical hours; also half an hour's meditation every morning and evening; fasting on all Fridays and also on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 14 September till Easter, abstinence during Advent and Lent, and various works of mortification, devotion, and charity. Superiors may in their dis- cretion dispense from some of these obligations.
It is impossible to estimate even approximately the number of tertiaries hving in the world. Besides these there are numerous corporations of tertiaries established in difTerent countries, viz. two communi- ties of tertiary brothers in Ireland (Drumcondra and Clondalkin near Dublin) in charge of an asylum for the bfind and of a high-school for boys; eighteen communities of native priests in British India be- longing partly to the Latin and partly to the Syro- Malabar rites; four houses of Brothers of Christian Education in Spain. Far more numerous are the communities of nuns, namely twenty-three in India (Latin and Syro-Malabar rites) for the education of native girls, and four convents in Syria in connexion with the missions of the Order; two congregations of tertiaries in Spain with nineteen and forty-eight establishments respectively, and one unattached, for educational work. In .Spain there are also ter- tiary nuns called "Carmelitas de la caridad" engaged in works of charity with 150 establishments. The Austrian congregation of nuns numbers twenty- seven houses, while the most recent branch, the Car- melite Tertiaries of the Sacred Heart, founded at Berlin towards the end of the last century for the care and education of orphans and neglected children, have spread rapidly through Germany, Holland, England, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Hungary, and have twenty houses. In Italy there are three difTerent congregations with tliirty-two convents. There are smaller branches of the tertiaries in South America with two hou.ses at Santiago, Chile, in Switzerland with four convents, and in England with one.
BuUarium Carmclitanum (Rome), 1715 sqq.; Catalogus con- ventuum religioaorum et Monialium carmelitarum diacalceatorum (Rome, 1911).
Benedict Zi.vimerman.
III. The Third Order Seci-l.^k ok the Order op Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been introduced into the United States. There are at present two congregations, with 125 members.
Ferdinand Heckmann.
IV. Third Order of St. Dominic. — Origin. — This was one of the earliest developments of St. Francis's Ordo de Poenitentia. It was not indeed
the primal organism from which the Friars Preachers
evolved, but rather represents that portion of the
Order of Penance which came under Dominican
influence. At first vaguely constituted and hving
without system or form, its members gradually grew
more and more dependent on their spiritual guides.
The cUmax was reached, and the work of St. Francis
received its final perfection, when Munon de Zamora,
the seventh master-general of the Friars Preachers,
formulated a definite rule in 1285. By this the Ordo
de Poenitentia was to be ruled in each local centre by
a Dominican priest (Federici, "Istoria de cavalieri
Gaudenti", Venice, 1787, Codex Diplomaticus, II,
35) and was to be subject to the obedience of the
Dominican provincials and master-generals. No
longer were there to be any of those vague transitions
and extravagant vagaries (ibid., 28) which disfigured
in history these Orders of Penance. Henceforward
this branch was linked to the fortunes of the Friars
Preachers, wore their habits of black and white
(with few minor differences varying according to
time and country), and was to participate in all their
good works. They were not called a third order
indeed until after the thirteenth century (Mandon-
net, "Les regies et le gouvernement de I'ordo de
PcEnitentia", Paris, 1902, p. 207) but continued to be
known as "Brothers and Sisters of Penance" with
the addition "of St. Dominic", that is "The Brothers
and Sisters of the Penance of St. Dominic".
Simultaneously with them there came into being another and very different institution which, however, subsequently amalgamated with the Ordo de Poeni- tentia to form the Dominican Third Order. This was a military order, called the Mililia Jesu Christi (soldiery of Jesus Christ) created for the defence of the Church against the Albigenses. It owed its origin to Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, Simon de Montfort (Federici, "Istoria de cavaheri Gaudenti", Codex Diplomaticus, I), and not improbably to St. Dominic, then a canon of St. Augustine. This connexion with the founder of the Friars Preachers is first definitely propounded by Bl. Raymund of Capua, who became a Dominican about 1350. But the truth of this assertion is borne out by several other indications. As early as 1235, Gregory IX confided the Militia to the care of Bl. Jordan of Saxony, second master-general, by a BuU of IS May (Federici, op. cit., 10) ; and in the same year he decreed fortheknightsahabit of black and white (op. cit., 14). Further, when the Mihtia was brought across the Alps and estabhshed in Italy it is found to be always connected with some Dominican church (op. cit., I, 13). Lastly, it was very largely influenced by a famous Dominican, Fra Bartolomeo of Braganza, or of Vicenza, as he is sometimes called (op. cit., I, 12, 42, etc.). Originally working side by side and independent of each other, owing to the fact that both received the same spiritual administration of the Friars Preachers, they appear to have been merged together at the close of the thirteenth centurj-. This is what Ray- mund of Capua implies as the result of his researches. So too their ultimate coincidence is hinted at by Honorius III in 1221 when he designates the Mihtia "nomine poenitentia;" (Federici, Codex Diplomati- cus), and a comparison also of the rules of the two institutions: that of Gregory IX for the Militia in 1235 (op. cit., 12-16) and that of Munonde Zamora for the (^rder of Penance of St. Dominic in 1285 (op. cit., 28-36) would leatl one to the same conclusion. The only considerable diflference that could be cited against this identity is that Muflon de Zamora ex- pressly forbids the carrying of arms. But this is in reality but a further proof of their approximation, for he allows for the one exception whi<-li could pos- sibly apply to the Mihtia, viz. in defence of the Church (ibid., 32). This amalgamation is admit led liy the Hollandists to have become general in (lie fourteenth
