CARMELITE
358
CARMELITE
number of capitulars four definitors were chosen who
together with the provincial performed much the
same duties on behalf of the province as did the defin-
itory of the general chapter on behalf of the whole
order. Among other things they had full authority
to depose priors and to elect new ones; they also
selected students to be sent to the various studio,
generalia and particularia, and to the universities, and
made adequate provision for their expenses. They
decided — subject to the approval of the general and
the Holy See — on the foundation of new convents.
They dealt with delinquents. Attempts were made
from time to time to limit the duration of the office
of provincials, but so long as the general legislation
of the Church tolerated an indefinite tenure of office
these endeavours were practically unavailing.
The superior of a convent was the prior, or in his absence and during a vacancy the vicar. The prior was controlled in his administration by three guar- dians who held the keys of the common chest and countersigned bills and contracts. Complaints against the prior were sent to the provincial or to the provin- cial chapter. There was no limit to the tenure of office of the prior; he might be confirmed year after year for twenty or more years. In the case of con- vents in university towns, especially Paris and the Roman Curia (Avignon, afterwards Rome) the nom- ination belonged to the general or the general chap- ter; and there appears to have been an unwritten law that at Cambridge, Louvain, and other universities the priorship should be filled by the bachelor who in the course of the year was to take his degree as Master in Divinity. From about the middle of the four- teenth century it became customary to fill the offices of general, provincial, and prior (at least in the larger convents) exclusively with those who had taken de- grees. Almost the only systematic exception to this rule is to be found in the province of Upper Germany.
Sources of Membership. — When St. Simon Stock es- tablished convents in university towns he obviously counted upon the undergraduates as the future re- cruits of the order; nor was he deceived in his expecta- tion. True, the time had passed when in one day sixty or more students with their professors flocked to the Dominican convent at Paris to receive the habit from the hands of Blessed Jordan. But there were still many applicants, notwithstanding the severe by-laws of the universities regulating the reception of students in mendicant convents. It was perhaps chiefly the poor scholars who by joining one of these orders secured for themselves the necessaries of life as well as the means of education. Not only in the time of St. Simon but even much later a good deal of trou- ble was caused by these young men, who had recently exchanged the free and easy life of the scholar for the discipline of the cloister. In many convents we find numerous instances of members of the families of the founders and chief benefactors becoming conventuals; in some cases the relationship of uncle and nephew may be traced through several centuries; just as the prebends of cathedrals and collegiate churches were often in the gift of the founder and his family and were handed down from generation to generation, the more humble cells of a Carmelite convent remained frequently in the hands of one and the same family win. considered it their duty as well as their right to be ever represented by at least one member. Again, it
frequently happened that a father desirous of settling
In- ,.n in lite bought or endowed a cell for him in a convent. It was probably due to the ardent piety of former times and the careful preservation from dan- gerous society that such casual calls ripened into solid vocations. In places where the Carmelites had public or semi-public schools they found little diffi- culty in choosing suitable boys. Hut there remained a good many convents in small places, where the re- cruiting "as evidently not so easy and where with a
decreasing number of inmates a dangerous relaxation
of religious observance went hand in hand. For,
throughout the Middle Ages a friar belonged tothecon-
vent in which he had taken the'habit, alt hough through
force of circumstances he might be absent from it for
the greater part of Ins life. Hence, the general chap-
ters repeatedly commanded the priors to receive every
year one or two promising young men even if they
brought no endowment, so as to gradually increase
the number of religious. In other cases where prov-
inces were numerous enough but lacked the means of
subsistence the reception of novices might be stopped
for several years.
Probation and Formation of Members. — The cloth- ing of novices was preceded by certain inquiries into their antecedents and the respectability of their fam- ilies. The year of probation was spent in the convent which they entered, the "native convent" as it was called, and a father was commissioned to take per- sonal care of a novice, teaching him the customs of the order and the ceremonies of the choir. According to the oldest constitutions, each novice might have a special master, but in practice one master, assisted, if necessary, by a substitute, was appointed for all. The novices were not allowed to mingle with the rest of the community or with the boys of the convent school ; no office that in any way could interfere with their chief duty, viz. learning the Divine Office, was given them. On the other hand the prior was not to allow anyone to reprehend the novices or find fault with them, except the novice-master himself, whose business it was to teach, correct, guide, and encour- age them. Towards the end of the novitiate the probationer was voted on; if he had given satisfac- tion he was allowed to make his profession, otherwise he was dismissed. One of the conditions for profes- sion was that the novice should be able to read flu- ently and write correctly. Those who might smile at such elementary requirements should remember that reading and writing implied a complete mastery of the Latin grammar and a practical knowledge of the system of abbreviations and contractions, a know- ledge of palaeography which is not now required either of schoolboys or advanced scholars.
After profession the provincial decided what was to be done with the young religious. He might stand in need of further training in grammar and rhetoric, or he might begin at once the study of physics and logic. If his own convent offered no facility for these pursuits, which was probably seldom the case, he would be sent to another. Once a week or a fortnight the teacher would hold a repetition with his scholars in presence of the community so that it might be- come known who had studied and who had been neg- ligent. Special convents were assigned for the study of philosophy and theology; in England the former was taught at Winchester, the latter at Coventry. The higher studies were, however, pursued at the studia generalia of which in 1324 there were eight: Paris, Toulouse, Bologna, Florence. Montpeluer, Cologne, London, and Avignon. Their number was gradually increased until each province had its own, but in earlier times every province was bound to send a certain number of students to each of these studio, and to provide for their maintenance; they were even free to send a larger number than prescribed, but they had to pay for the full number even if they sent less.
In addition to the students sent to the studia at the expense of their provinces, others might be sent at the expense of their parents and friends, provided the
superiors had given their consent. Thus the Dumber of students at the Carmelite convent at Paris aver- aged three hundred, in London over a hundred. The majority of students were sen' pro simplici forma, that is just to complete their course, after which they returned to their provinces. Only the most promis- ing were allowed to study for degrees, because this
