FRIARS
28.5
FRIARS
France, «liich had its inception in 1358 (or more
accurately in 1388) in the cloister at Mirabeau in the
province of Touraine, and thence spread through
Burgundy, Touraine, and Franconia. In 1407 Bene-
dict XIII exempted them from all jurisdiction of the
provincials, and on 13 May, 140S, gave them a vicar-
general in the person of Thomas de Curte. In 1414
about two hundred of their number addressed a
petition to the Council of Constance, which thereupon
granted to the friars of the slricta ohservanlia regularis
a special provincial vicar in every province, and a
vicar-general over all, Nicolas Rodolphe being the
first to fill the last-mentioned office. Angelo Salvetti,
general of the order (1421-24), viewed these changes
with marked disfavour, but Martin V's protection
prevented him from taking any steps to defeat their
aim. Far more opposed was Salvetti's successor,
Antonio de Massa (1424-30). The ranks of the
Observants increased rapidly in France and Spain in
consequence of the exemption. The Italian branch,
however, refused to avail themselves of any exemp-
tion from the usual superiors, the provincial and the
general.
In Cierniany the Observance appeared about 1420 in the province of Cologne at the monastery of Gouda (1418), in the province of Saxony in the Mark of Brandenburg (1425); in the upper German province first at the Heidelberg monastery (1426). Cloisters of the Observants already existed in Bosnia, Russia, Hungary, and even in Tatary. In 1430 Martin V (1417-31) summoned the whole order, Observants and Conventuals, to the General Chapter of Assisi (1430), " in order that our desire for a general reform of the order may be fulfilled". William of Casale (1430-42) was elected general, but the intellectual leader of Assisi was St. John Capistran. The statutes promul- gated by this chapter are called the "Constitutiones Martinianje" from the name of the pope. They can- celled the offices of general and provincial vicars of the Observants and introduced a scheme for the general reform of the order. All present at the chapter had boimd themselves on oath to carry out its decisions, but six weeks later (27 July, 1430) the general was released from his oath and obtained from Martin V the Brief "Ad statum" (23 August, 1430), which allowed the Conventuals to hold property like all other orders. This Brief constituted the Magna Charta of the Conventuals, and henceforth any reform of the order on the lines of the rule was out of the question.
The strife between the Observants and the Con- ventuals now broke out with such increased fm-y that even St. John Capistran laboured for a division of the order, which was however still longer opposed by St. Bernardino of Siena. Additional bitterness was lent to the strife when in many instances princes and towns forcibly withdrew the ancient Franciscan monasteries from the Conventuals antl turned them over to the Observants. In 1438 the general of the order named St. Bemardine of Siena, first Vicar- General of the Italian Observants, an office in which Bcrnardine was succeeded by St. John Capistran in 1441. At the General Chapter of Padua (1443). Albert Berdini of Sartcano (q.v.),an Observant, would have been chosen general in accordance with t he papal wish had not his election been opposed by St. Bernardine. Antonio de Rusconibus (1443-50) was accordingly elected, and, until the separation in 1517, no Obser- vant held the office of general. In 1443 Antonio appointed two vicars-general to direct the Observants — for the cismontane family (i. e. for Italy, the East, Austria-Hungary, and Poland) St. John Capistran, and for the ultramontane (all other countries, includ- ing afterwards America) Jean Perioche of Maubert. By the so-called Separation Bull of Eugene IV, " Ut sacra ordinis minonmi" (11 January, 1446), outlined by St. John Capistran, the office of the vicar-general
of the Observants was declared permanent, and made
practically independent of the minister general of the
ortler, but the Observants might not hold a general
chapter separate from the rest of the order. After
the canonization in 1450 of Bernardine of Siena (d.
1444), the first saint of the Observants, John Capis-
tran with the assistance of the zealous cardinal,
Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), extended the Observance
so greatly in Germany, that he could henceforth dis-
regard the attacks of the lax and time-serving sections
of the order. At the Chapter of Barcelona, in 1451,
the so-called "Statuta Barchinonensia" were promul-
gated. Though somewhat modified these continued
in force for centuries in the ultramontane family.
The compromise essayed by St. James of the March in 1455 was inherently hopeless, although it granted to the vicars of the Observants active voting power at the general chapters. On this compromise was based the " Bulla Concordia?" of Callistus III (2 February, 1456), which Pius II withdrew (11 October, 14.58). The Chapter of Perugia (1464) elected as general Francesco della Rovere (1464-60), who was elevated to the cardinalate in 1468, and later elected pope under the title of SLxtus IV (1471-84). Sixtus granted various privileges to the Franciscans in his Bull "Mare magnum" (1474) and his "Bulla aurea" (1479), but was rather more kindly disposed towards the Conventuals, to whom he had belonged. The generals Francesco Nanni (147.5-99), to whom Sixtus gave the sobriquet of Samson to signalize his victory in a disputation on the Immaculate Conception, and Egidio Delfini (1500-06) displayed a strong bias in fa\our of the reform of the Conventuals, Egidio using as his plea the so-called " Constitutiones Alexandrina;" sanctioned by Alexander VI in 1501. His zeal was far surpassed inSpain by that of the powerful ]\Iinorite, Francisco Ximenes de los Cisneros, who expelled from the cloisters all Conventuals opposed to the reform. At Paris, Delfini won the large house of studies to the side of the reformers. The Capitulum gcneralissimum at Rome in 1506 was expected to ibring aliout the union of the various branches, but the proposed plan did not find acceptance, antl the statutes, drawn up by the chapter and pulilisheil in 1508 under the title "Statuta lulii II", could not bridge the chasm separating the parties. After long deliberations had taken place under generals Rainaldo Graziani (150(5-09), Philip of Bagnacavallo (1509- 11), and Bernardino Prato da Chieri (1513-17), the last genera! of the united order, Leo X summoned on 11 July, 1516, a capitulum gcncralissiinvm to meet at Rome on the feast of Pentecost (31 May), 1517. This chapter first suppressed all the reformed congrega- tions and annexed them to the Observants; declared the Observants an independent order, the true Order of St. Francis, and separated them completely from the Conventuals. The General of the Observants received the title of Mitjistcr Grneralis totius ordinis Fratrum Miuorum, with or without the addition regularis Obscrranticc, and was entrusted with the ancient seal of the order. His period of office was limited to six years, and he was to be chosen alter- nately from the familia eismontana and the [amilia idtramovlana — a regulation which has not been observed. For the other family a Commissarius generalis is always elected. In processions, etc., the Observants take precedence of the Conventuals.
B. Second Period (IS 17-1909). —ChvisioloTO Numai of Friuli was elected first General of the Reformed Order of Franciscans [Ordo Fratrum Minorum), but was raised a month later to the cardinalate. Francesco Lichetto (1518-20) w-as chosen as his successor by the Chapter of Lyons (1518), where the deliberations centred around the necessary rearrangement of the order in pro\'inces and the promulgation of new general constitutions, which were based on the statutes of Barcelona (1451, cf. supra). Lichetto and his
