HOLT
416
HOLT
foundation of Anglo-Saxon origin already existing on
the banks of the Tiber. This was a simple hospitium
founded in 715 by King Ina for his countrymen and
known by the name of Hospitale S. Mariae in Sassia,
around which was formed a quarter called the Schola
SaxoHum. In the course of centuries the buildings
had fallen to ruin, but the endowments were still
available and were appropriated l)y the pope to the
new institute. A first hospital building was erected
in the same quarter, and Guy de Montpellier was
called to Rome to organize the service of the sick.
In the beginning the institution was in the hands of laymen. Innocent III confining himself to attaching to it four clerics for spiritual duties, responsible only to the pope or his delegate. In return he endowed the institution with the most extensive privileges, hith- erto reservetl to the great monastic orders; exemption from all spiritual and temporal jurisdiction save his own, the right to build churches, to nominate chap- lains, and to have their own cemeteries. The signal was given; everywhere there arose filial houses modelled after the mother-house, while houses al- ready in existence hastened to seek affiliation in order to enjoy these great privileges; the filial houses swarmed in turn, and thus formed a netw-ork of colonies dependent immediately or mediately on the Holy Ghost at Home, and enjoying the .same privileges on condition of adopting the same rule, of submitting to periodical visitation, and of paying a light contri- bution to their metropolitan. At the end of the thir- teenth century the order numbered in France more than 180 houses, and a century later nearly 400. In Germany the list drawn up by Virchow counts about 1.30 houses at the end of the fourteenth century. An- other historian reaches a figure of 900 houses at the same period for the whole of Christendom, but he does not call it complete. The central authority, residing at Rome, was vested in a master-general, later called commander, a general chapter held each year at Pente- cost, and the visitors delegated by the chapter.
An outburst of generosity responded to this display of Christian mercy; donations of every sort, in lands and revenues, poured in, which enriched the order and gave rise to a temporal administration modelled on that of the military orders. Thus their possessions were grouped into conimanderies, which were soon invaded by laymen (many of them married), and thus arose the self-styled "Militia of the Holy Ghost". These lay knights assumeii the revenues of these com- manderies on condition of furnishing to the order an annual contriljution analogous to the responsions of the military orders. This was an abuse to which Pius II put an end by appropriating these prel)ends of the Holy Ciliost to a new order founded by him in 14.'J9 under the name of Our Lady of Bethlehem. In 1476 Pope Sixtus IV decreed further that the com- manderies should be given only to religious. As to the magisterial commandery at Rome, it was nearly always reserved for a prelate of the Roman Court. Under Guy de Montpellier and his early successors the two houses of Montpellier and Rome remained un- der the obedience of a common master general. When, later, two separate masters came to be appointed, it was decreed that the arch-hospital of Rome should collect the revenues of Italy, Sicily, England, and Hun- gary, and that the hospital of Alontpellier should have jurisdiction over the houses of France and the other countries of Christendom.
Subsequent to this division of the order, confirmed in 1619 by Pope Paul V, Oliver of Terrada, invested with the dignity of general of the order in France, abu.sed it to renew the Militia of the Holy Ghost. He proceeded to distribute brevets of knighthood to men of all classes, to laymen, often married, which gave rise to protests on the part of the religious of the order. Louis XIV first abolished this knighthood by an edict of 1672, which gave the goods of the Order of the Holy
Ghost to the Order of Notre Dame de Mont-Carmel,
founded to procure pensions for gentlemen who had
served in his armies. The Knights of the Holy Ghost
opposed the execution of this edict, the withdraw'al
of which they secured, in 1()92, by means of a compro-
mise according to which they pledged themselves to
recruit and equip a regiment for the service of the
king. However, the religious of the ( )r(ler of the Holy
Ghost oppo.sed this edict in their turn, and in 1700,
after lengthy proceedings, they finally .secured victory
in an edict which declared that the Order of the Holy
Ghost was purely regular and in no way military.
The buildings of the Arcispedale di Santo Spirito
of Rome, which dated from the days of Sixtus IV
(1471-84) are being reconstructed; they included a
central hall, capable of containing 1000 beds, and dec-
orated with frescoes, and special wards for contagious
and for dangerous insane cases. A cloister was re-
served for the physicians, surgeons, and infirniarians,
who numbered more than a hundreil. The church and
the commander's palace date from the time of Paul
III (15.34—49). The annual revenue was estimated at
500,000 livres. Lender tlie government of the popes
the .\rcispedale was a catholic institution, that is to
say a universal institution open to all Catholics, irre-
spective of country, fortvme, or condition. To-day
(1009) it is merely a municipal institution, reserved
for the inhabitants of Rome.
A distinction must lie drawn between this order and the Royal Order of the Holy Spirit founded in France by King Henry III, in 1578, to supersede the Order of St. Michael of Louis XI, which had fallen into dis- credit, and to commemorate his accession to the throne on Pentecost Sunday. This was a purely secular order of the court.
Lefkbvre, Des itabli/tKenierits rliaritnhles de Rome (l*aris, l.SOO); Virchow, Der Uospitalitrr -Vrdcn vom fieihtjctl (iciat (Bfrlin, 1877): Brune, Ilisluirc de Vordre hospitalier du St- Eaprit (Paris, 1S92); Ue Smedt. L'ordre hospitaller du St- Esprit in lievue drs Questions Uistoriques (Paris, 1893) ; HfeLYOT, Hisfoire des ordrcs monasliques, II.
Ch. Moeller.
Holy Ghost, Religious Congregations of thk. — I. The Congreo-^tion of the Holy Ghost and of THE Immaculate Heart of Mary was foun<le(l on Whit Sunday, 1703, for the purpo.se of preparing mis- sionaries for the most abandoned souls, whether in Christian or pagan countries. Its founder was a young, holy ecclesiastic of noble Breton birth and of brilliant talents, Claude-Francois Poullart des Places, who, three years previously, in the twenty-first year of his age, had given up the bright prospects of a parlia- mentary lawyer to emliraoc the ecclesiastical state. From the very beginning of his ecclesiastical studies he manifested a particular attraction for lowly and neglected works of charity. He became especially interested in poor, deserving students, on whom he freely spent all his own private means and as much as he could collect from his friends. It w'as with a dozen of these gathered roimd him that he opened the Sem- inary of the Holy Ghost, which afterwards developed into a religious society. The work grew rapidly; l)ut the labours and anxieties connected with the foimda- tion proved too much for t lie frail health of the founder. He died on 2 October, 1709, in the thirty-first year of his age, and in only the third of his priesthood. The portraits which remain of Father Poullart des Places depict a distinguished and intelligent countenance, combining energy with sweetness.
After the founder's death, the Congregation of the Holy Ghost continued to progress; it became fully organized, and received the approbation of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. It sent missionaries to the French colonies, and to India and China, but suf- fered much from the French Revolution, and, when that scourge had passed away, only one member, Father Berout, remained. He had survived miracu-
