Franciscans, also called MINORITES or LESSER BRETHREN, a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1208 by St Francis of Assisi (q.v.). Some idea of the extraordinary extension of this remarkable institute may be formed from the startling statement that, in the dreadful plague of the Black Death in the following century, no fewer than 124,000 Franciscans fell victims to their zeal for the care of the sick and for the spiritual ministration to the dying. But this marvellous external progress was accompanied by serious internal controversies and divisions. In the original scheme of the institute its great fundamental characteristic was poverty, which St Francis proposed to render in his order not only more perfect theoretically, but more systematic in its practice, than in any of the contemporary institutes. For the accomplishment of this design, the rule which he drew up contained a few brief and simple provisions. But the difficulty of their literal observance led, even in the lifetime of St Francis, to an attempt in the general assembly of the order to introduce some important modifications; and, though the authority of the founder was sufficient to prevent the adoption of these modifications during his lifetime, and although his last will contained a special clause prohibiting all change of the rule, the attempt was renewed with still more determination under Brother Elias, his successor in the office of general of the order. The great subject of controversy was the nature and extent of the obligation of religious poverty, as vowed in the order. Francis desired that it should be understood in the most rigorous sense; and, in his scheme of poverty, neither the individual brethren nor the community could acquire or retain any right of property even in things of necessary use. The rigorous party in the order sought to carry out this principle to the fullest extent; contended that it was unlawful for the order to acquire a right of property in houses, convents, or even churches; and restricted their right in everything which they possessed to the simple use. Several successive popes sought, by explanatory decrees, to settle the dispute; and for a time a compromise was received, by which it was understood that the right of property in all de facto possessions of the order was vested in the see of Rome; but the foundations of the real controversy lay deeper than this. They regarded the practice, far more than the theory, of poverty; and the disputes to which they led issued not only in the formation of fresh offsets from the body in the new religious orders to be named hereafter, but also in a large, and, for a time, formidable, secession from the church in the sect of the Fraticelli (q.v.).
The supreme government of the Franciscan order, which is commonly said to be the especial embodiment of the democratic element in the Roman Catholic Church, is vested in an elective general, who resides at Rome. The subordinate superiors are, first, the 'provincial,' who presides over all the brethren in a province; and secondly, the custos or 'guardian' (not called 'abbot'), who is the head of a single convent or community. These officers are elected only for two years. The provincial alone has power to admit candidates, who are subjected to a novitiate or probation of two years; after which they are, if approved, permitted to take the vows of the order. Those of the members who are advanced to holy orders undergo a preparatory course of study, during which they are called 'scholars;' and if eventually promoted to the priesthood they are styled 'fathers' of the order; the title of the other members being 'brother' or 'lay-brother.'
A very important feature, however, of the organisation of the Franciscan, as it subsequently became of other orders, is the enrolment of non-conventual members, who continue to live in society without the obligation of celibacy; and in general are bound only by the spirit, and not the letter, of the rule. They are called 'Tertiaries' or members of the Third Order of St Francis. It is impossible to overestimate the value of this institution in the disorganised social condition of that age. The Tertiaries were bound, as the very first condition of enrolment, to restore all ill-gotten goods; to be reconciled with all those with whom they had been at feud; to devote themselves to the practice of works of Christian charity; to avoid all unnecessary expenditure; to renounce the use of personal ornaments; to hear mass daily; to serve the sick and the hospitals; to instruct the ignorant; and, in a word, to practise as far as possible in the world the substance of the virtues of the cloister. The institute in this form undoubtedly exercised a powerful influence in medieval society. It counted members in every rank, from the throne to the cottage; and, although it was in some instances deformed by abuses and superstitious practices, the aggregate results were undoubtedly beneficial.
The Franciscan order has been the parent of many other religious institutes. The earliest of these is that of the 'Observantists' or 'brethren of more strict observance,' called in France Cordeliers (q.v.). The party in the order which contended for the more rigid observance of the rule, after a protracted struggle—in which disaffection to the church itself was often strongly exhibited—obtained a separate organisation, which may be said to have been finally settled at the time of Leo X. The less rigid party, under the name of ‘Conventuals,’ obtained a distinct general, and an authorisation for their mitigated observance of the rule. Their churches and convents admit greater richness of architecture and decoration; and they are at liberty to acquire and retain, in the name of the order, the property of these and similar possessions, all of which are renounced by the Observant Franciscans. The latter community comprises nearly 150 provinces. Their constitution is that of the original rule, as already explained. A second offshoot of the Franciscan order, and in the same direction of rigorism, is that known as the ‘Capuchin,’ founded by Matteo di Basio, a Franciscan brother of the Observant rule, in the early part of the 16th century. Believing himself divinely called to revive the old spirit of his order, and learning that the modern habit of the brethren was different from that of St Francis, he began with externals, and procured for himself, and obtained the papal permission to introduce (1528), the peculiar habit, with a pointed hood or cowl (capuche), from which the name of the reformed order is derived. Along with this habit, however, Matteo adopted a very rigorous and mortified course of life, in which he was joined by others of the brethren; and the reform spread so rapidly among the community that in the year 1536 a general chapter of the new congregation was held. They were subject, however, to the jurisdiction of the general of the Franciscan order. One of the first generals of the new reform was Bernardino Ochino, afterwards notable by his defection to Calvinism. After the Council of Trent the Capuchins multiplied rapidly, though they were not introduced in France till the end of that century. A similar reform, to which the name of ‘Recollets’ was given (introduced in Spain by John of Guadalupe in 1500), was approved by Clement VII. in 1532; and many of the new brethren were among the first Spanish missionaries to the New World. A further development of the rigoristic spirit is the congregation of ‘Disealed’ or ‘Barefooted’ Franciscans. The author of this reform was a Spanish Capuchin, Peter of Alcantara. In his capacity of provincial of Estremadura, Peter introduced many reforms, and in 1555 obtained the approval of Pope Julius III. for a new rule, which was afterwards confirmed by Pius IV.
The notice of the Franciscan institute would be incomplete without the mention of the several orders of nuns; as those of St Clare (q.v.) or Poor Clares, the Capuchines, the Urbanist nuns, &c., which formed part of the same general organisation. None of these, however, presents any very peculiar features.
The Franciscan order in these several branches has at all times maintained its popularity in the Roman Catholic Church. When Helyot, in the beginning of the 18th century, published his great Histoire des Ordres Religieux, the Franciscan order numbered nearly 120,000 friars, distributed over above 7000 convents, and nearly 30,000 nuns, occupying about 900 convents. Since the French Revolution the number has of course been very much diminished, the order having been suppressed in more than one state; but it is still one of the most numerous in the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the foreign missions are mainly supplied by Franciscans, and they possess convents in almost every part of the world. They were preaching in Morocco, Armenia, and China before the end of the 13th century; in Abyssinia and on the Congo in the 15th; and in the 16th were active in Mexico and elsewhere in America.
As a literary order the Franciscans have chiefly been eminent in the theological sciences. The great school of the Scotists takes its name from John Duns Scotus (see DUNS), a Franciscan friar, and it has been the pride of this order to maintain his distinctive doctrines both in philosophy and in theology against the rival school of the Thomists, to which the Dominican order gave its allegiance (see AQUINAS). In the Nominalistic controversy the Thomists were for the most part Conceptualists; the Franciscans adhered to rigid Realism (see NOMINALISM). In the Free-will question the Franciscans strenuously resisted the Thomist doctrine of ‘predetermining decrees.’ Indeed, all the greatest names of the early Scotist school are the Franciscans, St Bonaventure, Alexander of Hales, and William of Ockham, the latter two, like Scotus himself, British theologians. The single name of Roger Bacon, the marvel of medieval letters, the divine, the philosopher, the linguist, the experimentalist, the practical mechanician, would in itself have sufficed to make the reputation of his order, had his contemporaries not failed to appreciate his merit. Two centuries later the great Cardinal Ximenes was a member of this order. The Popes Nicholas IV., Alexander V., Sixtus IV., the still more celebrated Sixtus V., and Clement XIV., also belonged to the institute of St Francis. In history this order is less distinguished; but its own annalist, Luke Wadding (1588–1657), an Irish Franciscan, who spent nearly all his life in Lisbon and Rome, bears a deservedly high reputation as a historian. In poetry we have already named the founder himself as a sacred poet. Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan, is one of the most characteristic of the medieval hymn-writers; and in later times the celebrated Lope de Vega closed his eventful career as a member of the Third Order of St Francis. We may add that in the revival of art the Franciscan order bore an active and enlightened part.
The first Franciscans reached England in 1220, and founded monasteries at Canterbury and Northampton. They made rapid progress; at the dissolution there were sixty-five Franciscan monasteries in England. The order was restored by the foundation of the English convent at Donay in 1617; and now there are five houses in Great Britain and fourteen in Ireland, besides seven Capuchin houses in England and three in Ireland.
See Luke Wadding’s Annales Fratrum Minorum (8 vols. 1626–40; Jessopp’s Coming of the Friars (1888); Monumenta Franciscana (2 vols. Rolls Series, 1858–82); Meehan, Rise and Fall of Irish Franciscan Monasteries (1891); and Mrs Hope, Franciscan Martyrs in England (new ed. 1891).