ENCYCLOPÆEDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XI
FRANCISCANS (otherwise called Friars Minor, or Minorites; also the Seraphic Order; and in England Grey Friars, from the colour of the habit, which, however, is now brown rather than grey), a religious order founded by St Francis of Assisi (q.v.). It was in 1206 that St Francis left his father’s house and devoted himself to a life of poverty and to the service of the poor, the sick and the lepers; and in 1209 that he felt the call to add preaching to his other ministrations, and to lead a life in the closest imitation of Christ’s life. Within a few weeks disciples began to join themselves to him; the condition was that they should dispose of all their possessions. When their number was twelve Francis led the little flock to Rome to obtain the pope’s sanction for their undertaking. Innocent III. received them kindly, but with some misgivings as to the feasibility of the proposed manner of life; these difficulties were overcome, and the pope accorded a provisional approval by word of mouth: they were to become clerics and to elect a superior. Francis was elected and made a promise of obedience to the pope, and the others promised obedience to Francis.
This formal inauguration of the institute was in 1209 or (as seems more probable) 1210. Francis and his associates were first known as “Penitents of Assisi,” and then Francis chose the title of “Minors.” On their return to Assisi they obtained from the Benedictine abbey on Mount Subasio the use of the little chapel of St Mary of the Angels, called the Portiuncula, in the plain below Assisi, which became the cradle and headquarters of the order. Around the Portiuncula they built themselves huts of branches and twigs, but they had no fixed abode; they wandered in pairs over the country, dressed in the ordinary clothes of the peasants, working in the fields to earn their daily bread, sleeping in barns or in the hedgerows or in the porches of the churches, mixing with the labourers and the poor, with the lepers and the outcasts, ever joyous—the “joculatores” or “jongleurs” of God—ever carrying out their mission of preaching to the lowly and to the wretched religion and repentance and the kingdom of God. The key-note of the movement was the imitation of the public life of Christ, especially the poverty of Christ. Francis and his disciples were to aim at possessing nothing, absolutely nothing, so far as was compatible with life; they were to earn their bread from day to day by the work of their hands, and only when they could not do so were they to beg; they were to make no provision for the morrow, lay by no store, accumulate no capital, possess no land; their clothes should be the poorest and their dwellings the meanest; they were forbidden to receive or to handle money. On the other hand they were bound only to the fast observed in those days by pious Christians, and were allowed to eat meat—the rule said they should eat whatever was set before them; no austerities were imposed, beyond those inseparable from the manner of life they lived.
Thus the institute in its original conception was quite different from the monastic institute, Benedictine or Canon Regular. It was a confraternity rather than an order, and there was no formal novitiate, no organization. But the number of brothers increased with extraordinary rapidity, and the field of work soon extended itself beyond the neighbourhood of Assisi and even beyond Umbria—within three or four years there were settlements in Perugia, Cortona, Pisa, Florence and elsewhere, and missions to the Saracens and Moors were attempted by Francis himself. About 1217 Franciscan missions set out for Germany, France, Spain, Hungary and the Holy Land; and in 1219 a number of provinces were formed, each governed by a provincial minister. These developments, whereby the little band of Umbrian apostles had grown into an institute spread all over Europe and even penetrating to the East, and numbering thousands of members, rendered impossible the continuance of the original free organization whereby Francis’s word and example were the sufficient practical rule of life for all: it was necessary as a condition of efficiency and even of existence and permanence that some kind of organization should be provided. From an early date yearly meetings or chapters had been held at the Portiuncula, at first attended by the whole body of friars; but as the institute extended this became unworkable, and after 1219 the chapter consisted only of the officials, provincial ministers and others. During Francis’s absence in the East (1219–1220) a deliberate movement was initiated by the two vicars whom he had left in charge of the order, towards assimilating it to the monastic orders. Francis hurried back, bringing with him Elias of Cortona, the provincial minister of Syria, and immediately summoned an extraordinary general chapter (September 1220). Before it met he had an interview on the situation with Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia (afterwards Gregory IX.), the great friend and supporter of both Francis and Dominic,
