Mendicant Orders

The Korean term rendered mendicancy (takbal) literally means "to carry an alms bowl and beg for food" and refers to a religious life sustained by begging. In English such communities are called mendicant orders, and their members are commonly called friars.

Background

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, towns and commerce grew rapidly in Western Europe. Until then, monasteries had belonged chiefly to the Benedictine tradition; these were stable communities that remained in one place, supported by large rural landholdings. As the monasteries grew wealthy, a movement of "apostolic poverty" arose among the laity, calling for a life of poverty and the proclamation of the gospel after the example of the apostles. Some groups, such as the Waldensians, followers of the Lyon merchant Valdes (Peter Waldo), preached without church authorization and were condemned. The mendicant orders are often described as a means by which these demands for poverty and preaching were incorporated into the institutional structure of the church.

Development

• Franciscans: Founded by Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226). Francis is said to have received oral approval from Pope Innocent III around 1209, and in 1223 Pope Honorius III formally approved the Rule. The order's official name is the Order of Friars Minor.
• Dominicans: Founded by Dominic (c. 1170–1221), whose work began with preaching in southern France against the Cathars, whom the church had declared heretical. The order received the approval of Honorius III in 1216; its official name is the Order of Preachers.
• Other orders: In the mid-thirteenth century the Carmelites and the Augustinian Hermits (formed in 1256 through the union of several eremitical communities) also joined the ranks of the mendicant orders. As similar groups continued to appear, the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 restricted the proliferation of new mendicant orders.

The mendicant orders greatly reduced or renounced not only personal property but also the corporate property of the order. They differed from earlier monasteries in that they lived in the towns, traveled about preaching without being bound to the local diocese, and were directly subject to the pope.

Impact and Influence

• Scholarship: Mendicant friars entered universities such as Paris and Oxford. Leading examples include the Dominican Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscans Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.
• Conflict: The friars frequently clashed with the diocesan clergy over the rights to preach, hear confessions, and conduct burials. The controversy at the University of Paris in the 1250s is particularly well known. Within the Franciscan order, divisions arose over how strictly poverty should be observed. In 1323 Pope John XXII declared heretical the claim that Christ and the apostles owned nothing.
• The Inquisition and missions: Mendicant friars were deeply involved in the medieval inquisition into heresy. In the thirteenth century they were sent as envoys to the Mongol Empire, and from the Age of Discovery onward they took part in missions to the Americas and Asia.
• Connection to the Reformation: Martin Luther was a mendicant friar who entered the Augustinian Hermits at Erfurt in 1505. Johann Tetzel, a leading preacher of the indulgences that Luther challenged in the Ninety-five Theses, was a Dominican friar.

Assessment

The Catholic Church regards the mendicant orders as a movement that renewed the medieval church. Francis and Dominic are venerated as saints, and both orders remain active today.

The Reformers criticized monastic vows as such. In On Monastic Vows (1521), Luther argued that the idea of attaining a higher holiness through vows was incompatible with justification by faith. Emphasizing the priesthood of all believers and the vocation of ordinary work, the Reformers abolished the monastic system and also criticized begging by those able to work.

At the same time, some within Protestantism hold in high regard Francis's poverty and charity toward the poor, as well as the friars' street preaching and missionary zeal. They often, however, distinguish these qualities from the monastic system itself.