a Catholic mendicant order founded in Italy by Francis of Assisi between 1207 and 1209 (as the Friars Minor) for the purpose of preaching poverty, asceticism, and love of one’s neighbor among the people. In 1223, Pope Honorius III approved the final rule of the order.
Mendicant orders originated with the Franciscans. Dressed in brown woolen robes girdled with rope and shod only with sandals, the monks wandered around the country preaching. The church used their example to undermine the influence of the heretics who had stigmatized the greediness and lack of discipline of the clergy. As early as the 1220’s the Franciscans gave up the ideal of poverty in practice. Having received donations, gifts from laymen, and bequests of property, the order was transformed into a wealthy proprietor. The enrichment of the Franciscans was legalized in the early 14th century by the papacy, which declared that the order’s property in fact belonged to the church and was only placed at the Franciscans’ disposal. Together with the Dominicans, the Franciscans carried out the work of the Inquisition. In 1256 the papacy granted the order the right to teach at universities.
The Franciscans, together with various other orders, were abolished in many European countries at the time of the French Revolution and the bourgeois revolutions of the 19th century; they were reestablished in the late 19th century, first in Spain and Italy and later in France and other countries. In the epoch of imperialism the Franciscans, like other monastic orders, became an instrument of clericalism.
In the mid-1970’s the Franciscans and their branches had about 40,000 members in such countries as Italy, Spain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the USA, Canada, Turkey, Brazil, and Paraguay. They control a number of universities and colleges and have their own publishing houses.
M. A. ZABOROV