Mendicant orders are primarily certainCatholicreligious orders that have vowed for their male members a lifestyle ofpoverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes ofpreaching,evangelization, andministry, especially to less wealthy individuals. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously establishedmonastic model, which prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade andowned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, themendicants avoided owning property, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, oftenitinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached. The members of these orders are not calledmonks butfriars.
The term "mendicant" is also used with reference to some non-Christian religions to denote holy persons committed to anascetic lifestyle, which may include members of religious orders and individual holy persons.
TheSecond Council of Lyon (1274) recognised four main mendicant orders, created in the first half of the 13th century:
Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Carmelites) first historical recorded in 1155[1] and their reform branch, theDiscalced Carmelites (established in the 16th century)
Order of Servants of Mary (Servites) founded 1233 by the Seven Holy Men of Florence, Italy. The order was suppressed by the Second Council of Lyon on the basis of the restrictions in the decreeNe nimium of 1215; the suppression was not fully enforced and was subsequently overturned byPope Benedict XI in hisBull,Dum levamus, of 11 February 1304.[5]
Like the monastic orders, many of the mendicant orders (especially the larger ones) underwent splits and reform efforts, forming offshoots (permanent or otherwise) some of which are mentioned in the lists given above.
Ambrosians orFratres sancti Ambrosii ad Nemus, existed before 1378, suppressed byPope Innocent X in 1650.
Fraticelli of Monte Malbe, founded at Monte Malbe nearPerugia, Italy, in the 14th century; by the end of the century they had dispersed.
Hospitallers of San Hipólito (Saint Hippolytus) or Brothers of Charity of de San Hipólito were founded in Mexico and approved by Rome as a mendicant order in 1700. In the 18th century they were absorbed by the Brothers Hospitaller of Saint John of God.
Jesuati, orClerici apostolici Sancti Hieronymim, Apostolic clerics ofJerome, founded in 1360, suppressed byPope Clement IX in 1668.
Saccati or "Friars of the Sack"(Fratres Saccati), known also variously asBrothers of Penitence and perhaps identical with theBoni homines,Bonshommes orBones-homes, whose history is obscure.[6]
Crutched Friars orFratres Cruciferi (cross-bearing friars) or Crossed Friars, Crouched Friars or Croziers, named after the staff they carried which was surmounted by acrucifix, existed by 1100, suppressed byPope Alexander VII in 1656.
Scalzetti, founded in the 18th century, suppressed byPope Pius XI in 1935.[6]
Orders no longer mendicant:
Jesuits orSociety of Jesus, founded in 1540, and for a time considered a mendicant order, before being classed instead as an Order ofClerics Regular.
Orders considered heretical by the Catholic Church:
