Franciscan Order

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A term commonly used to designate the members of the various foundations of religious, whether men orwomen, professing to observe theRule of St. Francis of Assisi in some one of its several forms. The aim of the present article is to indicate briefly the origin and relationship of these different foundations.

Origin of the three orders

It is customary to say thatSt. Francis founded three orders, as we read in theOffice for 4 October:

Tres ordines hic ordinat: primumque Fratrum nominat Minorum: pauperumque fit Dominarum medius: sed Poenitentium tertius sexum capit utrumque. (Brev. Rom. Serap., in Solem. S.P. Fran., ant. 3, ad Laudes)

These three orders — theFriars Minor, thePoor Ladies or Clares, and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance — are generally referred to as the First, Second, andThird Orders of St. Francis.

First order

The existence of theFriars Minor or first order properly dates from 1209, in which year St. Francis obtained fromInnocent III an unwrittenapprobation of the simple rule he had composed for the guidance of his first companions. This rule has not come down to us in its original form; it was subsequently rewritten by thesaint and solemnly confirmed byHonorius III, 29 Nov., 1223 (Litt. "Solet Annuere"). This second rule, as it is usually called, of theFriars Minor is the one at present professed throughout the whole First Order of St. Francis (seeR S F).

Second order

The foundation of thePoor Ladies or second order may be said to have been laid in 1212. In that yearSt. Clare who had besought St. Francis to be allowed to embrace the new manner of life he had instituted, was established by him at St. Damian's nearAssisi, together with several otherpious maidens who had joined her. It iserroneous to suppose that St. Francis ever drew up a formal rule for these Poor ladies and no mention of such a document is found in any of the early authorities. The rule imposed upon thePoor Ladies at St. Damian's about 1219 byCardinal Ugolino, afterwardsGregory IX, was recast by St. Clare towards the end of her life, with the assistance of Cardinal Rinaldo, afterwardsAlexander IV, and in this revised form was approved byInnocent IV, 9 Aug., 1253 (Litt. "Solet Annuere"). (SeeP C).

Third order

Tradition assigns the year 1221 as thedate of the foundation of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, now known as tertiaries. This third order was devised by St. Francis as a sort of middle state between thecloister and the world for those who, wishing to follow in thesaint's footsteps, were debarred by marriage or other ties from entering either the first or second order. There has been some difference of opinion as to how far thesaint composed a rule for these tertiaries. It is generally admitted, however, that the rule approved byNicholas IV, 18 Aug., 1289 (Litt. "Supra Montem") does not represent the original rule of the third order.

Some recent writers have tried to show that the third order, as we now call it, was really the starting point of the whole Franciscan Order. They assert that the Second andThird Orders of St. Francis were not added to the First, but that the three branches, theFriars Minor, Poor ladies, and Brother and Sisters of Penance, grew out of the lay confraternity of penance which was St. Francis's first and original intention, and were separated from it into different groups byCardinal Ugolino, the protector of the order, during St. Francis's absence in the East (1219-21). This interesting, if somewhat arbitrary, theory is not without importance for the early history of all three orders, but it is not yet sufficiently proven to preclude the more usual account given above, according to which the Franciscan Order developed into three distinct branches, namely, the first, second, and third orders, by process of addition and not by process of division, and this is still the view generally received.

Present organization of the three orders

First order

Coming next to the present organization of the Franciscan Order, theFriars Minor, or first order, now comprises three separate bodies, namely: theFriars Minor properly so called, or parent stem, founded, as has been said in 1209; theFriars Minor Conventuals, and theFriars Minor Capuchins, both of which grew out of the parent stem, and were constituted independent orders in 1517 and 1619 respectively.

All three orders profess the rule of theFriars Minor approved byHonorius III in 1223, but each one has its particular constitutions and its own minister general. The various lesser foundations of Franciscanfriars following the rule of the first order, which once enjoyed a separate or quasi-separate existence, are now either extinct, like the Clareni, Coletani, andCelestines, or have become amalgamated with theFriars Minor, as in the case of the Observants, Reformati, Recollects, Alcantarines, etc. (On all these lesser foundations, now extinct, seeF M)

Second order

As regards the Second Order, of Poor ladies, now commonly calledPoor Clares, this order includes all the differentmonasteries ofcloisterednuns professing the Rule ofSt. Clare approved byInnocent IV in 1253, whether they observe the same in all its original strictness or according to thedispensations granted byUrban IV, 18 Oct., 1263 (Litt. "Beata Clara") or the constitutions drawn up bySt. Colette (d. 1447) and approved byPius II, 18 March, 1458 (Litt. "Etsi"). TheSisters of the Annunciation and theConceptionists are in some sense offshoots of the second order, but they now follow different rules from that of thePoor Ladies.

Third order

In connection with the Brothers and Sisters of Penance or Third order of St. Francis, it isnecessary to distinguish between the third order secular and the third order regular.

Secular. The third order secular was founded, as we have seen, by St. Francis about 1221 and embraces devoutpersons of both sexes living in the world and following a rule of life approved byNicholas IV in 1289, and modified byLeo XIII, 30 May, 1883 (Constit. "Misericors"). It includes not only members who form part oflogical fraternities, but also isolated tertiaries,hermits,pilgrims, etc.

Regular. The early history of the third order regular is uncertain and is susceptible of controversy. Some attribute its foundation toSt. Elizabeth of Hungary in 1228, others to Blessed Angelina of Marsciano in 1395. The latter is said to have established atFoligno the first Franciscanmonastery of enclosed tertiarynuns inItaly. It iscertain that early in the fifteenth century tertiary communities of men andwomen existed in different parts ofEurope and that the Italianfriars of the third order regular were recognized as amendicant order by theHoly See. Since about 1458 the latter body has been governed by own minister general and its members take solemnvows.

New Foundations. In addition to this third order regular, properly so called, and quite independently of it, a very large number of Franciscan tertiary congregations — both of men andwomen — have been founded, more especially since the beginning of the ninteenth century. These new foundations have taken as a basis of their institutes a special rule for members of the third order living in community approved byLeo X. 20 Jan., 1521 (Bull "Inter"). Although this rule is a greatly modified by their particular constitution which, for the rest, differ widely according to the end of each foundation. These various congregations of regular tertiaries are either autonomous or under episcopaljurisdiction, and for the most part they are Franciscan in name only, not a few of them having abandoned the habit and even the traditional cord of the order.

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