Mendicant orders

Mendicant orders are religious communities whose members renounce personal property and rely on alms while preaching and serving outside self-sufficient monasteries.

Mendicant: A person or religious community that depends on alms rather than income from property or labor. The defining economic dependence behind the orders’ name and way of life.
Francis of Assisi: An Italian religious leader who founded the Franciscan movement in the early thirteenth century. His commitment to poverty and itinerant preaching shaped a major mendicant order.
Franciscan Order: A Catholic religious order founded by Francis of Assisi, originally committed to itinerant poverty and preaching. It shows how a mendicant ideal became an organized community.
Medieval universities: Institutions of higher learning that developed in European cities during the Middle Ages. Franciscans and Dominicans became influential teachers and scholars within them.
Religious order: An organized community whose members follow a shared religious rule and commitments. Mendicant orders are one form of this broader institution.
Dominic: A Castilian priest who founded the Order of Preachers in the early thirteenth century. He organized a mendicant order focused on preaching and combating heresy.
Dominican Order: A Catholic religious order founded by Dominic, organized around preaching, study, and communal life. Its training and governance supported preaching across regions.
Scholasticism: A medieval method of inquiry that used structured argument to reconcile authorities and resolve questions. Mendicant scholars made this method central to theology and philosophy.
Evangelical poverty: A Christian ideal of renouncing wealth to follow the example of Jesus and the apostles. It supplied the spiritual rationale for members’ dependence on alms.
Fourth Lateran Council: A major Catholic Church council held in Rome in 1215 under Pope Innocent III. Its regulations helped frame the institutional setting in which new orders formed.

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