FRATICELLI FRAUNHOFFR. 



persons found dead. They derived thoir name from 

 Alexius, their patron saint, and were at first (in the 

 beginning- of the fourteenth century) principally com- 

 posed of persons from the lower classes of the people 

 in the Netherlands. They were afterwards increased 

 by the addition of the female branch, the Black 

 Sisters, and spread through the Rhenish provinces. 

 Although lay brothers, they had houses, and formed 

 their order into two provinces, under an ecclesiasti- 

 cal government. On account of their mean habita- 

 tions, they were also called Cellites ; and, from tlieir 

 low tone of singing :in German, Lullen) at inter- 

 ments, Lollards ; also, from their temperance, the 

 Matemans. They still exist, in the societies for bury- 

 ing dead bodies, in Antwerp, Utrecht, and Cologne. 



The Brothers of Death, of the order of St Paul, 

 were founded at Rouen, in 1 620. They were dress- 

 ed in black, like the Alexians, and were distin- 

 guished by a death's head on their scapulary. They 

 were suppressed by pope Urban VIII. Of a similar 

 nature are the penitents who perform charitable acts 

 as penances, in all the principal cities in Italy (in 

 Rome alone there are more than 100 fraternities), 

 and among whom are persons of all classes, even of 

 the highest nobility. 



There are also Gray Penitents (an old fraternity, 

 of an order existing as early as 1264, in Rome, and 

 introduced into France under Henry III.), the black 

 fraternities of Mercy and of Death, the Red, the Blue, 

 the Green, and the Violet Penitents, so called from 

 the colour of their cowl ; the divisions of each were 

 known by the colours of the girdle or mantle. The 

 principal fraternities are distinguished by certain 

 privileges. The spiritual and secular authorities 

 favour them, because their activity supplies many 

 defects in the public institutions ; and they are often 

 of essential service, as in endowing poor girls, in 

 reclaiming prostitutes, and aiding strangers, and 

 persons in destitute circumstances. See Journal of a 

 Tour in Italy, by Madame de la Recke. 



Among the principal societies of this kind are the 

 Fraternity of the Holy Trinity, founded at Rome, in 

 1548, by Philip de' Neri, for the relief of pilgrims, 

 and the cured dismissed from the hospitals ; the fra- 

 ternities of shoe-makers and tailors, founded at Paris, 

 in 164-5, for the religious instruction of apprentices 

 and journeymen ; and the Brothers and Sisters of 

 the Christian schools of the child Jesus, founded in 

 1678, who supported free schools for poor children, 

 and were of great service to neglected young people 

 in France. This body supplied Madame de Main- 

 tenon's school, at St Cyr, with female instructors. 



The fraternities which were established after the 

 restoration of the elder Bourbon line in France, 

 under the name of missionaries, concealed political 

 designs under the cloak of religion. They were 

 under the direction of the anti-constitutional clergy, 

 and acted with the ultras (Censeur Europeen, 1817). 

 These fraternities are not to be confounded with the 

 Brothers and Sisters of Charity, whose hospitals are 

 found in all the principal cities of Catholic Christen- 

 dom. St John de Dieu, who served in Africa under 

 the banners of Charles V., founded similar societies 

 of charity in Spain, in 1540. They wore a black 

 dress, and received the rules of a mendicant order. 

 Pius V. afterwards gave them the rule of St Augus- 

 tine. They observe all the monastic vows, and in 

 Europe, in almost every part of which they are found, 

 they have a general superior. Those in America 

 wear brown cowls, and have a distinct general. The 

 Sisters of Charity form independent societies ; among 

 their establishments is the great hotel Dieu at Paris. 

 They receive the sick of every condition, nation, and 

 religion. In 1685, the order had 224 monasteries. 



FRATICELLI; the Italian diminutive of /rate, 



brother, or monk ; the name given, towards the end 

 of the thirteenth century, to wandering mendicants 

 of different kinds, and also to certain Franciscans, 

 who pretended to practise the rules of their order in 

 their full rigour. They soon sunk into contempt, as 

 they seemed to consider Christian virtue as consist- 

 ing altogether in squalid poverty. See Franciscans. 



FRAU, German for woman, occurs in many ge<- 

 graphical names, as Frauenfeld, Frauenstein. 



FRAUD. All frauds, or attempts to defraud, 

 which cannot be guarded against by common pru- 

 dence, are indictable at common law, and punishable 

 according to the heinousness of the offence. In 

 cases where common prudence might have guarded 

 a man, he is left to his civil remedy (the suing for 

 damages). The deceiving by false weights or mea- 

 sures or false tokens, comes within the class of cri- 

 minal offences. 



FRAUENLOB, HENRY; a name of honour be- 

 stowed upon a minstrel (meister singer), who lived at 

 the close of the thirteenth and the beginning of the 

 fourteenth century, of whose life, however, we know 

 nothing, except that he practised his art at Mentis, 

 and died in that city in 1317. According to the 

 opinion of some writers, he was a doctor ot divinity 

 and canon at Mentz. His real name seems to have 

 been Henry von Missen (Meissen), by which he is 

 sometimes mentioned. The principal theme of his 

 songs was the virtues of the fair sex. For this rea- 

 son, he was so highly esteemed by the ladies of his 

 time, that they are said to have carried his body with 

 their own hands to the grave, which they bathed 

 with their tears, and around which they poured so 

 much wine as to inundate the whole floor of the 

 church. Some of his poems are in the collection of 

 Manesse, and many others in manuscript. 



FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH VON, was born at Strau- 

 bing, in Bavaria, March 6, 1787, and was early 

 obliged to assist his father in his business of a glazier. 

 In his eleventh year, he lost his parents ; and, in 

 1799, he was placed with a looking-glass maker and 

 glass-grinder at Munich. He was unable to pay any 

 tuition fee, and was therefore obliged to serve a six 

 years' apprenticeship. His master would not allow 

 him to go to the Sunday-school, and Fraunhofer al- 

 most forgot how to read and write. During his 

 apprenticeship, the house of his master fell down, 

 and the boy remained buried for four hours in the 

 ruins. The king, having heard of this accident, 

 gave him eighteen ducats, and promised to take care 

 of him if he wanted any thing. Fraunhofer had still 

 to serve three years, and he spent his money on 

 optic-glasses, which he ground on Sundays, for which 

 purpose an optician allowed him the use of his ma- 

 chine. He soon procured a machine of his own, and 

 used it also for cutting stones, though he had never 

 seen this done. Utzschneider, having heard of the 

 boy, and seeing with how many difficulties he had to 

 struggle, arising from his want of knowledge in the 

 theory of optics, lent him books ; but his master for- 

 bade him to read them, and he was obliged to steal 

 away on Sundays, in order to pursue his studies. 



After various vicissitudes in his life, in which he 

 never would ask the king for the fulfilment of his 

 promise, he became, in 1806, connected with Von 

 Reichenbach,who was in want of an optician, as the 

 war then prevented the obtaining of glasses from 

 England. In 1807, Fraunhofer was appointed to 

 superintend the optical instrument manufactory at 

 Benedictbeurn, established by Utzschneider. In 

 1809, Reichenbach, Utzschneider, aud Fraunhofer 

 united, and founded the establishment for dioptrical 

 instruments, at Benedictbeuni. One of the most 

 difficult operations of practical optics was to poll -a 

 the spherical surfaces of lare object-glasses accu- 



