ORDERS. 



325 



an aristocratico-republican manner. The Benedic- 

 tine monasteries were long independent of one an- 

 other. The Cistercians obeyed a high council, made 

 up of the abbot of Citeaux, as the superior, the ab- 

 bots of Clairvaux, La Ferte, Pontigny, and Mori- 

 maud, and twenty other counsellors. The abbot and 

 priors of all the Cistercian monasteries were respon- 

 sible to the general chapters, held at first every year, 

 and afterwards every third year. Inferior orders, as 

 the Carthusians, Grand-montanists, &c., with similar 

 constitutions, had to contend with bishops also, whose 

 ancient claims to the jurisdiction of all the monaster- 

 ies in their diocese they could not so easily throw off 

 as the Benedictines and Cistercians, who were fa- 

 voured by the papal immunities. 



But the mendicant orders, at their very commence- 

 ment, placed themselves in a much more intimate 

 connexion with the popes. Dependent solely and 

 immediately on Rome, by virtue of the privileges 

 which they received, they preserved the strictness of 

 their organization with a success which, in the gov- 

 ernment of large associations of men, could be main- 

 tained only by the unity of the ruling power, and the 

 blind obedience of the subjects. Most of the other 

 orders soon adopted the same constitution. Accord- 

 ingly, at the head of every religious order stands a 

 general, or governor, who is chosen every three years 

 from the officers of the institution, resides at Rome, 

 and is responsible only to the pope. In some orders, 

 however, he has in his attendance a monitor, who 

 watches his proceedings in behalf of the order, and 

 may remind him of his duty, when his proceedings 

 are unconstitutional. The counsellors of the general 

 government are the provincials officers to whom is 

 committed the supervision and government of monas- 

 teries in the separate provinces. They form, under 

 the presidency of the general, the chapter of the 

 whole order, and preside, as general vicars, over the 

 provincial chapters, in which the superiors of the 

 separate monasteries of a province take part, as mem- 

 bers entitled to vote (sujfraganei.) These officers 

 have various names in the different orders, viz. abbots, 

 priors, superiors, ministers, guardians, provosts, or 

 rectors ; and, in the sense of the canon law, they are 

 prelates. They transact each of them the affairs of 

 his own monastery in a chapter or assembly, with the 

 religious in it belonging to the choir. Hence the 

 choristers are denominated conventuals and fathers 

 (patres,) to distinguish them from the inferior monks, 

 who are called brothers (fratres,) because they have 

 not been consecrated to the office of priests, or are 

 only lay brethren, who perform the domestic duties 

 of the monastery. Moreover, in the mendicant or- 

 ders, none but the latter are sent out to receive con- 

 tributions. The lathers alone, on the other hand, are 

 authorized to perform the duties of the priestly office 

 in the monastery, and in parishes under their patron- 

 age. The chapters of the individual monasteries of 

 a province are under the provincial, as their officer 

 in the first instance. The highest tribunal for all the 

 members of an order is its general, who is also the 

 president of the second and third orders. The con- 

 vents of the nuns are under a similar government, 

 only they cannot be without a provost, who, with his 

 chaplains, performs religious services among them. 

 If they belong to no second order, they are, like the 

 Hospitallers, and all unprivileged monasteries, under 

 the jurisdiction and superintendence of the bishop, or 

 the prelate of the diocese where they reside, who is 

 clothed with episcopal authority. Unprivileged or- 

 ders and monasteries have always served less the de- 

 signs of the popes, and fulfilled their original desti- 

 nation more faithfully (unless they have swerved from 

 their rules,) than the privileged and strictly exclusive 

 orders. The latter have violated more deeply the 



religious object of their institution, in proportion a? 

 their submission to their superiors has been more 

 strict, and in proportion as their principal aim has 

 been to exercise a dominion over the minds of men, 

 to acquire political influence, and to promote, with all 

 their power, the claims of the popes. The mendi- 

 cant orders have been the most faithful, successful, 

 and useful tools of the Roman chair, in executing its 

 bold designs, and have therefore been justly called 

 the standing army of the pope. They are by no means 

 left without encouragement; and monks who have 

 distinguished themselves by zeal or talent, in the ser- 

 vice of his holiness, may expect the richest benefices 

 from his favour. To bishoprics, which are not de- 

 pendent on noble chapters, they have much readier 

 access than the common secular clergy; and it is 

 well known that generals and counsellors of religious 

 orders have frequently become cardinals, and have 

 even been elevated to the papal dignity. 



The most important of all the religious orders have 

 been the Jesuits, and their fall was the harbinger of 

 the overthrow or limitation of the rest. In 1781, 

 Joseph II. prohibited all dependence of the orders in 

 his empire on foreign superiors, viz. the general and 

 Rome ; abolished all immunities, and placed the re- 

 ligious of every description under episcopal superin- 

 tendence ; he removed the foreigners among them ; 

 prohibited the admission of novices for an indefinite 

 period; and soon after decreed the entire abolition of 

 those orders which led a life of solitary meditation. 

 Thus were extinguished the Trinitarians, Servites, 

 Carthusians, and Paulanites, and nearly all the female 

 orders in the hereditary states of Austria. Soon 

 after, all the remaining orders, except the Benedic- 

 tines of the Molk congregation, the Piarists, the 

 Ursuline nuns, and the Brethren and Sisters of Mer- 

 cy, were limited to a certain number of members to 

 every monastery, and forbidden to admit novices for 

 the future. Thus they were condemned to gradual 

 decay, so that the number of monasteries in Austria, 

 which had diminished in ten years, from 882 to 469, 

 was doomed to go on diminishing continually from 

 year to year. The late emperor, however, permit- 

 ted the orders which devoted themselves in any 

 way to the common good to admit novices. The 

 Franciscans flourish, most of all, in Hungary, where 

 the schools, in many places, are wholly under their 

 care. In Bohemia, also, the Capuchins, Augustines, 

 PrEEmonstratenses, and Knights of the Cross, main- 

 tain their monasteries by constant additions. In 179O, 

 the national assembly of France abolished all reli- 

 gious orders, and assigned scanty pensions to the 

 existing 18,000 monks and 30,000 nuns ; but the 

 pensions were soon discontinued. In Germany, 

 where the doom of secularization, in 1803, fell on 

 nearly all the religious establishments and monaster- 

 ies, the orders declined of themselves. In the time 

 of Napoleon, this useful arrangement was extended 

 to Italy and Poland. In 1810, the king of Prussia 

 declared the monasteries in his states abolished, in 

 order to increase the provision for schools ; and no 

 monasteries were to be found in Europe, except in 

 Russia (which tolerates the usages of all religions,) 

 in Austria, Sardinia, Sicily, Ireland, Spain, and Por- 

 tugal, when Pius VII., in 1814, decreed the restora 

 tion of all religious orders. In truth, this proclama< 

 tion affected only the States of the Church, where the 

 pope uses the religious orders to superintend public 

 instruction and charities to the poor, for which, with 

 his shattered finances, he is himself unable to pro- 

 vide. The courts of Madrid, Turin, Modena, Lucca, 

 and Naples, followed the example of the pope, anil 

 have begun to reinstate, in their ancient possessions, 

 the religions who had been displaced by institutions 

 of common utility. The latest concordats of the 



