others. Some canons singled out Jews and heretics for special punitive treatment;
others were directed against Byzantines and Muslims. These laws were of a piece
with wider movements. With the development of a papal monarchy that confidently
declared a single doctrine and the laws pertaining to it, dissidence was perceived as
heresy, non-Christians seen as treacherous.
New Groups within the Fold
The Fourth Lateran Council prohibited the formation of new religious orders. It
recognized that the trickle of new religious groups—the Carthusians is one example—
of the early twelfth century had become a torrent by 1215. Only a very few of the
more recent movements were accepted into the church, among them the Dominicans,
the Franciscans, and the Beguines.
Saint Dominic (1170–1221), founder of the Dominican order, had been a priest
and regular canon (following the Rule of Saint Augustine) in the cathedral church at
Osma, Spain. On an official trip to Denmark, while passing through southern France
in 1203, Dominic and his companion, Diego, reportedly converted a heretic with
whom they lodged. This was a rare success; most anti-heretic preachers were failing
miserably around this time. Richly clad, riding on horseback, and followed by a
retinue, they had no moral standing. Dominic, Diego, and their followers determined
to reject material riches. Gaining a privilege from the pope to preach and teach, they
went about on foot, in poor clothes, and begged for their food. They took the name
“friars,” after the Latin word for “brothers.” Because their job was to dispute, teach,
and preach, the Dominicans quickly became university men. Even in their convents
(where they adopted the Rule of Saint Augustine), they established schools requiring
their recruits to follow a formal course of studies. Already by 1206 they had
established the first of many Dominican female houses. Most of these also followed
the Rule of Saint Augustine, but their relationship to the Dominican Order was never
codified. Married men and women associated themselves with the Dominicans by
forming a “Tertiary” Order.
Unlike Dominic, Saint Francis (1181/1182–1226) was never a priest. Indeed, he
was on his way to a promising career as a cloth merchant at Assisi when he
experienced a complete conversion. Clinging to poverty as if, in his words, “she”
were his “lady” (thus borrowing the vocabulary of chivalry), he accepted no money,
walked without shoes, wore only one coarse tunic, and refused to be confined even
in a monastery. He and his followers (who were also called “friars”) spent their time
preaching, ministering to lepers, and doing manual labor. In time they dispersed,
