Mendicants, the Communes, and the Law

Abstract

The present essay briefly examines evidence for the development of the mendicant orders, focusing on their relationship to important members of the middle and upper classes in the communes as one of the chief ways in which they gained popularity and public support. These orders came into existence between the late twelfth century and the latter half of the thirteenth. Their increased involvement with the laity was both a direct product of their concern with the needs of the contemporary church and a source of conflict between them and the existing monastic and diocesan clergy. The experience of the Humiliati in various dioceses in northern Italy illustrates an important point, namely the growing divisions within the church and the tendency to label various groups as heretical. The condemnation of the Humiliati and other groups by Pope Lucius III in Verona in 1183 is a sign of the increasing sensitivity to the danger of heresy among the laity within the leadership of the church.

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