CAPUCHINS, monks of the order of St. Francis, who cover their heads with a stuff cap or cowl, capuce or capuchon; whence their name. They are clothed in brown or gray, go barefooted, and never shave their faces. The Capuchins are a reformed body of the order of Minors, commonly called Cordeliers, and were instituted in the sixteenth century by Matthew de Baschi, a frater de Observantia of the monastery of Montefiascone. Matthew, who was an honest but simple man, imagined that he was commissioned by a special revelation from heaven to restore the institutes of St. Francis to their original integrity; and with this view, after obtaining permission from Clement VII., in 1525 he retired with many followers to a desert. In 1528 they obtained the pope's bull; and in the following year the order was brought into complete form, Matthew was elected general, and the chapter framed constitutions. In 1543 the right of preaching was taken from the Capuchins by the pope, but in 1545 it was restored. In 1578 there were already seventeen general chapters in the order of Capuchins.