or Begging Friars, a religious order, appear in ecclesiastical history in the thirteenth century, at a time when the older castes of monks had lapsed into luxury and indolence, and were neglecting the instruction of the people. The men selected for this new society were well versed in the truths of the gospel, and were full of piety and holy zeal. Utterly destitute of all fixed revenues and possessions, they were forced to face every kind of hardship and self-denial. They were found in every country, under every variety of climate, travelling from village to village on their mission of love, suffering the ridicule of the scoffer and the persecution of the jealous ecclesiastic, toiling at times in the fields to earn a shelter for the night, receiving with cheerfulness the smallest crust that poverty could spare, and preaching continually, both by their lives and by their words, the healing truths of the gospel. In no long time their self-denying humanity and spotless character recommended religion to all classes of the laity, and rekindled the dying influence of the church. Accordingly, Innocent III. thought it his duty to increase the respectability and usefulness of the Mendicants by releasing them from the jurisdiction of the bishops, and by rendering them responsible to the Roman see alone. The example of this pope was followed by several of his successors, and in consequence of this high patronage the number of the Mendicants continued to increase greatly. Of their many orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans speedily usurped all the zeal and influence of the others. Admitted, as confessors, into the confidence of all classes, they gradually stripped the clergy of all power and repute. At the same time their own reputation for zeal and piety procured their admission to the pulpits of pious bishops, and to the chairs of several universities. Young men of talent, brought up at their feet, were fascinated by their learning and eloquence, and caught their apostolic zeal. Their influence, therefore, spread rapidly through every country, until all Europe was filled with admiration and esteem for the Mendicants. In course of time they found their way into the highest civil offices, into the cabinets of kings, and the courts of popes. Becoming intoxicated with prosperity, they began to grow worldly-minded, to lend themselves as tools for papal extortion and ambition, to be puffed up with arrogance, to build spacious mansions, and to fare luxuriously. They even presumed to declare that they were the only real ministers of the gospel, that their indulgences were superior in efficacy to all others, and that they had supernatural intercourse with the saints, the Virgin Mary, and the Supreme Being. For some time a spirit of hatred against the Mendicants had become universally prevalent among the clergy, and it now broke forth into open hostility. Foremost among the assailants, William of St Amour, a doctor of the Sorbonne, attacked them in 1255 in a book entitled The Perils of the Latter Times. Several replies were written by Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, and other Mendicants; and in 1256 the controversy was stopped for the time by the decree of Pope Alexander IV., that William of St Amour should be banished, and that his book should be burned. The first check that the society experienced happened in 1272, when Gregory X., in a general council at Lyons, reduced their many orders to four, namely, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians. Yet their influence did not decrease along with their number. Many cities about this time were divided into four parts, to afford distinctive spheres for the four sections of the Begging Friars. To receive the sacraments from a Mendicant priest, and to be buried in a Mendicant church, were the earnest wishes of every one. In the fourteenth century it was a common custom for those tottering on the brink of the grave to enter the ranks of this order, in the sure conviction that they were thus securing their salvation. Many on their deathbeds were comforted by the thought that the tattered Franciscan or Dominican garment in which they had ordered their dead limbs to be wound would save their souls at the last day. The Mendicants, however, during this century met with the most determined opposition from the clergy in all countries, and more especially from John de Polliac in France and John Wickliffe in England. This hostility continued until it was completely merged in the greater struggle of the Reformation. In the sixteenth century the position and influence of the Mendicants were usurped by the newly-instituted Society of Jesus.