St. Francis, on the contrary, drew up the rule which is given here, and which has been called the "Magna Carta pauperitatis." It was to enforce humility and devotion in the work of nursing the side that the name "fratres minores" was chosen for the brotherhood, and "minister generalis" for its head.
Besides the original order of St. Francis, a second and a third order soon came into being under his name. The Second Order was for women, the pious Clara of Assisi being at the head of it. The Third Order contained as members both men and women, who, while not required to renounce their family or social life, took vows to practise in the world those virtues which the brothers sought in renouncing it.
At an early period the order began to be torn by internal dissensions, and in 1517 the division into Observantists and Conventualists was formally established by a bull of Pope Leo X. Some idea of the numbers and influence of the order may be formed from the fact that, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Observantists alone had 1,400 cloisters, united in 45 provinces.
No. IX. is the bull of pope Boniface VIII. declaring the year 1300, and every hundredth year thereafter, a year of jubilee, and recommending pilgrims to visit the churches of the apostles in Rome. Boniface's festival was phenomenally successful, and probably marks the crowning moment of papal glory. One million strangers are said to have visited Rome, and so much money was thrown around the altars that priests armed with rakes could scarcely gather it in. But within three years Boniface was suffering the last indignities at the hands of the Colonna and of the emissaries of Philip the Fair, and within four more the popes were at Avignon in the service of the French kings.
The jubilee suffered the same fate as did all the other
