FRATERNITIES. a voluntary as sociation of men for promoting their common interest, business or pleasure. In this wide sense it includes all secret and benevolent societies, the monastic and sacerdotal congregations, the orders of knighthood, and also guilds, trades unions, and the like. In a limited sense it is applied to religious societies for pious practices and benevolent objects. They were often formed during the Middle Ages, from a desire of imitating the holy orders. Many of these socie ties, which did not obtain or seek the acknowledgment of the Church, had the appearance of separatists, which sub jected them to the charge of heresy. The pious fraternities which were formed under the direction of the Church, or were acknowledged by it, were either required by their rules to afford as sistence to travelers, to the unfortu nate, the distressed, the sick, and the deserted, on account of the ineffi ciency of the police, and the want of institutions for the poor, or to perform certain acts of penitence and devotion. Of this description were the Fratres Pontifices, a brotherhood that origi nated in Tuscany in the 12th century, where they maintained establishments on the banks of the Arno, to enable travelers to cross the river, and to suc cor them in case of distress. A similar society was afterward formed in France, where they built bridges and hospitals, maintained ferries, kept the roads in repair, and provided for the security of the highways. Similar to
these were the Knights and Compan ions of the Santa Hermandad (or Holy Brotherhood) in Spain; the Familiars and Crossbearers in the service of the Spanish Inquisition; the Calendar Bro thers in Germany; the Alexians in Ger many Poland, and the Netherlands, etc. The professed object of the Alexians, so called from Alexius, their patron saint, was to visi' the sick and imprisoned and to collr_tt alms for distribution. There were also Gray Penitents (an old fraternity of an order existing as early as 1264 in Rome, and introduced into France under Henry III.), the black fraternities of Mercy and of Death; the Red, the Blue, the Green, and the Violet Penitents, so called from the color of their cowl; the divisions of each were known by the colors of the girdle or mantle. The fraternity of the Holy Trinity was founded at Rome in 1548 by Philip de Neri for the relief of pil grims and the cured dismissed from the hospitals. The Brothers and Sisters of Charity are another fraternity whose hospitals are found in all the principal cities of Catholic Christendom. See COLLEGE FRATERNITIES.