JESUIT, a companion of the Society of Jesus, the most celebrated ecclesiastical order of modern times. The g-reat re ligious revolution of the 16th century ran through the three stages which tend to occur in revolutions in general. First, there was a moderate departure from the previously existing state of things; then the Anabaptists burst loose from control, and went into extravagances and excesses. Reaction then became in evitable, and if a suitable leader should arise was bound to become powerful. That leader was found in Don Inigo Lo pez de Recalde, generally known from nitaries to furnish amusement by their real or affected folly, and hence com monly called court fools. It is not known when they first became a feature of European courts but in the reign of William the Conqueror, an almost con temporary historian, Maitre Wace, has left a curious account of the preserva tion of William's life, when he was only Duke of Normandy, by his fool Goles. Other fools whose names have descended are the Hitard of Edmund Ironside, the Will Somers of Henry VIII., Archie Armstrong, and in France Caillet and Triboulet in the time of Francis I., and Chicot in the reign of Henry III. Tri boulet figures in Rabelais, and is the hero of Hugo's "The King Amuses Him 3elf" and of Verdi's "Rigoletto." The last private person to keep a fool in England is said to have been Sir Pexall Brocas, who died in 1630.
In the East the office of jester existed the castle of Loyola, where he was born, in 1491, as Ignatius Loyola. He became an officer of g-reat bravery in the army. Dreadfully wounded in 1521 while de fending Pampeluna against the French, and long confined in consequence to a sick bed, he saw the vanity of the world, and resolved on a devotedly religious life. At the University of Paris, he made converts of two fellow students who lodged with him, one a youth of aristocratic descent, Francis Xavier, afterward the Apostle of the Indies. In 1534 he and they, with four others, seven in all, formed a kind of religious society, the members of which preached through the country. On Aug. 15 of that year
they took vows of chastity, absolute pov erty, devotion to the care of Christians, and to the conversion of infidels. This was the germ of the Jesuit order. A soldier, he bethought him of an army in which inferiors should give implicit obe thence to their superiors. A general should command, and should have none above him but the Pope. Paul III. is sued a bull in 1540 sanctioning the estab lishment of the order with certain restric tions, swept away three years later. In 1541 Loyola was chosen general of the order, and afterward resided generally at Rome. His order spread with great rapidity, and at the death of Loyola, on July 31, 1556, consisted of above 1,000 persons, with 100 houses divided into 12 provinces. The Jesuits rendered great service to the papacy, but ultimately be came unpopular with the civil govern ment in most Roman Catholic countries. The people thought them crafty. In September, 1759, an order was given for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Por tugal and Brazil. In 1764 the order was suppressed in France, and its property confiscated. On March 31, 1767, similar destruction overtook it in Spain, and soon after in Spanish America, and next, after 1768, in the Two Sicilies and Parma, till at length, on July 21, 1773, the Pope issued a bull suppressing the order altogether. Austria and the other Roman Catholic States obeyed the de cree. In August, 1814, Pope Pius VII. re-established it. In June, 1817, the Jesuits were expelled from Russia, and the British Roman Catholic Emancipa tion Act, passed in 1829, left them un der some disabilities which have since been removed. The bill regulating re ligious communities, which went into force in France in 1901, greatly re stricted the Jesuits in their educational work. Roman Catholic higher educa tion in the United States is largely un der the control of the Jesuits.