Two other classes he names, but only for condemnation, namely, sarabaites — professing monks who live two or three together without any superior or any fixed rule; and gyrovagi or cisculatores, tramps, wandering beggars who wear the cloak of a religious profession. To do away with these scandals of the monastic life, Benedict's rule requires that the postulant for admission to a monastery shall take in addition to the usual monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, a further vow that he will remain all his days in the community in which he makes his profession, and never be absent from the monastery save by leave of his superior.
Besides monasteries for men Benedict insti tuted also monasteries for women, and the first abbess of a community of Benedictine nuns was his sister Scholastica.
The Benedictine order was for a long time a powerful agency in the civilization and chris tianization of the barbarian nations of Europe. Wherever a Benedictine foundation' was made there the face of the country was quickly changed: forests were cleared, marshes drained, the arts of husbandry developed, peace and civil order maintained, science and learning fostered, schools, hospitals and refuges established.
Monastic institutions founded in Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany by Cel tic monks prior to Benedict's reform conformed to the Benedictine rule. The Carthusian order, founded in the end of the 11th century, was a reversion to the anachoretic type of monachism — the solitary or eremitical instead of the cmnobitic life. In the same century arose the order of the Camaldoli, another order of her mits.
The beginning of the 12th century the rise of that singular development of monachism, the knightly orders, the members of which be sides the usual three vows of the monk took a fourth vow, of making war on the infidels for the defense of Christendom. The Knights Hos pitallers were originally a religious society bound by vow to harbor in health and in dis ease pilgrims visiting the holy places in Jeru salem; their house in the holy city was a "hos pitaP or guest-house. The full title of the Knights Templar is apauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomon's"— poor knights companions of Christ and of Solomon's temple. Another military order contemporary with these was the Teutonic order. History records the titles of over 90 military orders or of bodies styling themselves so.
The chronic state of war between Christen dom and the Mohammedan power led to the in stitution of the order of Trinitarians and that of Our Lady of Mercy. The mission of these orders was the redemption out of slavery among the Mohammedans of Christian captives. Bear
ing the alms and gifts contributed by the char ity of Europe, the members of those orders visited the Mohammedan countries on the Med iterranean and procured the liberation of the enslaved Christian captives and restored them to their native countries. The Trinitarians had at one time 250 houses; the Christians redeemed by them, from first to last, numbered over 30,000. The order of Mercy was at first a mili tary order, but in 1218 it put off its military character, and devoted itself wholly to the char itable work of redeeming the captives.
There seemed to be now a sufficiency of re ligious orders to satisfy all needs. But at this very time, the beginning of the 13th century, two new orders were instituted — and that by Pope Innocent III. who in the Lateran Council had procured the enactment of a decree forbid ding the creation of new monastic orders. The new institutes were the order of the Friars Minor (Franciscans) and that of the Friars Preachers (Dominicans) ; and to these very soon were added two more —the order of Austin Friars (Augustinians) and that of the Carmelites. These are the four mendicant orders, so called because by their rule they re nounce all property and all endowments and subsist on the alms of the faithful.
The membership and the establishments of these mendicant orders increased with aston ishing rapidity throughout the whole of Europe. Dominican and Franciscan friars were soon the great lights of the theological schools — Al bertus Magnus, the Doctor Universalis, as he was styled by his contemporaries, and Thomas of Aquinum, the Angelic Doctor, being the fore most of the Dominican divines, and Duns Scotus, the Doctor Subtilis, and Roger Bacon holding the first rank among the Franciscans. The friars were also effective missionaries both among the poor and the rural populations at home and among the heathen and the infidels.
The Company of Jesus is the latest of the great religious orders; it was founded in 1534 and its mission was to resist the onward march of Protestantism. directly by combating the Protestant assault on the Catholic Church and by instructing the Catholic populations in the grounds of their religious faith and practice; indirectly by organizing a system of higher edu cation for Catholic youth, and offering educa tional advantages superior to those afforded by Protestant universities and academies. The Company of Jesus took also as its special field of labor the evangelization of the heathen.