During the Crusades came the organization of religions bodies for definite pious purposes whose members were bound by the usual oldiga lions of monasticism, yet did not withdraw CH tirely from the world. The Knights of Saint John (see SAINT JOHN OF' JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OE , the Knights Templars (q.v.), and the Teu tonic Knights (q.v.) are the twat known of these. Incited by their example, or as a result of the smne spirit. many religious orders wore founded during and just after the Crusades, with the purpose of detinile work to he accom plished outside of the monasteries.
The fourth Lateran Council decreed that no further religions Orders should be founded, yet the first (latter of the thirteenth century saw the rise of two great mendicant Orders, those of Saint Francis (see FuAsetscANs) and of Saint Dominic (see lktxtxic•.ixs). The members of these Orders, in spite of their vow of absolute poverty, soon became prominent in the Church and in the universities, and as poets, preaehers, philosophers, writers. scientists. and teachers. The next great advance in monasticism was the foundation of the Jesuits (q.v.), a leaching, preaching missionary Order with a special vow to "II wherever they should be sent by the Pope. Their institute has proved the model on which most modern congregations have been based.
Alonasticism has been, at least in the West, in development, always growing more closely in tnuc•lf with the shifting environment in which it was placed in the course of time. The skeptical spirit of the eighteenth century was unfavorable to monastic evolution, but the nine teenth saw a reawakening. Persecution and confiscation for political and pecuniary reasons have reduced the numbers of religious communi ties; but under a system of true religious liberty, as in the United States, wide extension of the religious Orders has come about. There are over
8000 members of religious Orders for men, about two-thirds of whom are priests, and about 45,000 members of religious Orders for women.
For further details of the monastic life, the general arrangement of monasteries, and the relation of the older Orders to the development of European civilization, see the articles on the various Orders, and especially BENEnturixEs.
BlimiowtAmtr. Benrion, des ordres religieux ( Paris, 1S35) ; Montalembert, The Monks of the West (Eng. trans.. with introduc tory sketch by Dom Gasquet (Loudon, 1S96) ; Feasey, onasticism 1S9S) ; Weingarten, Ursprung des Monchthums (Gotha. 1877); Moh ler, Geschichte des Monehthums in der Zeit seiner Entstehung, ed. Dbllinger (Regensburg, 1839) ; Wishart, Short History of Monks and Monasteries (2d ed., Trenton, 1003) ; Woodhouse, Monasticism, Ancient and. Modern (London, 1896) ; Harnack, Monasticism, Its Ideals and Its History (Eng. trans., New York. 1895) ; Allies, The Monastic Life, from the Fathers of the Desert to Charlemagne (London, 1896) ; Smith, Christian Monasticism from the Fourth to the Ninth Centuries (ib., 1892) ; Gasquet. Mon astic constitutional History ( ib.. 1896) ; Jameson, Legends of lire Monastic Orders (ib., 1850) ; Bertouch, Gesehichte der geistlichen Ilenossen schaf ten ( Wiesbaden, 1888) Ileimbueher, Die Orden and Congregationen der katholischen Kirche (Paderborn, 1896 sqq.). Consult also the bibli ography given in the articles on the different Orders. Useful general treatments may also be found in Lecky, History of European Morals (London, 1869), adverse; Maitland, Dark Ages ( London, 1844) ; Carlyle, Past and Present ( ib., 1843), the last two favorable.