CAPUCHINS (Fr. eapucin, Sp. capuchins, from It. eapuceio. cowl, Med. Lat. eaputium, eapitium, from caput. head). A branch of the Franciscan Order of friars, whose rule is es sentially the same as that of the Friars Minor, or Minorites. They were founded at Montefa]co, in Umbria, by Matteo di Bassi, an Observantine Franciscan. who in 1325 left his monastery in order to live the stricter life of a hermit. This he was permitted to do by Pope Clement NIL in 1526. Being imprisoned at Ancona for his alleged disobedience to monastic order, he was released through the influence of the Duchess of Camerino, niece of the Pope, and he and his companions, in 1528, were allowed to wear beards and peculiar, long-pointed hoods (hence the name), to impart their habit to any one who might he willing to join them, to live as her mits in wild and desolate places, to go barefoot, and to call themselves the "Hermit Friars Minor.'"Tbey grew rapidly. and had great suc cess in making converts. After the Jesuits, no order has attracted to itself so many men of the highest birth as this, in which poverty is pushed to its utmost extreme. They have always paid much attention to learning, and have produced a number of considerable theologians. Five have
been canonized and six beatified. The order reached its greatest development in the Eighteenth Century: in 1775 it had sixty-four provinces with 31.000 members, a number which has never since been reached. They are most numerous in Austria. but have twenty-two apos tolic mission districts in all parts of the wcrld. In the United States they have two provilices. one with its chief house in Detroit, Mich.. and tifty-six fathers, and the other centred in Pitts burg, Pa., with forty-eight fathers. To Protest ants, the hest known Capuchins are Bernardino !chino, who was converted to Protestantism in 1542, and Father Theobald Mathew, the famous Irish apostle of total abstinence. There are also Capuchin mins. founded in Naples. 1534, who are properly a branch of the Clnres insisting strongly on poverty, and following as far as possible the Capuchin eimstitution. Con sult Buttariam Capueinum (7 vols., Rome, 1740 brought up to date in three supplementary volumes ( Innsbruek, I Sg3-S14 )