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  Franciscans & Poor Clares                      

On this page you will find links to some of the information regarding mendicant orders on the web, as well as information from Abbot Gasquet's book English Monastic Life. Gasquet published the book through The Antiquaries Book series in 1904.  It is now out of print and not generally available.  There may be a number of factual errors in the text, or points on which historians or theologians do not agree.    Gasquet's text, notes & links>>
           

Franciscan FriarPoor Clare
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The Friars

      The friars differed from the monks in certain ways.  The brethren by their profession were bound, not to any locality or house, but to the province, which usually consisted of the entire number of houses in a country.  They did not, consequently, form individual families in their various establishments, like the monks in their monasteries.  They also, at first, professed the strictest poverty, not being allowed to possess even corporate property like the monastic Orders.  They were by their profession mendicants, living on alms, and only holding the mere buildings in whey they dwelt. 

The Franciscan, or Grey Friars

       St. Francis the founder of the Grey Friars was contemporary with St. Dominic, and was born at Assisi, in the province of Umbria in Italy, in A.D. 1182.  These friars were called Franciscans from their founder ; “Grey Friars” from the colour of their habit ; and “Minorites” from their humble desire to be considered the least of the Orders.  Their rule was approved by Innocent III in A.D. 1210 and by the General Council of the Lateran in A.D. 1215.  Their dress was made of a course brown cloth with a long pointed hood of the same material, and a short cloak. They girded themselves with a knotted cord and went barefooted.  The Franciscan Friars first found their way to England in A.D. 1224, and at the general destruction of Regular life in England in the sixteenth century they had in all about sixty-six establishments.  A reformation of the Order to primitive observance was made in the fifteenth century and confirmed by the Council of Constance in A.D. 1414.  The branches of the Order with adopted it became known as “Observants” or “Recollects.” This brand of the Order was represented in England by several houses built for them by King Henry VII although they are supposed to have been brought into England in the time of Edward IV.
      The whole Order in England was divided into seven “Custodies” or “Wardenships,” : the houses being grouped round convenient centres such as London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford, Newcastle, and Worchester.  Harpsfield says that the “Recollects” or “Observants” had six friaries, at Canterbury, Greenwich, Richmond, Southampton, Newark, and Newcastle.     <>

The Minoresses, or Nuns of St. Clare

The Minoresses were instituted by St. Clare, the sister of St. Francis of Assisi, about A.D. 1212, as the branch of the Franciscan Order for females.  The followed the Rule of the Friars Minor and were thus called “Minoresses,” or Nuns of St. Clare, after their foundress.  They wore the same dress as the Franciscan Friars, and imitated them in their poverty, fro which cause they were sometimes known as “Poor Clares.”  They were brought to England somewhere about A.D. 1293, and established in London, without Aldgate, in the locality now known as the Minories.  The Order had two other houses, one at Denney, in Cambridgeshire, in which at the time of the general dissolution there were some twenty-five nuns ;  and the other at Brusyard in Suffolk, which was a much smaller establishment.  The nuns at Denney had previously been located at Waterbeche for about fifty years, being removed to their new home by Mary, countess of Pembroke, in A.D. 1348. 


   English Monastic Life by F.A. Gasquet.  (pages 234 & 237-238.)


Franciscan Houses in England
(Gasquet doesn't give a lot of information in his index.  All that is available is listed here.  For more English Religious Houses, see the index page):


Brusyard

Poor Clares

Suffolk.

Burshyard

Poor Clares

Suffolk.

Denney

Poor Clares

Cambridge.

London, (Note 2: For London, see also Clerkenwell and Haliwell), the Minories

Poor Clares

Middlesex.

London

Poor Clares

Middlesex.

Waterbeach

Poor Clares

Cambridge.

Aylesbury

 

Bucks.

Becmachen, or Bermarche

 

Isle of Man.

Bedford

 

Beds.

Beverley

 

Yorks, E. R.

Bodmin

 

Cornwall.

Boston

 

Lincoln.

Bridgnorth

 

Salop.

Bridgwater

 

Somerset.

Bristol

 

Somerset.

Bury St. Edmunds

 

Suffolk.

Cambridge

 

Cambridge.

Canterbury

 

Kent.

Cardiff

 

Glamorgan.

Carlisle

 

Cumberland.

Carmarthen

 

Carmarthen.

Chester

 

Cheshire.

Chichester

 

Sussex.

Colchester

 

Essex.

Coventry

 

Warwick.

Doncaster

 

Yorks, W. R.

Dorchester

 

Dorset.

Dunwich

 

Suffolk.

Exeter

 

Devon.

Gloucester

 

Gloucester.

Grantham

 

Lincoln.

Greenwich

 

Kent.

Grimsby

 

Lincoln.

Hartlepool

 

Durham.

Hereford

 

Hereford.

Ipswich

 

Suffolk.

Lancaster

 

Lancaster.

Leicester

 

Leicester.

Lewes

 

Sussex.

Lichfield

 

Stafford.

 Lincoln

 

Lincoln.

Llanvaise, near Beaumaris

 

Anglesea.

London

 

Middlesex.

Lynn

 

Norfolk.

Maidstone

 

Kent.

Newark

 

Notts.

Newcastle-on-Tyne

 

Northumberland.

Northhampton

 

Northants.

Norwich

 

Norfolk.

Nottingham

 

Notts.

Oxford

 

Oxford.

Plymouth

 

Devon.

Pontefract

 

Yorks, W. R.

Preston

 

Lancaster.

Reading

 

Berks.

Richmond

 

Yorks, N. R.

Richmond

 

Surrey.

Salisbury

 

Wilts.

Scarborough

 

Yorks, N. R.

Shrewsbury

 

Salop.

Southampton

 

Hants.

Stafford.

 

Stafford.

Stamford

 

Northants.

Ware

 

Herts.

Winchelsea

 

Sussex.

Winchester

 

Hants.

Worcester

 

Worcester.

Yarmouth

 

Norfolk.

York

 

Yorks.





Franciscan Links:

 


Poor Clares:

poorclare.org

Poor Clares in Ireland.

Poor Clares in England.

Poor Clares at Arundel in the UK.

Poor Clares, an article in Newadvent.org.

An article about St. Clare through catholic.org



Corrections, questions?  email me
                


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