Christian Cyclopedia

(from Lat. mendicare, “to beg”). Religious orders (including Franciscans,* Dominicans,* Carmelites,* Augustinian* Hermits, Servites*) which originally renounced common as well as individual possessions. The Council of Trent* (Sess. XXV, Concerning Regulars and Nuns, chap. 3) permitted most mendicant orders to hold goods in common (“exceptis domibus fratrum sancti Francisci Capucinorum et eorum, qui Minorum de observantia vocantur”: “except the houses of the Capuchin brethren of St. Francis and [the houses] of those called Minor Observants”); papal concessions have been extended also to Franciscan conventuals.