The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 269
dicant " orders found themselves in a specially difficult
position ;
these were those religious bodies which were devoted
to the care of souls, and which, according to their original
constitution, could not possess property-, though more than
one such Order had been dispensed in that respect. Several
of the bishops, after the Council, were unwilling any longer to
recognize the existing privileges of these congregations. The
result was that the Mendicants could no longer preach even
in their own churches in virtue of the mere approbation of
their own superiors, while several bishops would no longer
give them permission to do so gratuitously, and even in some
cases unreasonably prohibited this or that member of an Order
from preaching at all. Other bishops would not allow their
flock to receive communion in the churches of the Mendicants,
or else publicly declared that all who assisted at Mass except
in their own parish churches were excommunicated. Others,
again, claimed for themselves, either wholly or in part, the
legacies made to the Mendicants ;
in a word, as the Pope said'
they laboured with might and main to subject the Mendi-
cants to themselves, and were of opinion that the care of souls
was not the concern of religious, but belonged only to the
secular clergy. ^ Since almost all these infringements of rights
which had been guaranteed by the Church were based upon
ill-understood passages in the decrees of the Council of Trent,
the Pope in a bull dealing with the subject, gave an explanation
of 26 such passages, which had given occasion for as many
interpretations which were prejudicial to the Mendicants.
The prescriptions of this bull were later on extended to a
number of other Orders,^' while the Dominicans were once more
specially protected against certain infringements of their
1 Bull of May 16, 1567, Bull. Rom., VII., 573 ^eqq.
2 Ibid.
=> To
the Canons of the Lateran, of S. Salvatore, and of S. Croce
di Olimbria, to the Cassinese, the Olivetans, the \^allombrosans,
the Cistercians, the Carthusians, the Spanish Hieronymites, the
Camaldolese and the " Fratres Militiae lesu Christi reformati "
in Portugal. Bull of August 16, 1567, Bull. Rom., VII., 584.