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

PETER OF ALCANTARA. 275
of Dissentis, Christian von Kastelberg, both as head of his
venerable monastery, and as leader of the League of the
Orisons, laboured in all things " in accordance with the spirit
of Borromeo."^
While among the Benedictines the congregations were
formed by the grouping of several independent abbeys, in
other Orders a similar formation of congregations took place
owing to the fact that members of different monasteries, who
were desirous of a stricter manner of life, joined together
within the Order, generally under a provincial of their own.
Since the middle of the XVIth century quite a number of
these congregations testified to the formation of a stricter
party, which subsequently stood for the reform section of
each order. It was above all the rule of St. Francis of Assisi,
which, over and above what was strictly enjoined, contained
so much that was only a matter of counsel and represented an
ideal, which opened the way to the formation of such special
congregations. One such had come into being in the houses
of the so-called Recollects, whither those friars who aimed at a
stricter manner of life could betake themselves. Pius V. gave
encouragement to these establishments by enjoining that in
each province of the Franciscan Observants there must be
two such houses.^
One Franciscan congregation of extreme severity began to
take a wider extension under Pius V. Its founder was Peter
of Alcantara, who imitated the penance and poverty of St.
Francis so literally that he himself did not advise it in the case
of others, and which seems almost inconceivable.^ According
to the account of St. Teresa;* who knew him personally, for
July ig, 1566, asked for two German Jesuits for the reform of
Farfa (S. Franc. Borgia, IV., 285 seq.), and got them (Borgia to
Farnese, July 27, 1566, ibid. 291).
1 Wymann, 241. Mayer, loc. cit. 166.
2 March 9, 1569, Bull. Rom., VII., 742.
^ Acta Sanct., October VIII., 623 seqq.
* Autobiografia, c. 27 and 30 (Ocuvres, cd. M. Bouix, I., Paris,
1859, 3305^(7., 364; German translation, Aachen, 1868, 358 sey., 394).
Cf. Rene de Nantes in Etudes franciscaines, X. (1903), 162 seqq.