Introduction

Abstract

The Order of Minims was one of the last religious orders to be founded before the Council of Trent. Mediaeval in its rules and in its ideals, it grew up in a Europe of rapidly changing opinions. The two most important foundations at the time of the Council of Trent, the Jesuits and the Oratorians, appear at once “modern” in their aims and in their organisation — the break with the older monastic tradition is distinct and decisive. The Minims, whose period of most rapid expansion was at precisely the same time as the rise of the French Oratory and of the great increase in Jesuit influence, were deeply rooted in traditions that were, or were becoming, archaic. The origins of the Order are to be found in the remote and almost desert country of Calabria where, in 1453, a hermit gathered round him a few kindred spirits and led with them a life of the utmost rigour and self-denial. The founder, later to be canonized as Saint François de Paule, was thirty-seven years of age at this time and had acquired some reputation in and around Paula, his birthplace, as a thaumaturge and as a man of conspicuous charity and humility; he was fifty-five before any official recognition was afforded to his brethren. Recognition was first made by a costituzione, “Decet nos ex officio,” of 30 November, 1471, in which reference is made to the “Fratelli eremiti di Fratello Francesco di Paula.”