POVERTY MOVEMENT

A trend among various classes and groups in the Middle Ages, identified by their adherence to the ideal of radical evangelical poverty. A more profound under-standing of the religious life, as it had been awakened by the gregorian reform (humbert of silva candida, patarines, gregory vii), inspired a striving for personal sanctification. The Crusades, in bringing the monasticism of the East into contact with the West, presented a concrete picture of the poverty that Christ and the Apostles encountered in their pastoral life (Lk 9.1–6), leading to a more vigorous reading of Holy Scripture and to an imitation by "Christ's poor"; of the vita apostolica which contrasted sharply with the monastic poverty of Cluny. Even after dualistic doctrines, under the influence of the bogomils, were gradually accepted, the controversy still centered around the religious life and the Church, and as a result, the poverty movement often stood in opposition to the Church and was suppressed.

Problem for the Church. Until the 11th century, ecclesiastical discipline recognized religious life exclusively as the life of a religious order and distinguished between an order of the priesthood, whose function was the administration of the Sacraments and preaching, and an order of religious vocation, which consisted in striving for personal sanctification. Since, however, the poverty movement, as promoted by preachers and justified by reference to Mark 16.15, belonged to neither of these two "orders"; it was rejected as spurious religiosity and was referred to as religio simulata and as heresy without any indication at least in the beginning of any specific heretical teachings. In contrast to earlier sects, the movement had no definite founder. While its members might be called rustici, idiotae, illitterati, or textores, only the distinction between them and scholars (docti, litterati, sapientes, clerici ) was underscored and nothing was said about their social origin, for members were recruited from amongst the nobles and the commoners, and might be clerics, monks, nuns, or laity who followed the profession of weavers only to earn a living in the manner of Saint Paul (Acts 18.9). Furthermore, the Church was scandalized because women belonged to the poverty movement, by virtue of 1 Cor 9.5. The membership were accused of sexual excesses, even though they were called boni homines by the people and no wrongdoings could be proved against them.

The Church's Position. The stand taken by bishops and popes was both inconsistent and vague, and there were no unified standards by which heresy could be judged. Heretics were recognized by ordeal or else bishops and popes hesitated inconclusively until the suspected "heretics" generally became victims of lynch justice. bernard of clairvaux (Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, 183:1101–02) was the first to call for the continuance of the traditional procedure for determination of heresy: to protect their good name and to allow them to fulfill their vows; to require men and women of the poverty movement to be placed in separate monastic communities; and to consider those who refused to comply to be guilty of heresy. Bernard's view soon became the official policy of the Church and, since at the time there were no definite canonical norms for determining heresy, only the heretics of southern France were punished by the Third lateran council in 1179. However, when the waldenses and humiliati, themselves enemies of the cathari, asked the council, because of their difficulties with the bishops, for permission to live the life of wandering mendicants, the pope and the council reverted to their former position and, without even examining their writings for orthodoxy, practically forbade them to preach. Finally, a fundamental norm was agreed upon by lucius iii and frederick i barbarossa at Verona in 1184: unauthorized preaching, disbelief in the Sacraments, and the express declaration of a bishop were to be accepted as evidence of heresy, and the suppression of such became the duty of the bishops. innocent iii was the first to use these new powers to the Church's advantage and permitted members of the movement to adopt apostolic poverty and to preach as long as they recognized the hierarchy and the Sacraments of the Church. It was thus possible for him to receive back into the Church the Humiliati (1210) and individual groups of Waldenses, and above all the Poor Catholics of Durandus of Huesca (1208) and the Society of Bernard Prim (1210). Although the Fourth Lateran Council condemned the use of ordeals for determining heresy, it established, as a criterion, a confession of faith (Firmiter credimus Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta 206) and called for Church reform, but it also issued penal laws against recalcitrant heretics and made it compulsory for new orders to adopt already existing rules (Ne nimia Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta 218), i.e., it attempted to force upon the pope the former position of the Church.

Relation to the Church. The development of this phenomenon is discernible in three distinct categories:(1) various heretical sects; (2) the older orders; (3) the new orders.

Heretical Groups. These also may be categorized as three types: the dualists, the spiritualists, and the antihierarchical group. (1) The dualists appeared among the heretical Cathari (albigenses), who taught either strict (Church of Dragovitsa) or moderate (Old Bulgarian) dualism. Since the movement's teaching on dualism was not completely formulated until 1270, its emphasis on the relationship to the world took precedence; poverty was considered the means to renunciation of the world. Furthermore, the Luciferians, who shared this dualism, demanded extreme renunciation and the rejection of marriage. (2) The spiritualists were individuals whose Catharist ideas were bound to those of joachim of fiore: poverty was practiced as a protest against the possessions of the Church. The Franciscan Gerard of Borgo S. Donnino put forth the opinion in the Introductorius in evangelium aeternum (1254) that the promised spiritual Church, as realized in the Franciscan Order, would replace the established Church of the priests; in this regard, he was followed more or less by the franciscan spirituals and the fraticelli. The amalricians, who interpreted the pantheistic teachings of amalric of bÈne as "rules of life," and combined them with Joachimite ideas, also rejected the sacramental Church. In about 1250 their teachings were continued by the brothers and sisters of the free spirit, who spread in the region of the Swabian Ries and along the Rhine (Cologne, Strasbourg, Basel). In this group were also the apostolici, founded by Segarelli of Parma (burned 1300) and his successor Fra dolcino (burned 1307), who were originally similar to the Franciscans, but after 1285 were prosecuted by the Church for having denounced it as the "whore of Babylon"; (3) To the antihierarchical group belonged the unreconciled Waldenses and the rebellious Stedingers, who, following the Waldensian tenets, rejected the tithe and fought with the archbishop of Bremen; they were crushed after frederick ii placed them under the ban of the empire in 1253 and after a crusade was preached against them.

The Older Orders. (1) All Catholic wandering preachers, both men and women, cooperated with the work of the Church and, as Bernard of Clairvaux had proposed, fostered their ideal of poverty in separate monasteries (e.g., robert of arbrissel at fontÉvrault, norbert of xanten at prÉmontrÉ, vitalis of savigny, and bernard of tiron). The exception was henry of lausanne, who consequently broke with the Church and was imprisoned in 1134. (2) Apostolic poverty led to the establishment of the Order of grandmont, founded by stephan of muret, whose members followed the benedictine rule and were popularly called the boni homines. Poverty as an ideal prompted the founding also of the cistercians by robert of molesmes and Bernard of Clairvaux, who in his controversy with cluny (Patrologia Latina 182:895–918) proposed his interpretation of Benedictine poverty: the Cistercian nuns were chiefly women of the movement. (3) To the lay poverty movement were affiliated various hospitallers, male and female, among them the lay society of Saint Anthony, approved by Urban II in 1095 for the staffing of a hospital at Saint-Didier de la Mothe. Originally living without vows and unified by their interest in nursing, they eventually professed the Rule of Saint augustine (1218) as prescribed by the Fourth lateran council. The same development accounted for the Bridge-building brotherhood of bÉnÉzet of Avignon (117–99), approved by Clement III in 1189 as a pious lay society with the purpose of building bridges. In the category of the lay poverty movement belonged also the beguines, who, as a society of women living by their own handiwork, were organized into communities by jacques de vitry with the approval of Honorius III; under the direction of mary of oignies, they accepted mendicant poverty; their male counterparts were the Beghards. Since the Beguines were technically neither religious nor seculars, they were often accused of heresy, and in 1274 the Second Council of lyons attempted to suppress them; they generally then became associated with the various Third Orders in the Church.

New Orders. (1) franciscans (Friars Minor, Poor Clares, Brothers and Sisters of Penance). Innocent III had previously approved only those dissenters who had sought reconciliation, but by his oral approbation of the rule of the Friars Minor (1209 or 1210), he established the first new order to emerge from the movement. For francis of assisi poverty was the bride of Christ whom he personified as Lady Poverty. Contrary to the Fourth Lateran Council's ban on new orders, Innocent III granted clare of assisi the privilegium paupertatis, and Honorius III gave written approval to the rule of the Friars Minor in 1223, while Cardinal Hugolino (gregory ix) vitalized the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1221. (2) dominicans. By preaching against heresy, dominic came to found his order and adopted mendicant poverty as a prerequisite for a successful preaching crusade. After the Fourth Lateran Council had prohibited the founding of new orders, he chose, as a former canon, the Rule of Saint Augustine, to which he added special constitutions. (3) The carmelites, a previously existing order, adopted mendicant poverty in 1245 and, after changes in the rule (1247), founded also a third order. (4) The Hermits of Saint Augustine (augustinians), who also later founded a third order, came into existence when Innocent IV (1243) united various groups of hermits living in Tuscany, to which Alexander IV (1256) added all other hermits who professed the Rule of Saint Augustine, creating the fourth mendicant order. In the poverty controversy at the University of paris (1252–72), the antimendicant party wished the Church to return to its traditional position on poverty as held in the days before Innocent III. A similar attempt at the Council of Lyons (1274) was averted by the Franciscan Cardinal bonaventure.

Modern Poverty Movements. Various poverty movements continue to persist in the poverty-based religious orders that have retained their identity and spirit. Additional claimants to this tradition may be added. Not motivated as heavily by the pursuit of spiritual perfection in the imitation of Christ, more modern movements have used poverty as a basis for transformative action in the world. Exemplifying the spirit of poverty in action are members of the Catholic Worker Movement, founded by Dorothy day and Peter maurin, and the practitioners of liberation theology. The Catholic Worker Movement formed in an effort to raise the dignity of the working poor and the underemployed in urban settings, as well as to bring attention to the plight of these sufferers. Liberation theology, based on the preferential option for the poor, seeks to highlight and reconstitute social and political structures that create conditions of injustice, predominantly in so-called third-world countries, for the most vulnerable, the poor. A tenet held by many liberation theologians is that one must be amongst the poor in order to stand with and for the poor.

The worker-priest movement in France involved ordained clergy and associated laypersons locating themselves completely within the social conditions of their industrially impoverished, urban, working parishioners. Poverty, as it is integrated with an active presence in the world, not only frees the practitioner to concentrate on the mission; it also makes a visible entreaty for the right of the most vulnerable to participate in the world. The Little Bothers and the Little Sisters of Jesus introduced this latter effort into their way of life, on the inspiration of Charles De foucauld. These movements employed the "sign-value of poverty" to pre-evangelize the poor. The mere presence of those willing to embrace the lot of the poor in the name of Jesus opens a channel for the Good News to reach and transform the lives of the most marginalized in society. In a world economy increasingly dependent on consumerism, it should not be surprising to see the increasing use of the "sign-value of poverty" as a counter-balance to a possession-centered lifestyle.

Bibliography: j. b. pierron, Die katholischen Armen (Freiburg 1911). m. c. slotemaker de bruine, Het ideaal der navolging van Christus ten tijde van Bernard van Clairvaux (Wageningen 1926). h. grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (2d ed. Hildesheim 1961). l. spÄtling, De apostolicis, pseudoapostolicis, apostolinis (Munich 1947). a. mens, Oorsprong en betekenis van de Nederlandse Begijne en Begardenbeweging (Louvain 1947). a. borst, Die Katharer (Stuttgart 1953). e. w. mcdonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick, N.J. 1954). s. clasen, Die Armut als Beruf: Franz von Assisi (Miscellanea mediaevalia 3; Berlin 1965). p. f. mulhern, Dedicated Poverty (Staten Island, N.Y. 1973).

[s. clasen/

d. mccarthy]