give themselves to Prayer and Reading and likewise to Manual Work and particularly to Transcribing of Books 9. They ought to keep almost a continual silence 10. They must recite the smaller Prayers of the Canonical Office privately in their Cells at the ringing of the Bell. 11. Morning and Evening Songs together with the Masses ought to be performed at Church those days when they do eat in common 12. 'T is not permitted to them to say Mass every day 13. None of them is permitted to go out of the Monastery under any pretence whatsoever except the Prior and the Proxy for business 14. They ought to be satisfied with a very little space of ground about their Cells after which let the whole World be offered to them they ought not to desire a foot more 15. Such a number of Cattle is permitted to them which they ought not to exceed 16. There ought to be in a Charter-house twelve Monks only one Prior eighteen Convert Brethren and some few Servants 17. The entrance of their Cloisters and of their Churches also is forbidden to Women 18. They never admit to Penitence those that leave once their Order 19. They are all Cloathed in White except their pleated Cloak which is Black These practices were put in Writing not by Bruno but by those of his Order and confirmed afterwards by Alexander the III. in the year 1174. This Order is almost the only one of the old ones in the Church of Rome that continued without a Reformation pretending that they never went so much astray as the others though it fails very much in living up to the strictness of their first institution St. Bernard complained in his time of the Magnificency of their Buildings and now a-days notwithstanding their Vow of Poverty they may contend in Riches with the most powerful Princes in the World They have got the name of being very good Husbands and what hath yet more contributed to the conservation of their Riches was that the Superiors of this Order never took upon themselves the Title of Abbots but were always called Priors So that when the Abbies by an agreement with the Popes were put in Commands the Charter-houses which were not called by that name were not comprehended amongst them and consequently nothing of their Revenues was taken away from them Furthermore these Monks being seldom seen at the Courts of Princes were more free from Envy and less thought on The cruel and inhumane prohibition of eating Flesh even with the loss of their Lives is yet now a-days observed amongst them with this little but malignant restriction that Flesh ought to be presented to those who are thought to draw near their end If they do accept of it and recover from Sickness they are deprived for ever of any active or passive Vote they can never come to any degree of Superiority and are lookt upon as infamous men who have preferred a morsel of Meat to a precious Death before God See here the excess of Superstition and diabolical Illusion to which these poor Christians are now arrived As for what concerns Fish which they should never eat but when presented to them they do not only buy those of the best sort but spare neither cost nor trouble to fetch it from the remotest parts in revenge as it seems of the prohibition they are under of eating Flesh This Order hath spread it self not only in France where it had its original but also in Italy Germany Spain and in all other Countries subject to the Papacy where stately Charter-houses are to be seen all endowed with vast Revenues They passed into England in the year 1180 where they became in a short time extreamly rich One may see in many Charter-houses in France Pictures representing the pretended martyrdom of their Monks here in the beginning of the Reformation They adore them as Saints and these excepted they have but very few others in their Order and it is even observed that they work no Miracles because they say their Saints in Heaven are still so great lovers of that silence and retirement which they professed on Earth that lest they should give an occasion to the great concourse of People who would go on their account and trouble the solitude of their Brethren they chose rather to do no Miracles Of the Cistercian Order called otherwise Bernardins RObert Abbot of Molesme weary with the abominable and wicked Life of the Monks of the Monastery withdrew himself with one and twenty of his Religious as from a Sodom into the Solitudes of Citeaux five leagues distant from the City of Dijon in Burgundy where he founded a Monastery which was afterwards by Oto the I. Duke of Burgundy indowed with considerable Revenues There the Monastical Discipline seemed to take its first vigour again and by the Pattern of these Religious many others undertook to reform themselves acknowledging the Abbot of Citeaux for Chief of their Religion which under the Name of the Place where it had its beginning spread it self afterwards into all Europe They follow St. Benet's Rule with some Constitutions which Stephen the III Abbot of this Order wrote with the consent of his Brethren and were called Charitatis Chartae and Confirmed in the year 1107 by Pope Urban the II. They bound themselves to so rigid an observance that many at first could not bear with it and deserted quite the Monastical Habit. But their Hypocrisie had so good success under the Pontificate of Innocent the II that their Monasteries became extreamly rich by the great Donations bestowed on them They are also called Bernardins because St. Bernard native of Burgundy fifteen year after the foundation of the Monastery of Citeaux went there with thirty of his Companions and behaved himself so well to their own humour that he was some time after elected Abbot of Clairvaux which Monastery was founded by Robert of Molesme in the Diocese of Langres where the same observance was professed This Bernard founded himself afterwards above 160 Monasteries of his Order and because he was so great a Propagator of it his Monks were called from his Name Bernardines They had no Possessions at first and lived only of Alms and by the Labour of their hands but a very little while after they became as well as the other Monks Idolaters of Riches and applied themselves wholly to get possessions Their Riches entailed on them all sorts of Vices and although this Order was already a Reformation of that of St. Benet it self was afterwards several times reformed Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that it hath produced formerly great men who by the advantage of their retirement applied themselves to Letters and were raised to Bishopricks and Ecclesiastical Dignities in the Church of Rome but at present Luxury and Laziness the Mother of all Vices have so much got the upperhand that their more serious application is to the taking of their pleasures Nevertheless one sees to this day almost in all
his Wife a very devout Woman did continually exhort him to be charitable to the Poor and to mind Godliness more than he did At last their Devotion passed into Superstition and they resolved to live separated one from another not for a while as St. Paul approves Man and Wife sometimes to do but for ever and preferred a retired Life in a Cloister before all the good they did in the World to the Poor Many followed their example and Colombinus having formed a considerable Congregation of people who had abdicated their Wives Pope Urbanus the V. honoured him so far as to give him with his own Hands the holy Habit of Religion in the year 1366 and the Popes his Successors were not wanting to approve and confirm this Order These Monks do profess St. Austin's Rule observing moreover some Constitutions which John of Tossignan a Religious of the same Order left them They were called Jesuati because they had almost continually and upon every trifling occasion too the Holy and Venâ—rable Name of Jesus in their Mouths They were also called Apostolick Clerks and were obliged to recite 165 times a day the Lord's Prayer and as many Ave Maria's instead of the Canonical Office abstaining from saying Mass Their Churches being almost all dedicated to St. Hierom Alexander the VI. ordered that they should be called Hieronimiaâ— Jesuati Their Habit was White upon which they wore a Tawny Cloak a White Hood and a big leathern Girdle with Sandals This Order changed several times its Constitutions and at last for its Scandalous Disorders was by Pope Clement the IX quite abolished in the year 1668. Of the Order of St. Ambrose in the Wood. THE Religious of this Order were ancienly called Barnabites from the name of St. Barnaby but being fallen into a declining Condition they wanted Restorers In the year 1431 three Gentlemen of Milan did re-establish this Order in a Solitary Place where 't is said St. Ambrose did in former times apply himself to Contemplation and to the Composition of his Books from whence it was called afterwards of St. Ambrose in the Wood. They do officiate according to the old Ambrosian Rite The Cardinal Charles Borromeo reformed them a second time They follow the Rule of St. Austin and wear an Hermetical Habit of a redish Colour with a Patience and a plited Cloak Of the Order of Apostolins SOME say without reason that the Apostle St. Barnabas having preached the Goâ—pel at Milan laid the first draughts of this Religion and that it was afterwards perfected and made Illustrious by St. Ambrose from whence it got they say the name both of St. Barnabas and of this Holy Doctor In the Countries of Ancona and of Genoa they were called Apostolini and in Lombardie by reason of their apparent Holiness Santarelli They have been once united with those of St. Ambrose in the Wood. But their hypocritical Life having broken at last into open disorders they were by a Bull of Urban the VIII almost exstinguished Their Habit is a Scapulary sew'd together a leathern Girdle of a Tawny Colour wearing in Winter a narrow Cloak of the same Colour Of the Order of the Brothers of Charity called otherwise of St. John of God or Ignorant Fryars THESE Fryars are Hospitalers and make Profession to wait on the Sick They have no Schools amongst them and if any Priest do at any time desire to be received into their Order they are so great Enemies of Learning that for two or three words of Latin that he perhaps hath learned to say Mass with he must subscribe that he shall never pretend to any Preferment or degree of Superiority amongst them as long as he liveth One John a Porteguese born at Monte Major in the Diocese of Evora whose strict Life in appearance got him the name of John of God was the Founder of this Religion He was in his Youth a Shepherd and being 22 years of Age he listed himself for a Soldier amongst those that were sent to the relief of Fontarabia From thence he passed into Germany and then returned into Spain from whence he went to travel into Africa Being returned to Grenada a Sermon which Father d' Avile made wrought so much upon him that he tore his Hair and beat his Breast in a dreadful manner crying with a loud voice along the Streets The naked man followeth Christ naked The people taking him for a Mad Man carried him to a Mad House where he was kept close and bound Some while after he was released and went in Pilgrimage to our Lady of Guardloupe and then returned to Grenada where he took a House and entertained the Poor giving them Meat Drink and Lodging going every day a begging for them and crying aloud Do Good Works my Brethren for God's sake He gathered copious Alms wherewith he built a considerable Hospital in Grenada But his Zeal carried him so far that being not able to bear any longer such hardships he was overwhelmed at last and died in the year 1550 aged 55. Some of his Brethren went to Rome and founded there an Hospital by the permission of Pius the V. who gave them Bulls for the confirmation of their new Order and put them under the Rule of St. Austin These Fryars are Cloathed with a Casock a Patience a narrow Hood and wear a Bag on their Shoulders in token of their Office of going to beg for the Poor Sick and Prisoners One might also here in England make a Religious Order of those Basket-men who are kept for the service of the Prisons Of the Order of the Holy Cross called Cruciferi in Italy THIS Order was Instituted or at least Reformed by one Gerard Prior of St. Mary of Morello at Bologna and confirmed in the year 1160 by Pope Alexander the III. who brought these Religious under St. Austin's Rule and made some other Constitutions for its government This Religion fell into a very corrupt State after the year 1400 and its Monasteries became a prey to several Roman Prelates Nevertheless Pope Pius the V. bewitched by these Monks restored them their former Possessions again But as anciently they were so well established by an Alexander another Pope of the same Name Alexander the VII did quite abolish their Religion in Italy in the year 1656 giving the Estates they had in the Venetian Territories to that Republick to carry on the War against the Turks They wore a Casock and a Patience a long Gown a Hood made in the form of a Cap their whole Habit being of a Skie colour There are some Monks of this Order yet in the Low Countries and in Portugal and they did possess formerly a great many Convents in Syria But they are diversly clad according to the different Countries wherein they live wearing a Cross on their Habits or in their Hands Some Authors do affirm that Godfrey of Bullen after the Conquest of Jerusalem instituted this Order and some
Perfection did consist in possessing nothing at all in the World he undertook to live the poorest of all men This resolution and all his outward practices of Poverty drew to him in a short time Admirers and at last Followers and Companions of whom he made himself the Head prescribing them the following Rule which consists of twelve Articles only A Summary of the Rule of St. Francis Chap. i. He saith that the Rule and Life of the Brothers Minors so he would have those of his Order called is to observe the Gospel under obedience possessing nothing as their own and in Charity Brother Francis promiseth obedience to Pope Honorius and his Lawful Successors and to the Romish Church and commands the other Religious to obey himself and his Successors Chap. ii He prescribes the manner of receiving Novices after a year of Noviciate after which 't is not allowed to them to leave the Order He sets down the Habits both of Novices and Professed Fryars permitting only to the later to wear a Hood or Capuchon Chap. iii. He will have his Fryars to make use of the Roman Breviary and the Convers or Lay-Brothers to recite every day for their Office seventy six Pater Nosters He orders them besides Lent to fast from All Saints to Christmas and to begin Lent at Twelf-tide He forbids them to ride on Horseback without an urgent necessity and will have them in their Journeys to eat of whatsoever is set before them Chap. iv He forbids very strictly to receive any mony directly or indirectly Chap. v. They ought to get their Livelihood by the Labour of their Hands receiving for it any thing but mony Chap. vi They ought to possess nothing of their own and when their Labour is not sufficient to maintain them they must go a begging and with the Alms they collect help mutually one another Chap. vii They ought to confess to their Provincial Ministers those sins the absolution of which is reserved to them that they may receive from them charitable Corrections Chap. viii The Election of their General Minister and of their Guardians or Superiors ought to be made in a General Chapter or Assembly which is to be held every third year about Whitsunday Chap. ix They ought not to Preach without leave of the Ordinaries of each Diocese and of their Superiors Chap. x. He prescribes the manner of admonition and correction Chap. xi They ought not to enter the Monasteries of Nuns nor to be God-Fathers of any Child Chap. xii They shall not undertake to go into foreign Countries to convert the Infidels without leave of their Provincial Ministers He bids them to ask of the Pope a Cardinal for Governor Protector and Corrector of the whole Order St. Francis his Will and Testament HE orders that the Fryars following his Example do honour the Churches the Priests and the Divines That those who enter his Order give before their reception all their Estates and Goods to the Poor that they apply themselves to work with their Hands that they ought not to purchase recommendatory Letters at the Court of Rome that where-ever they find any Fryar who hath left their Order or is become an Heretick they ought immediately to apprehend him and bound in Chains to drag him before their Cardinal Corrector that they ought continually to carry his Rule about them and make neither addition or diminution to it Lastly he gives his Blessing to them all This is the Rule and the last Will which Francis left to his Disciples Which far from being an observance of the Holy Gospel is rather in several points a manifest transgression of it and a Snare of the Devil to catch Souls as the learned Hospinian proves in his History of Monks This Francis saith he does not promise obedience to God or to Jesus Christ but to the Pope who is Antichrist and the other Fryars do promise it to Francis the grand Author of Superstition Francis instituted three different Orders the first of the Minors in the year 1206 whom he obliged to three Vows and who are divided now into Conventuals Observantines and Capucins and are again subdivided into other branches The second of Nuns in the year 1212 who are likewise divided into Conventuals Observantines and Capucines c. The third in the year 1221 which was common to both Sexes and did not oblige to any confinement permitting every one to live at home in his own Hermitage From this third Order was derived afterwards another Religion which to its Rules joined Confinement in a Cloister as the Conventuals A large Book would scarcely be enough to relate all the Reformations Separations Unions suits at Law Disputes changes of Habits and of Rules that have hapned in this great Order and one might also write another Book of the Frauds Lies pretended Visions and false Miracles which Francis and his Disciples have contrived for the advancement of their Order I shall set down only some few here for the satisfaction of my Reader Frauds and Impostures made use of for the Propagation of this Order FRancis carried by an ardent desire of enlarging an Order whereof he was the Founder sent into all the parts of the world some of his Religious to establish it every where These cunning Fellows seeing the necessity they laid under to get readily the favour and good-will of the People because having neither Mony nor Foundations for their Maintenance in case of delay they would have been in great danger of Starving they betook themselves to the shortest and most efficacious way which was to publish a great number of Miracles which they said their holy Founder had done and did yet daily in favour of those who were liberal to them of their Alms. They shewed long Lists of blind People to whom this Saint had restored their Sight of Deaf restored to their Hearing of Lame made to Walk in a word of all Sicknesses healed by him In another List there was to be seen all that were possessed with Devils whom he had delivered all the Captives Miraculously set at Liberty Lastly all the Dead rising to Life again Like in this to the Mountebanks who to get more mony in the places where they intend to stay a-while shew the Golden Chains Medals Priviledges Certificates and also whole Lists of People Healed they say by them in foreign Countries whither 't is not so easie to go for information of the Truth The Disciples of Francis had then a very fair play nor were they wanting to value much the impression of the Sacred Wounds imprinted on the Body of their holy Founder Thus runs the History or rather the Fable of it as it is related in the Book of the Conformities of this Order which is held by the Church of Rome for such a truth whereof one cannot doubt without becoming an Heretick as it is declared by several Bulls of the Popes Gregory the IX Alexander the V. Nicholas the III. and Benet the
poor Cottages and he could never bear that Monks should build stately Habitations Being gone one day to visit the Monastery of Muscet he told the Abbot severely Thou hast raised thee a Palace with an expense that might be sufficient to give a maintenance to a great many poor One might now justly make use of the same reproach to all the Abbies of this Order because there is never a one but is very stately built and that of Valombrosa it self is more like to a Royal Palace than to an Humble House for Monks So does this Order receive their condemnation from the Mouth of their own Founder These Monks were formerly cloathed as those of Camalduli and differed only in the Blew Colour which they wore They changed it afterwards into a Dark Violet and enlarged their Habits after the manner of the Monks of Cassin They are now very loose Livers and possess several Monasteries in Italy Of the Sylvestrin Order THE Congregation of Sylvestrins began to be established in the year 1269 at Montefano near Fabriano in Italy by Sylvester Gozolini Gentleman of Osimo in the Marsh of Ancona and Canon of the Cathedral Church of that Town who having been present by chance at the opening of a Sepulcher where he saw the frightful and stinking dead Body of one of his best Friends buried there some days ago he conceived so great a slight against this present Life that forsaking all worldly things he retired into a Solitude to apply all his thoughts to God Many persons did follow his example to whom he gave the Rule of St. Benet His Congregation was approved by the See of Rome while he was yet living After his Death which hapned in the year 1280 it was confirmed by several Popes and a great while after Sixtus the V. reformed many abuses that crept amongst them They are Cloathed like the old Monks of Valombrosa whose Rule they follow also They differ only in the Yellowish and Peach Colour which they wear This made me to insert them in this place Of the Order of Granmont THIS Order had its beginning from one Stephen born in the Province of Auvergne in France in the year 1076. This Gentleman was brought up by Milon Archbishop of Benevent after whose Death seeing he had lost his Fortune he resolved to lead a solitary Life and having visited many Hermitages that he might learn the Eremetical Trade he fixed at last his abode on the Mountain of Muret near Limoges which was all covered with Woods being then thirty years old He wrote there a Rule or rather a Rapsody consisting of several things got together from the Rule of St. Benet from that of Regular Canons and of what he could find most superstitious in the Hermits manner of Life which he proposed to his Disciples as an infallible way to Heaven It was confirmed by several Popes and afterwards by reason of its too great austerity moderated by Innocent the IV in the year 1247 and again by Clement the V. in the year 1309. So that what some Popes did approve as most holy some others did condemn as very rash and indiscreet This Stephen wore an Iron Cuirass on his Naked Body slept in a Wooden Coffin laid some feet deep into the ground without any Bed or Straw in the bottom of it He bent so often his Knees that the skin of them became hardned as that of a Camel and so often he kissed the Ground that it turned up his Nose After his Death the Monks which he left at Muret were chased thence by those of the Order of St. Austin and one Peter native of Limoges Disciple and Successor of Stephen having asked a Sign from Heaven to know where they should fix their abode they heard a Voice in the Air which said thrice at Granmont Granmont Granmont which is high a Mountain near to Muret. The Papists say it was the Voice of an Angel but it is more likely to be that of the Devil who is always very busie in establishing Superstition They made then their application to Henry the I. King of England who ordered a Church to be built for them there which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and from this Mountain called Grandmont the whole Order took its name They are only spread in France They wear a harsh and pricking Tunick and over it a long Gown of thick Cloath Of the Order of the Carthusians THE Carthusian Order was instituted in the year 1080 according to some Authors and in the Opinion of some others in 1086. on the occasion as 't is said of a very strange accident A Professor of the University of Paris very commendable not only for his Doctrin but also for the apparent integrity of a Good Life died and as he was burying he sat upright on the Bier and cried with a lamentable Voice I am accused by the just Judgment of God Which putting all the Spectators into a strange fright the Enterment was deferred till the next day when the Dead cried again I am judged by the just judgment of God for which Cause they put off the Burial yet one day longer At last the third day being come in the presence of a great multitude of people who were assembled together the Dead again cried with a terrible Voice by the just Judgment of God am I Condemned One Bruno being present at this sight and taking occasion from this adventure to make a fine Discourse to the Assembly he concluded that it was impossible for them to be saved unless they renounced the World and retired themselves into the Deserts which he executed immediately with six of his Companions going into a frightful place called Chartreuse amongst the Mountains in the Diocese of Grenoble where he was assisted with all things by the Bishop of that place named Hugues who afterwards became one of his Disciples They built in that horrid Desert only habited by wild Beasts little Cells at some distance each from another where they lived in silence leading a very rigid Life They proposed to follow the Rule of St. Benet adding thereto several other great Austerities Hospinian hath related all their ancient Observances in nineteen Articles which are these following 1. To wear continually a Hair-Cloath on their naked Skin 2. Never to eat any Flesh-meat no not in case of a desperate Disease 3. Never to buy any Fish and to eat none except it be given to them 4. To eat only Bread made of Bran and to drink only Water mingled with a little Wine 5. To eat nothing on Sundays and Thursdays but Cheese and Eggs Tuesdays and Saturdays Pulse and only Bread and Water the other days of the Week 6. They ought themselves to prepare their own Victuals and to take their refection alone 7. The Christmas Week Easter and Whitsunday Holy-days with some few others are excepted from this observance in which they eat twice a day in common 8. They ought to remain in their Cells