Gray Friars Franciscans, or Minorites (Lat. Fratres Minores), a religious order in the Roman Catholic church, founded in 1209 by St. Francis of Assisi. When the number of his disciples had increased to ten, he gave them in 1210 a rule, in which strict poverty and a union of the active and contemplative life are the principal points. The order was orally confirmed by Innocent III. in 1210, and again in 1215, and spread with such rapidity that 5,000 brethren were assembled at the general chapter in 1219. In 1223 Honorius III. by a bull confirmed the order as the first among the mendicant orders, gave them the right of collecting alms, confirmed to the church of Portiuncula the celebrated indulgence which was afterward extended to all the churches of the Franciscans, and granted them several other privileges. The vow of poverty made the Franciscans favorites with all classes of the people, and thus secured them large numbers of novices. Forty-two years after the death of the founder the number of Franciscans was estimated at about 200,-000, with 8,000 convents in 23 provinces. At the head of each convent was a guardian; the guardians of a province chose a provincial, who was assisted by definitores; the general assembly of all the provincials (general chapter) elected a general, and likewise definitores.

The simplicity of the rule left room for the greatest variety of opinions. This showed itself during the lifetime of the founder, one party wishing to have the vow of poverty mitigated, the other strenuously opposing any such change. The strife continued from 1219, when Elias of Cortona, the first leader of the milder party, was made by St. Francis himself vicar general of the order, till 1517, when Leo X. divided them into two separate organizations. At the election of almost every new general we find the two parties in competition, the popes themselves sometimes siding with the one, sometimes with the other. The milder party, when in a minority, submitted; but the rigorous party, when prevented from upholding the whole rule of St. Francis, preferred to form separate branches. In several cases they went so far as to appeal from a decision of the pope to a general council. As early as 1236, when Elias of Cortona, after having been once expelled, was reelected general of the order, Caesarius of Spire left it, followed by 72 others, called after him the Caesarines or Ca?sarians; but they were reconciled with their brethren in 1256, at the restoration of a stricter observance by St. Bonaventura. The lax government of the general Matteo di Aquas Spartas caused in 1294 the foundation of the Minorite Celes-tines, who after the death of their protector, Celestine V., were in 1307 condemned as heretics and suppressed.

Some of them who fled to France established in 1308 the Minorites of Narbonne and the Spirituals, who were likewise condemned in 1318. Another offshoot of Celestines, the Minorite Clarenines, founded in 1302 by Angelo di Cortona, was tolerated till 1506, when they united with the Observants. Much more successful than these secessions was the undertaking of Paoletto di Foligno in 1368 to restore the strict observance of the rule. His followers were called Observants, and those who adhered to the milder rule Conventuals. Henceforth these two names distinguished the two great parties. By the 15th century the number of new congregations had thrown the order into great confusion. Leo X. made an attempt in 1517 to reunite them, but succeeded only with the various congregations of Observants, on whom he therefore conferred the right of electing the general (minister generalis), while the Conventuals could only elect a magister general (magister generalis), whose election had to be confirmed by the general. From that time the quarrels between the Observants and Conventuals were less violent. The Conventuals made several attempts to regain the ascendancy, but in 1G31 Urban VIII. commanded them to abandon their claims for ever.

Notwithstanding the desire of the pope that no further separations should occur, several congregations arose, mostly for the purpose of still surpassing the strict observance of the Observants. These communities were styled Minorites of the stricter observance, and, though forming separate provinces from the main body of the regular Observants, were always under the same general. They were called Alcanta-rines in Spain from St. Peter of Alcantara, Reformed in Italy and Germany, and Recollects in France, England, Ireland, Belgium, and Holland. The Capuchins, originally a congregation of reformed Franciscans, became afterward an independent order. (See Capuchins.) -The number of Franciscans has been greatly reduced by political revolutions since 1789. In the 18th century the order, including the Capuchins, still counted nearly 200,000 members with about 26,000 convents; in 1843 the number of the Observants, the most numerous branch, was estimated at about 80,000. Since 1848 the number of the order has been gradually increasing in the British empire, the United States, Belgium, Holland, France, and Germany; in the Italian and Spanish peninsulas they have now completely ceased to exist as religious corporations; while in Mexico a law has recently been passed abolishing all religious orders, secularizing their members, and sequestrating their property.

In Asia they have a province in Palestine, whose members are the guardians of the holy sepulchre and other Christian sanctuaries, and are celebrated for their hospitality to pilgrims and travellers. In China they have charge of two apostolic vicariates. The Franciscans were the earliest missionaries to America, having come over with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. Their first formal establishment in the new world was in 1502, when 12 friars, with a prelate named Antonio de Espinal, accompanied Ovando to Santo Domingo. They went to Florida with Pamfilo de Narvaez in 1528, one of their number, Juan Juarez, bearing the rank of bishop; hut of this band of missionaries we know little; they seem to have effected no establishment, and all perished. An Italian Franciscan, Mark of Nice, penetrated into New Mexico and California in 1539, and gave the name San Francisco to the country which he visited. The exaggerated reports of what he had seen and heard led adventurers to those regions, and with them came a number of Franciscans, some of whom remained behind after the return of the expedition and were martyred.

Father Andres de Olmos founded a successful mission in Texas in 1544. Subsequently priests of this order established themselves permanently in Florida, California, Mexico, and other parts of the south and west, and were among the first to plant Christianity in Canada, and in what are now the northern and northwestern states of the Union. Their labors in Canada date from 1615, when four Recollects (three priests and one lay brother) came over from France and took charge of the Huron, Algonquin, and Montagnais missions, which they and their brethren conducted alone until the Jesuits came to aid them in 1625. The Recollects figured largely in the missionary history of Canada for many years. The celebrated explorer Hennepin was a Franciscan missionary. The foundations of the order in California, notwithstanding the numbers who were put to death by the Indians, still remain, and have recently been reenforced by accessions from Europe. They are numerous in all parts of Central and South America. Their present houses in the United States, except those in California, have been founded very recently, chiefly by Italians and Germans. In 1873 the following establishments existed in the United States, having altogether 80 priests: two convents in New York city; a college and convent in Alleghany, N. Y.; a convent in Buffalo; a college and convent in Teutopo-lis, 111.; besides convents in Winsted, Conn., Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Oldenburg, Ind., and Quin-cy, 111. The Conventuals have convents in Austria, Bavaria, Switzerland, Malta, Poland, and Turkey.-We find Franciscans soon after the death of St. Francis as professors of theology at the university of Paris, which in 1244 was commanded by Pope Innocent IV. to admit Franciscans and Dominicans to academical dignities.

In union with the Dominicans they strove for several centuries to extend in the theological schools the influence of the monastic orders at the expense of the secular clergy. With the Dominicans they maintained various philosophical and theological controversies, the Franciscans being realists, anti-Augustinians, and defenders of the immaculate conception, while the Dominicans are nominalists and Au-gustinians, and were formerly opponents of the immaculate conception. Among the celebrated men produced by the order are Anthony of Padua, Bonaventura, Alexander of Hales, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Nicolaus de Myra, Occam, Cardinal Ximenes, and the popes Nicholas IV., Alexander V., Sixtus IV., Sixtus V., and Clement XIV. In the first period of their history they had a considerable number of mystical writers and composers of hymns, as Thomas de Celano, the reputed author of Dies Irae, and Giacopone da Todi, the author of the Stabat Mater.-St. Francis also established an order of nuns, who are generally called, from its first abbess Clara of Assisi, Poor Clares or Clarisses. Another branch were the Tertiarians or penitents of the third order of St. Francis, who remained in the world, but followed a rule and discipline similar to those of the first and second orders.

They received their rule from St. Francis in 1221. This order has included many kings and queens (as Louis IX. of France, and the mother and wife of Louis XIV.) and popes among its members, Pius IX. being one. The Tertiarians afterward began to live in community and take vows, but this practice was in time abandoned. New communities of Tertiarians subsequently sprang up, devoted to teaching, and became independent of the parent order. They have houses in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Brooklyn, X. Y. Among the communities of women, the Elizabethines, founded in 1395 by Angelina di Corbaro, are the most important. In France they were also called daughters of charity. In 1843 they had about 1,000 members; but since then their numbers have much increased. In the United States there are establishments of sisters of the third order of St. Francis in the dioceses of Vincennes, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Sault Ste. Marie.-The habit of the Observants consists of a cowl with a pointed ca-poche, a cord as a girdle, and sandals. Its color differs in different localities. In England and Ireland it is gray, whence the name "gray friars." Some congregations let the beard grow. The Conventuals generally wear a black cowl and capoche.

They also wear shoes, and are always without beards.-The principal work on the Franciscans is that of the Irish Franciscan, Lucas Wadding (died in 1657). His Annates Minorum (8 vols, fob, Lyons, 1625-'48, and Rome, 1654) was continued by De Luca, Fonseca, and others. In the latest edition (24 vols, fob, Rome, 1731-1860), Wadding's work terminates with vol. xvi.