FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59  
60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>   >|  
llowing: _Mercenarios_, or Friars of Mercy (_de la Merced_), founded with the exclusive object of ransoming Christian captives who groaned in the dungeons of the Barbary States; the _Carmelites_,--_calzados_, wearing shoes and stockings, and _descalzos_, without either; the _Augustines_, _calzados_ and _descalzos_; the _Preachers_, or _Dominicans_; the Friars of _St John of God_, whose duty was to serve sick persons in the hospitals attached to their convents; and above all the large family of _St Francis_, divided into four great ramifications, viz., the _Franciscan_ properly speaking; the _Fathers of Observance_; the _Fathers of St Diego_; and the _Capuchins_. All these orders had convents in the principal towns of the Peninsula, and its colonies. In some cities,--as, for example, Madrid, Seville, and Toledo,--there were as many as twenty or thirty of these establishments, many of which contained from one hundred to one hundred and fifty inmates; but the average may be stated, with reason, at thirty for each convent. The _calzados_ orders were at liberty to hold property; but the _descalzos_, in whose number are to be reckoned all the family of Franciscans, were strictly forbidden to do so; and hence they lived, exclusively, on the alms of the faithful. These alms were of various kinds. Those called pious works (_obras pias_), consisted of certain rents, or pensions, granted to a convent on condition that certain masses should be said therein, during the year, for the soul of the grantor. Rich men who had acquired a fortune by unfair means, or through an extortionate usury, were induced to expect forgiveness of their sins, if they left large sums of money to the fathers of the convent the saint of which they were accustomed to worship or venerate, and to whom they usually paid their devotions. Some of those benefactors, most generously, defrayed the expenses of a religious festival, from which resulted a considerable profit to the convent in which that festival was celebrated. Others repaired conventual edifices at their own expense, or enlarged them by making extensive wings or other additions, in which there was always a profuse display of marble, bronze, and other precious materials. But the principal source of the revenue of the mendicant orders was that called the _questacion_. {57} Every morning each convent poured out from its gates a certain number of lay brothers (_legos_), each being furnished with
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59  
60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
convent
 

descalzos

 

calzados

 

orders

 

hundred

 
Fathers
 
called
 

Friars

 
festival
 

family


convents

 

number

 
thirty
 

principal

 
fathers
 

masses

 
pensions
 
granted
 

condition

 

grantor


extortionate

 

induced

 

expect

 

acquired

 

fortune

 

unfair

 

forgiveness

 

benefactors

 

materials

 

precious


source

 
revenue
 

bronze

 

marble

 

additions

 
profuse
 

display

 
mendicant
 

questacion

 
brothers

furnished
 

morning

 
poured
 
extensive
 

making

 

generously

 
defrayed
 

expenses

 
devotions
 

venerate