levo

Y304: The Church and Medieval Heresy c.1100–1437

Depth study: The Mendicant Orders — St Francis and impact of the Mendicant Orders on the towns

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on St Francis, poverty and the founding of the Franciscans and Poor Clares, the split between Spirituals and Conventionals, the impact of the Mendicant Orders on the towns.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

How have historians disagreed about the institutionalisation of the Franciscans?

Key term

Distinguish the Spirituals from the Conventuals.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How did Francis of Assisi's conversion shape his order?

    Model answer

    The son of a wealthy cloth merchant, he renounced his inheritance publicly before the bishop and took the Gospel commands to the apostles as a literal rule of life, so absolute poverty rather than an institutional plan stood at the heart of the movement.

  2. 2

    How did the Franciscan rule come to be approved?

    Model answer

    Innocent III gave verbal approval to Francis's short gospel rule around 1210, and a fuller written rule was formally confirmed by Honorius III in 1223 after the order had grown too large to run on the original informal basis.

  3. 3

    Who was Clare of Assisi?

    Model answer

    A noblewoman of Assisi who joined Francis in 1212 and led the enclosed women's community at San Damiano, the origin of the Poor Clares, fighting throughout her life to keep the privilege of absolute poverty for her nuns.

  4. 4

    How did the papacy allow the Franciscans to hold property while remaining poor?

    Model answer

    Having declared that the Testament in which Francis forbade any gloss on the rule was not legally binding, it ruled that friars might use goods and buildings whose ownership was vested in the papacy or in trusted lay agents, so the order enjoyed the use of property without the legal title.

  5. 5

    Distinguish the Spirituals from the Conventuals.

    Model answer

    The Spirituals were the rigorist minority who insisted on the literal poverty of Francis's rule and Testament, while the Conventuals accepted the papal arrangements that allowed convents, libraries and settled urban ministry.

  6. 6

    How did the ideas of Joachim of Fiore feed into the dispute?

    Model answer

    His scheme of three ages of history led some Spirituals to see Francis as the herald of a coming age of the Spirit and their own order as its bearer, which turned a dispute about property into a prophetic critique of the institutional Church.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Y101: Alfred and the Making of England 871–1016
Y102: Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest 1035–1107
Y103: England 1199–1272
Y104: England 1377–1455

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

Franz Ferdinand was shot at in June.
SarajevoBelgradeVienna

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AA republic replaced the sultanate.
BThe caliphate was abolished in 1924.
CThe Latin alphabet was adopted.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Simony means the buying and selling of Church office.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Y304: The Church and Medieval Heresy c.1100–1437, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.