Note 244 — Chapter VI · THE MENDICANT ORDERS.

Potthast Regest. No. 8324, 8326, 9775, 10905, 11169, 11296, 11319, 11399, 11415.—Ripoll. I. 99.—Matt. Paris ann. 1234 (pp. 274-6).—Wadding. Annal. ann. 1295, No. 18.—Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 174.—Ripoll II. 40.

The exemption of the Mendicants from all local jurisdiction save that of their own Orders was a source of almost inconceivable trouble in every portion of Christendom. When, for instance, in 1435, the legates of the Council of Basle were on their way to Brünn to settle the terms of pacification with the Hussites, they were called upon in Vienna to silence a Franciscan whose abusive sermons created disorder, and it was with much trouble that they forced him to admit that, as representing a general council, they had authority to discipline him. On their arrival at Brünn they found the public agitated over a dreadful scandal, the Dominican provincial having seduced a nun of his own order. The woman had borne a child to him, and no steps had been taken against him. The ordinary judicial machinery of the Church was utterly powerless to deal with him, and the precautions which the legates deemed it prudent to take before they ventured to commence proceedings show how arduous and dangerous they felt the task to be, though when they got to work they sentenced him to deposition and imprisonment for life on bread and water.—Ægidii Carlerii Liber de Legationibus (Monument. Concil. General. Sæc. XV. T. I. pp. 544-8, 553, 555, 557, 563-6, 572, 577, 587, 590, 595). This, however, seems to have been a mere brutum fulmen, as there is no allusion to any attempt to execute the sentence.