The friars

"The author finds the roots of the Mendicants in the evangelical movements of the twelfth century and in the ideas of the apostolic life which shaped the religious experience of their founders. Yet, while fully acknowledging the creative dynamism of St. Francis and St. Dominic, he shows how much the movement also owed to the popes. It was their steady protection and patronage that turned the armies of holy beggars into a well-trained pastoral force of preachers and confessors, working alongside the secular clergy." [Back cover].