ABSTRACT
The orders of mendicant friars which appeared in the early years of the thirteenth century represented a new departure, a radical breakaway from the monastic tradition of the past. By adopting a rule of corporate poverty and refusing to accept endowments or to own property they discarded impedimenta that had long been regarded as indispensable to any organised community of monks. But their rejection of property and reliance upon begging to support themselves were only the outward signs of a more fundamental change of spirit. The Mendicant Orders broke free from one of the most basic principles of traditional monasticism by abandoning the seclusion and enclosure of the cloister in order to engage in an active pastoral mission to the society of their time.
