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Few figures in the Western church have been so popular as Francis of Assisi (1181-1226); yet the real Francis, underneath the romances and legends, is probably almost as unknown as his contemporary, Dominic Guzman (cl 170-1221). For most people, Francis is the great nature-lover who preached to the birds and who tamed wolves, and the chivalrous champion of his 'Lady Poverty'. And if Dominic is thought of at all, it is perhaps most commonly as an Inquisitor. In fact Francis really was a lover of nature and of poverty, though the heart of his message lies elsewhere. But Dominic was definitely not an Inquisitor, as the office did not even exist until some ten years after his death.

The truth about these two saints and the Orders they founded is both less glamorous and more important than the myths. Between them, they brought to the church something which was desperately needed in the early thirteenth century. Many people longed for a more straightforward, evangelical way of life. Francis and Dominic showed that it was possible to do justice to this widespread desire, while remaining within the unity of the church.

As C. S. Lewis remarked. 'There was nothing which medieval people liked better, or did better, than sorting out and tidying up'. And one of the things which they had, seemingly, sorted out and tidied up by the early thirteenth century was religious life. From the ninth century onwards the monks had been tidied up under the Rule of St Benedict, from the eleventh century onwards the orders of clergy had been tidied up under the Rule of St Augustine, and ever more effective steps were being taken to ensure that everyone who wanted to be set apart for a religious life would fit into some recognizable legal slot. Individuals seeking a way of expressing their fervour independently of the official categories were generally treated as dangerous, if not heretical. In spite of Pope Innocent Ill's attempts to find a place in the church for new, more simple, religious movements, the Lateran council in 1215 decreed that no new religious foundations were to be made except on the basis of an existing Rule.

Yet plainly something was lacking. A considerable number of people were disaffected with the official church, and had fallen an easy prey to separatist and 'heretical preachers. The generally low level of Christian education, even among the clergy, left people very vulnerable to strange doctrines. The longing for spiritual life, which held the potential for a great evangelical revival, looked like being wasted on the fringe of the church or outside the church entirely.

With the powerful backing of successive popes, particularly Innocent III and Gregory IX, Francis and Dominic were able to establish within the church official Orders which could, in different ways, cater for the demand fora style of religious life less encumbered with monastic proprieties. The attractiveness of their Orders can be seen from such statistics as we have for their early growth. We hear of there being more than 5,000 Franciscans at a General Chapter within Francis' own lifetime, and in the middle of the century there were some 1,250 Franciscans in England alone. And in 1223 there were 120 Dominicans in Paris, only six years after the foundation of the community there, while in mid-century it has been calculated that there were about 13,000 Dominicans altogether, and 20,000 by the end of the century.

The novelty of these two Orders can be seen from the reaction of more traditionally-minded churchmen. Jacques de Vitry, who was not unsympathetic, remarks that the life of the Franciscans 'seems very dangerous to me, because not only mature men, but even young, immature men, who ought to be constrained and tested for some time within the discipline of the convent, are sent out throughout the world in pairs'. And of Dominic we read: 'He used to travel round and send out his first brethren, even though he had only a few and they were indifferently educated and mostly young.

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