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Authorities at Oxford University in the fourteenth century bore a grudge against Dominican friars. "We have learned from experience," grumbled the Congregation of Masters at Oxford, "that noble persons of this kingdom, gentlemen, and even those of common birth, desist from sending their sons … to the university … because they are very fearful that the friars will entice them into joining the Mendicant orders."

Thomas Aquinas's family had reason to fear the friars' influence. His wealthy parents sent their son off to school to begin a lucrative church career, and the next thing they knew, he had renounced riches and joined the Order of Preachers.

Why were men like Aquinas so attracted to the friars that they would risk their family's disapproval and rejection? And just what were a young man's choices when considering the religious life?

In Aquinas's day, thousands of abbeys throughout Europe subscribed to the Rule of Benedict, written in the sixth century. The Rule, not a book of rules only, set up a whole way of life for the monk. It designated eight calls to prayer and worship each day—Vigils began at 2:00 a.m., then Lauds, Prime at dawn, Tierce, Sext at noon, Nones, Vespers in early evening, and Compline. At these hours, monks prayed aloud and sang the psalmody in a choir, then listened to lengthy readings from Scripture or the Rule.

Benedictines lived with many restrictions. Monasteries regulated the monks' diet, forbidding them to eat meat, though some could eat fowl. Monks were allowed one meal per day, usually consisting of vegetables.

They were expected to engage in regular manual labor—monasteries were to be self-sufficient. They could not speak in the church or dormitory, though conversation was permitted elsewhere.

The abbot had absolute charge over the monks' spiritual and physical affairs, including their mobility. And abbots forbade their monks to own private property.

But there was another matter for men like Aquinas to consider—Benedictine monasteries had grown wealthy and powerful. In twelfth-century Canterbury, England, half the houses in the town and suburbs belonged to the monastery.

Some monasteries had political loyalties as well. In England, the king appointed abbots to act as local governors.

When Francis of Assisi began wandering the countryside and preaching in the town squares in 1209, he departed from the pattern of contemplative, structured religious life.

Francis debated with his friends "whether they ought to live among men, or betake themselves to solitary places." But Francis would not be tied to a monastery, as monks had to be. His passion for the gospel and for the common people who needed to hear it was too great.

Francis demanded absolute poverty from his followers, who became known as friars (from the Latin word for brother). He forbade them to own houses or receive money. For clothing, they were given a gray tunic with a white cord at the waist—hence their name, "Gray Friars." Beyond this, Franciscans relied on charity, begging for daily sustenance.

This radical approach appealed to rich individuals who were disillusioned with the church's wealth. Salimbene, a Franciscan friar, wrote, "there are many in both orders of friars [Franciscans and Dominicans] who, if they had been in the world … would have been priests, canons, archdeacons, bishops and archbishops, perhaps even cardinals and popes, like them. They should recognize that we have given up all these things to go begging." In fact, all of Francis's companions were children of merchant or knightly families of the town of Assisi.

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