Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 August 1316 to his death in 1334.
Pope Nicholas III, born Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 November 1277 to his death.
The Franciscans are a group of related mendicant Christian religious orders, primarily within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Saint Francis of Assisi, these orders include the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Saint Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis. They adhere to the teachings and spiritual disciplines of the founder and of his main associates and followers, such as Clare of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, and Elizabeth of Hungary. Several smaller Protestant Franciscan orders exist as well, notably in the Anglican and Lutheran traditions.
The Fraticelli or Spiritual Franciscans were extreme proponents of the rule of Saint Francis of Assisi, especially with regard to poverty, and regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous, and that of individual churchmen as invalidating their status. They thus claimed that everyone else in the Church were damned and deprived of powers and were declared heretical in 1296 by Boniface VIII.
Peter John Olivi, also Pierre de Jean Olivi or Petrus Joannis Olivi, was a Franciscan theologian and philosopher who, although he died professing the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, became a controversial figure in the arguments surrounding poverty at the beginning of the 14th century. In large part, this was due to his view that the Franciscan vow of poverty also entailed usus pauper ; while contemporary Franciscans generally agreed that usus pauper was important to the Franciscan way of life, they disagreed that it was part of their vow of poverty. His support of the extreme view of ecclesiastical poverty played a part in the ideology of the groups coming to be known as the Spiritual Franciscans or Fraticelli.
Michael of Cesena was an Italian Franciscan, minister-general of that Order, and theologian. His advocacy of Evangelical poverty brought him into conflict with Pope John XXII.
Ubertino of Casale was an Italian Franciscan and one of the leaders of the Spirituals, the stricter branch of the Franciscan order.
Apostolic poverty is a Christian doctrine professed in the thirteenth century by the newly formed religious orders, known as the mendicant orders, in direct response to calls for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. In this, these orders attempted to live their lives without ownership of lands or accumulation of money, following the precepts given to the seventy disciples in the Gospel of Luke (10:1-24), and succeeding to varying degrees. The ascetic Pope Paschal II's solution of the Investiture Controversy in his radical Concordat of 1111 with the Emperor, repudiated by the cardinals, was that the ecclesiastics of Germany should surrender to the imperial crown their fiefs and secular offices. Paschal proved to be the last of the Gregorianist popes.
Francis of Assisi founded three orders and gave each of them a special rule. Here, only the rule of the first order is discussed, i.e., that of the Order of Friars Minor.
An Apostolic Syndic is a Catholic layman, who in the name, and by the authority, of the Holy See, assumes the care and civil administration of the temporalities and in particular the pecuniary alms destined for the support and benefit of Franciscan convents, and thence provides for the requirements of the brethren.
Bonagratia of Bergamo was a Franciscan involved in the "poverty of Christ" controversy. As a trained canonist, he supported Michael of Cesena against Pope John XXII.
Bertrand de Turre, also known as Bertrand de la Tour, was a French Franciscan theologian and Cardinal.
Bonagratia de San Giovanni in Persiceto was an Italian Friar Minor, who became Minister General of the Order.
Pierre Desprès was a French Cardinal during the period of Avignon Papacy. He was son of Raymond II Desprès, seigneur of Montpezat, and Aspasie de Montaigut, the heiress of Bertrand, seigneur de Montaigut. He had a brother, Raymond, who was ennobled in 1325. Pesserat points out that Montpezat was an important town, being the seat of the Archdeacon of Montpezat in the diocese of Cahors, who was also Sacristan of the Cathedral. Not at all coincidentally, Pope John XXII was a native of Cahors, and his father had been Sieur de Saint-Félix en Quercy. With his expertise in the law as a teacher and practitioner, and with his experience as a judge in the Roman Curia, Pierre Desprès was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Church by John XXII, where he served from 1325 to 1361. He was thus head of the Papal Secretariat, in charge of the drafting of papal bulls and letters, and a principal papal advisor. The post was also one of the most lucrative in the Roman Curia, since a fee was charged for every document and the Vice-Chancellor received a share of every fee.
Bentivenga de Bentivengis, O. Min., also written Bentivegna de Bentivegni, or de Bentivenghi or Bentivegnawas, was an Italian Franciscan and cardinal.
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the pope when appealing to his highest authority is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apostolic Church and handed down in Scripture and tradition". This doctrine was defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870 in the document Pastor aeternus, but had been defended before that, existing already in medieval theology and being the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.
Bernard Délicieux was a Spiritual Franciscan friar who resisted the Inquisition in Carcassonne and Languedoc region of southern France.
Nicholas of Freising, commonly known as Nicholas the Minorite, was a member of the Franciscan Order during the early 14th Century. He is presumed to be the author of the Chronicle of Nicholas the Minorite, an account of the conflict over Apostolic poverty under the reign of Pope John XXII. The Chronicle was written or assembled as early as 1338.
Philip of Majorca was an infante and a Franciscan who served as regent of the Kingdom of Majorca between 1324 and 1329. Both as a theologian and as regent, Philip was a noted supporter of the Beguines and Spiritual Franciscans, preaching poverty for all clerics. He spent a large part of his career unsuccessfully trying to establish a new Franciscan-based religious order.
The doctrine of the Absolute Poverty of Christ was a teaching associated with the Franciscan order of friars, particularly prominent between 1210 and 1323. The key tenet of the doctrine of absolute poverty was that Christ and the apostles had no property, whether individually or shared. Debate about this came to a head in what is known as the theoretical poverty controversy in 1322–23. Pope John XXII declared this doctrine heretical in November 1323 via the papal bull Cum inter nonnullos, but debate on the subject continued for some years after; indeed, John's own final statement on the subject came in 1329 in his Quia vir reprobus. Key aspects of the debate included: the origins of property and whether use of material objects implied ownership; whether property existed before the Fall of Man; whether Christ while on earth had dominion over temporal things; the detailed and technical status of Christ's well attested poverty; and the apostles' use of material goods.
