A series of powerful Popes tightened their control over the Catholic church. They increased their influence over the secular authorities.
At the same time popular religion thrived. The new orders of Friars combined monastic discipline with a worldly mission.
The Dominicans were the great educators, and eventually more darkly the great inquisitors and persecutors of heretics. The Franciscans embraced poverty and simple life in imitation of the first apostles. The personal example of Saint Francis of Assisi who rejected his family’s wealth for the simple life of a wandering preacher was enormously inspiring to rich and poor.
Papal endorsement of Saint Francis ensured that the Church had a connection to the common life of ordinary people.
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