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.
[4] In Northern Italy, Spain, and France[5] primarily, a religious movement of people called the Apostolic Brethren was a large advocate of this idea.
Founded by a wool merchant, they established communities scattered around Italy and France, organized on the principle of a simple way of life for the laity, who shared their goods while remaining in family units.
that Saint Francis of Assisi was inspired to form the Franciscans by their movement, in an effort to emulate the poverty of Jesus Christ and to bring his message through a simple life and example, while strictly adhering to the beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Sometime during the 1170's, a wealthy cloth merchant known as Waldes or Peter Waldo experienced a religious conversion, which has been attributed to him hearing a minstrel retell the story of St.
He had the Gospel translated and began openly preaching, gaining many followers who too embraced lives of apostolic poverty; these men and women became known as the Waldensians.
[10] Conflicts with the secular clergy and with lay teachers in the universities led to accusations of hypocrisy with regard to the profession of poverty from outsiders, as well as from those members of the order formerly known as the Zelanti, but who then began to be referred to as the Spirituals, because of their association with the Age of the Spirit that the apocalyptic writer Joachim of Fiore had foretold would begin in 1260.
[11] On 26 March 1322, John removed the ban on discussion of Nicholas III's bull[20][21] and commissioned experts to examine the idea of poverty based on belief that Christ and the apostles owned nothing.
[25] And on 12 November 1323 he issued the short bull Cum inter nonnullos,[26] which declared "erroneous and heretical" the doctrine that Christ and his apostles had no possessions whatever.
[17][19][27] Influential members of the order protested, including the minister general Michael of Cesena, the English provincial William of Ockham, and Bonagratia of Bergamo.
Only a small part of the Franciscan Order joined the opponents of John XXII, and at a general chapter held in Paris in 1329 the majority of all the houses declared their submission to the Pope.