Franciscans

Timeline

1. 1209–1223Assisi · UmbriaFrancis gathered companions at Assisi to practice absolute poverty and itinerant preaching; Pope Innocent III gave verbal approval in 1210, and in 1223 Honorius III approved the Regula non bullata, establishing the mendicant order's legal status and the principle of poverty.
2. 1224–1250Paris · Île-de-FranceFranciscan friars entered university cities such as Paris and Oxford to establish convents, taking part in theological disputation and preaching; friars also went to Iberia, the Holy Land, and the edges of the Mongol Empire to missionize, as the order transformed from a grassroots movement into a transnational religious organization.
3. 1251–1260Lyon · Auvergne-Rhône-AlpesIn the 1250s fierce disputes broke out within the Franciscans over 'absolute poverty' and property management; in 1257 Bonaventure was elected minister general, presiding over interpretation of the rule and the building of a scholarly tradition, balancing spiritual ideals with the order's operational needs — a key stage in the institutionalization of the mendicant orders.