The problem was that he came late in the day to the foundation of orders of friars. Dominicans and Franciscans treated him as unwelcome competition; a major council of the Church at Lyons in 1274 decided to suppress ‘all forms of religious life and the mendicant Orders’ founded after the fourth Lateran Council of 1215. While many Franciscans furiously debated among themselves about the justice of the council’s narrowing of religious possibilities, the Order of Apostles actively resisted suppression and in 1290 its members were collectively condemned by the Pope. Soon afterwards, the Church
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