CAPPUCCIATI. – Members of a lay association of a religious-social character, founded around 1182 in Auvergne by a carpenter, Durante Chauduiz, near the sanctuary of Our Lady of Puy-en-Velay. Their aim was to fight, even with weapons, against the enemies of peace, especially the numerous bands of robbers and adventurers who harassed peaceful people in various provinces of France. They were called C. because they wore a white hood with the image or medal of the Virgin and Child inscribed with the words: «Ecce Agnus Dei». They enjoyed considerable growth, but accused of heterodoxy, they were opposed even by those who had initially protected them.
Towards the end of the 14th century, the name C. was also applied to Wycliffe’s Lollards, because, in a sectarian spirit, they refused to remove their hoods in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
GIOVANNI DI GUADALUPE, a disciple of GIOVANNI DELLA PUEBLA, wishing to introduce into the Franciscan Order an observance even stricter than the Italian one, obtained in 1496 a brief from Pope ALEXANDER VI permitting him and six fellow friars to live in a hermitage near Granada, observing the Rule of St FRANCIS literally. He and his followers altered the Franciscan habit, wearing a shorter cloak and a pyramidal hood, and walked completely barefoot. For this reason, the people called them Discalcati or C., or also Brothers of the Holy Gospel.