Observantism

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Observantism, also called the observant movement, was a reform wave in most Latin Church orders from the mid-1300s to the mid-1500s. Its aim was to restore the strict way of life and rules as they were at the orders’ beginnings. It appeared because many thought the orders had become lax and worldly. The era saw declines in monastic life: fewer monasteries, and fewer monks and nuns; for example, Cluny Abbey’s monks fell from 120 to 60. The Black Death and the Great Western Schism worsened the situation, and with fewer people joining religious life, some orders started accepting oblates—non-monastic followers who lived by the rules.

The observants did not have a single leader and the movement was not forced by a pope. They wanted to eliminate dispensations (special exemptions that let people ignore rules), return to communal, cloistered living, and ensure leaders and revenue came from the communities themselves rather than outside dispensations. The major orders involved included the Augustinian canons and hermits, Benedictines, Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscans.