For Franciscan Tertiaries. Hand crafted by Traditional Nuns to the correct specifications. Measures 4" x 5". Made from pure woven and shrunken English Melton wool.
In the Middle Ages
it became common for Christian faithful to share in the spirituality of
the new Mendicant Orders. They became known as Third Orders because
they were founded after the initial Orders of the friars and nuns.
Although members of the Third Order (called Tertiaries)
were permitted to wear the "tertiary habit", because they had not
taken religious vows they were not usually
permitted to wear the full habit of the Order. With time, it was considered a
high honour and great privilege to be granted a small scapular attached by bands
which would be worn over the torso in the same manner as the full monastic
scapular.
Confraternities came to be formed in which
people would be granted the wearing of this scapular as a mark of their sharing in
the good works of a particular Order.
Amongst Franciscans,
they came to be known as Cordbearers, due to their also wearing a small cord
around the waist in imitation of the one worn by the friar.