Capuciati
short-lived Catholic confraternity in France
Capuciati is the name (from caputium, hood, the headgear which was one of their distinctive marks) of a short-lived Catholic confraternity also named Confrères de la Paix ("Confraternity of Peace"). They formed an organisation of warriors dedicated to maintaining peace and order in France in the late twelfth century. They were first organised at Le Puy in 1182 and participated conspicuously in support of Philip Augustus against Stephen I of Sancerre and his Brabançon mercenaries then ravaging the Orléanais in 1184.
History
The Capuciati were founded in 1182 or 1183 in France for the restoration and maintenance of peace. It was one of the various attempts to put an end to the incessant wars and feuds which were spreading ruin and desolation throughout that country during the twelfth century. The origin of the Capuciati is traced to a poor carpenter of Le Puy, named Durand, who claimed to have had an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1182. In this vision he received a paper on which there was a representation of the Blessed Virgin seated on a throne with a figure of the child Jesus in her hands, and bearing the inscription, "Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world give us peace". An association was to be formed whose members should bind themselves to keep and procure peace and, as distinctive signs, wear a white hood and a medal bearing a reproduction of the picture and inscription.
Durand met with astounding success in the execution of these instructions. A confraternity was organized under the direction of the clergy exactly on the lines of Catholic confraternities of the present day.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2992586. The first chronological checks are 1182, 1184 and 1183.
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This entry incorporates text from “Capuciati” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.