SG Heritage Dictionary

Cordelier [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

A Franciscan friar; one of the order of religious founded by St. Francis; a gray friar. The cordeliers wear a thick gray cloth, a little cowl, a chaperon, and a cloke, with a girdle of rope or cord, tied with three knots.

Cordelier [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. A Franciscan; -- so called in France from the girdle of knotted cord worn by all Franciscans.

2. A member of a French political club of the time of the first Revolution, of which Danton and Marat were members, and which met in an old Cordelier convent in Paris.

Cordeliers Encyclopedia Britannica

CORDELIERS, the name given to the Franciscans in France, from the cords which they wore round their waists; and also the name of a notorious club of the time of the French Revolution, so called because it met in a Franciscan chapel. Early in 1790 this club was thoroughly organized under the presidency of Danton. Among its other members were Marat and Camille Desmoulins, and the latter edited a paper expressing its views, under the name of Le Vieux Cordelier.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 389
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