That an aspirant to the order should also be rich and of good family was not requisite but was considered desirable.

Men of bad reputation, intractible, choleric, or men who had ever been tainted with heresy, were excluded.

No women were recruited.
After selection, the neophyte was put on a probation of two years.

He was then assigned to the class of scholars for further discipline.

He was later placed either as a temporal coadjutor, a sort of lay brother charged with inferior duties, or as a spiritual coadjutor, who took the three irrevocable vows.