The brothers supported themselves by transcribing spiritual books, the lay brothers by some handicraft; the sisters by sewing, spinning, and weaving. Begging was strictly forbidden. Besides caring for their own souls’ salvation, the brothers sought to benefit the people by preaching, pastoral visitation, and instructing the youth. They had as many as 1,200 scholars under their care. Hated by the mendicant friars, they were accused by a Dominican to the Bishop of Utrecht. This dignitary favoured the brothers, and when the Dominican appealed to the pope, he applied to the Constance Council of A.D. 1418, where Gerson and d’Ailly vigorously supported them. Their accuser was compelled to retract, and Martin V. confirmed the brotherhood. Though heartily attached to the doctrines of the Catholic Church, their biblical and evangelical tendencies formed an unconscious preparation for the Reformation (§ 119, 10). A great number of the brothers joined the party of the reformers. In the 17th century the last remnant of them disappeared.[331] II. Theological Science. § 113. SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS REFORMERS. The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans. After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism. But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well as in the treatises of the learned. Moral theology degenerated into fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism. To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ 112, 9) and d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ 118, 4). Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German