Mendicity is now their trade, which some practice well, others better; miracles of self-denial were demanded of them, and behold, on the contrary, prodigies of selfishness. It is no longer religion, it is their order which must be promoted; they preach not on behalf of Christ, but on behalf of their convent; the reversal is complete. All borrow largely from the treasure of good works amassed by their first apostles and spend it madly. The respect of the multitude lessens, their renown for holiness declines; they cast into the other scale of the balance so many faults and disorders that it overweighs. And what remains henceforth? Superstition replaces devotion; some, in spite of the rule, have studied metaphysics and sciences, the _trivium_, the _quadrivium_[413]; for a larger number, however, it is not learning but a gross materialism that veils the superhuman ideal of Francis of Assisi. Contact with their habit is equivalent to a good deed; if the dress is assumed on the death-bed the demons will take flight. Numberless visions have revealed to them these articles of a new faith: “Thei techen lordis and namely ladies,” says Wyclif, “that if they dyen in Fraunceys habite, thei schul nevere cum in helle for vertu thereof.”[414] {303} And so it came to pass that, not only poets like Chaucer and Langland, not only reformers like Wyclif, but also the universities[415] and the monks of the old-established orders, waged open war against the friars. To which the monks were moved partly, it is true, by jealousy, when they saw these newly created brotherhoods rising in importance, in numbers and in wealth, but partly, also, by the sight of undeniable abuses and worldliness. In such an authoritative work as the “English History,” written in St. Albans Abbey by Chaucer’s contemporary, Thomas Walsingham, the present state and behaviour of the friars is thus described: “The friars, unmindful of their profession, have even forgotten to what end their orders were instituted; for the holy men their law-givers desired them to be poor and free of all kind of temporal possessions, that they should not have anything which they might fear to lose on account of saying the truth. But now they are envious of possessors, approve the crimes of the great, induce the commonalty into error, and praise the sins of both; and with the intent of acquiring possessions, they who had renounced possessions, with the intent of gathering money, they who had sworn to persevere in poverty, call good evil and evil good, leading astray princes by adulation, the people by lies, and drawing both with themselves out of the straight {304} path.” Walsingham adds that a familiar proverb in his time was, “He is a friar, therefore a liar.”[416] [Illustration 58. SPRINKLING DINERS WITH HOLY WATER. (_From the MS. 10 E. IV._)]