[401] “Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam,” in “Monumenta Franciscana,” ed. Brewer, Rolls Series, 1858, p. 28. The author, Thomas of Eccleston, himself a Franciscan, saw the most flourishing period of the mendicant orders; his book, of extreme _naïveté_, abounds in visions and tales of wonders. [402] Matthew Paris, “Historia Anglorum,” London, 1866, vol. iii. p. 145, Rolls Series. [403] “Monumenta Franciscana,” Rolls, p. xxix. [404] “Speculum Vitæ B. Francisi et sociorum ejus, opera fratris Guil. Spoelberch,” Antwerp, 1620, part i. cap. 4. [405] Thirty-two years after the friars had appeared in England, they already possessed forty-nine convents (“Monumenta Franciscana,” ed. Brewer, 1858, p. 10). In Matthew Paris will be found a good description of the behaviour of the friars minor in England on their arrival, of the poor, humble, and useful life that they first led. “Historia Anglorum,” ed. Madden, 1866, vol. ii. p. 109. [406] See “Defensionem curatorum contra eos qui privilegiatos se dicunt” (4to, undated), a speech made in 1357, by Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, in which are denounced the successive encroachments of the mendicant friars to the detriment of the secular clergy. [407] “Monumenta Franciscana,” _ut supra_, pp. 514, etc. This library had been founded by the celebrated Richard Whittington, who was Mayor of London in 1397–98, 1406–07, and 1419–20. [408] “More canum cadaveribus assistentium, ubi quisque suam particulam avide consumendam expectat.” Rolls Series, vol. i. 38; _sub anno_ 1291–92. [409] Wyclif’s “Select English Works,” ed. Thos. Arnold, 1869, vol. iii. pp. 348, 380. [410] “Monumenta Franciscana,” p. 541. Hence the reproaches the satirists: “Of these frer mynours me thenkes moch wonder, That waxen are thus hauteyn, that som tyme weren under.” Thomas Wright’s “Political Poems and Songs,” 1859, vol. i. p. 268, Rolls Series. [411] “Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede,” ed. Skeat, 1867, Early English Text Society, pp. 7–9; written about 1394; author unknown, the same possibly who composed “The Plowman’s Tale,” e.g. in Wright’s “Political Poems,” both works strongly influenced by Langland’s “Visions.” [412] “Liber de adventu Minorum,” in “Monumenta Franciscana,” p. 52. [413] Grammar, logic, rhetoric—Arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy. [414] “Select English Works,” vol. iii. p. 382. A satire of the fourteenth century states in the same way: “Isti fratres prædicant per villas et forum Quod si mortem gustet quis in habitu minorum Non intrabit postea locum tormentorum, Sed statim perducitur ad regna cœlorum.” But if burial is requested for a pauper in one of their privileged churches, “the keeper is absent,” is the answer, and admittance is refused: “Gardianus absens est, statim respondetur Et sic satis breviter pauper excludetur.” Wright’s “Political Poems,” Rolls Series, vol. i. pp. 256–57.