[415] The complaints of the University of Oxford against the friars, stating how they wrongfully attracted with fruit and drink mere children, and taught them how to beg and to ingratiate themselves with the great, were among the severest: “Nam pomis et potu, ut populus fabulatur, puerulos ad religionem attrahunt et instigant, quos professos non instruunt sicut exigit ætas illa, sed mendicationis discursibus permittunt intendere; atque tempus, quo possint addiscere, captandis favoribus amicorum, dominarum et dominorum, sinunt consumere, in offensam parentium, puerorum periculum et ordinis detrimentum.” Year 1358, “Munimenta Academica,” Rolls Series, i. p. 207. [416] “Hic est frater, ergo mendax.” “Historia Anglicana,” 1867–69, vol. ii. p. 13, Rolls Series. [417] Brit. Mus. MS. Roy. 10 E. IV, fol. 100, ff. See also in MS. 17 C. xv. in the British Museum a satirical picture of a “ffryer.” [418] Wright’s “Political Poems,” vol. i. p. 263. [419] 20 Ed. II., “Croniques de London,” ed. Aungier, Camden Society, p. 54. [420] Proclamation of Richard II, year 1385; Rymer’s “Foedera,” ed. 1704, vol. vii. p. 458. [421] “Rolls of Parliament,” 20 E. III, vol. ii. p. 162, A.D. 1346. [422] Labbe, “Sacrosancta Concilia,” Florence, vol. xxvi. col. 729. [423] “Select English Works,” vol. iii. p. 396. [424] “The English Works of Wyclif, hitherto unprinted,” edited by F. D. Matthew, Early English Text Society, 1880, p. 13. Most of the pieces in this collection are only attributed to Wyclif, this one among them. See also Gower’s “Vox Clamantis,” Roxburghe Club, 1850, p. 228. [425] “English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted,” p. 12. [426] So also in Chaucer’s “Prologue”: “His typet was ay farsud ful of knyfes And pynnes, for to yive faire wyfes.” [427] Wright’s “Political Poems and Songs,” 1859, vol. i. pp. 264 and 268. [428] “Select English Works,” vol. i. p. 381. See also Wright’s “Political Poems and Songs,” 1859, vol. i. p. 257. [429] “Eulogium historiarum,” ed. Haydon, Rolls Series, London, 1858, vol. iii. p. 392. What the condemned friars were accused of was thus explained to them: “Similiter vos in hypocrisi, adulatione et falsa vita audivistis falsas confessiones in quibus injunxistis populo pro pœnitentia ut quærerent regem Ricardum in Wallia. Vos etiam in hypocrisi, adulatione et falsa vita collegistis magnam summam pecuniæ mendicando et misistis ad Audeonum (Owen) Glendour proditorem, ut veniat et destruat totam linguam Anglicanam,” a language which Henry prided himself in speaking and which he had used in parliament to claim the crown. “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. 422. [430] Year 1533, Holinshed, “Chronicles,” London, 1587, vol. iii. p. 945. Friar Forest had refused the oath of supremacy. [431] “Libellus vere aureus . . . de optimo reipublicæ statu deque noua Insula Vtopia . . . cura P. Ægidii . . . nunc primum . . . editus,” Louvain, 1516, lib. i. [432] Hardy, “Registrum palatinum Dunelmense,” vol. iii. p. cxxxiv.