The monks had received him with joy. It was no small satisfaction to their self-love to see the university abandoned for a house of their order, and that by one of the most distinguished teachers. Nevertheless, they treated him harshly, and assigned him the meanest tasks. They wished to humble the doctor of philosophy, and teach him that his science did not raise him above his brethren. They thought, moreover, they would thus prevent him from spending his time in studies from which the convent could not reap any advantage. The _ci-devant_ Master of Arts behoved to perform the functions of watchman, to open and shut the gates, wind up the clocks, sweep the church, and clean up the rooms.[151] Then when the poor monk, who was at once porter, sacristan, and house-hold servant to the cloister, had finished his task--_"Cum sacco per civitatem"_--"To the town with the bag," exclaimed the friars; and then, with his bread-bag on his shoulders, he walked up and down over all the streets of Erfurt, begging from house to house, obliged, perhaps, to present himself at the doors of those who had been his friends or inferiors. On his return, he had either to shut himself up in a low narrow cell, looking out on a plot only a few yards in extent, or to resume his menial offices. But he submitted to all. Disposed by temperament to give himself entirely to whatever he undertook, when he turned monk he did it with his whole soul. How, moreover, could he think of sparing his body, or of having regard to what might satisfy the flesh? That was not the way to acquire the humility and holiness in quest of which he had come within the walls of the cloister. [151] "Loca immunda purgare coactus fuit." (M. Adami, Vita Luth. p. 103.) He was obliged to clear away filth.