Grosseteste relied on the friars, Franciscan and Dominican, to revive religion in his diocese. From their first coming to England he had befriended the little brothers of St. Francis and St. Dominic’s order of preachers, and at Oxford had been conspicuously their rector. He writes to Pope Gregory IX. in the highest praise of the Franciscans: “Inestimable benefits have been wrought in my diocese by the friars. They enlighten our whole land with the bright light of their preaching and learning.” The secular clergy and the monks generally by no means shared Grosseteste’s appreciation of the preachers of poverty, and when the Bishop of Lincoln began to rout up the monasteries in his diocese with visitations and enquiries the dismay was considerable. The Benedictine monks in England were good, easy men in the thirteenth century--Grosseteste finds no grave faults against morality to rebuke in them--fond of their pleasant social life, and enjoying the comfort of an existence that had few temporal cares beyond finding money for pope and king. At the worst their sloth was culpable. Grosseteste charged upon them with his preaching friars, calling for amendment and the fulfilment of duties, attacking old abuses sanctioned by custom, and showing no tolerant sympathy for the infirmities and shortcomings of middle-aged clerks.[34] Respect him they must, for the learning and high character of the bishop were conspicuous in the land, but the dislike of all this strenuous exhortation was not concealed. The very chapter of Lincoln, which had elected him bishop, refused to admit Grosseteste as their visitor, or to acknowledge his jurisdiction over their proceedings, and only after six years of controversy and litigation was the case finally decided at Rome (1245) wholly in the bishop’s favour. A sentence of excommunication pronounced upon him by the monks at Canterbury during the vacancy of the see was of course entirely ignored by Grosseteste. If the clergy resented Grosseteste’s call to arms, it is to be remembered that they had suffered considerably from the tyranny of the times, and had been reduced under the general oppression to a feeble and sluggish timidity. The old “Song of the Church”[35] tells how low they had fallen: Free and held in high esteem the clergy used to be, None were better cherished: or loved more heartily. Slaves are they now: despised, brought low, Betrayed (as all deplore) By those from whom: their help should come; I can no more. King and pope alike in this: to one purpose hold. How to make the clergy yield their silver and their gold. Truth to say: the pope gives way, Far too much to the king Our tithes he grants: for the crown’s wants To his liking.