Since we have spoken of the decay of belief in the Friars, let us also speak of the respect actually paid to them when their popularity was at its height. Shortly after the Black Death, a letter was sent by the Mayor and Aldermen to the Pope, asking that a certain John de Werthyn, a Dominican Friar, might be appointed Penitentiarius to the City. The office itself was important. In Confession there were continually occurring certain cases not provided for in the instructions of the ordinary priest. In such a case the priest could only grant conditional absolution. He referred it to his Bishop, who either decided it himself, or, if it was one of an unusual and difficult kind, passed it on to the Penitentiarius. If he, too, found the case too grave for his decision, he referred it to the College or Court of Penitentiaries at Rome, on whose official report the Pope generally acted. The Mayor and Aldermen, after a preamble to the effect that their City had been of late grievously afflicted by a dreadful mortality, so that the merchants were not able to wait in person upon his Holiness, proceeded to petition the Pope that he would “grant unto the venerable and religious man, Brother John de Werthyn, his chaplain, a man of honour, of approved life and manners, and also of learning, sprung from the high blood of the realm, who alone of all others strengthens us with the word of Christ, that he and he only, within the City may be able to absolve the people being penitent.” They go on to ask that the office, at his death, may be continued in the Order of the Dominican Friars. The satires against the Religious Orders began within the very century of their foundation in England. One, for example, given in Thomas Wright’s _Political Poems_, belongs to the reign of Edward the First. It is the poem called “The Order of Fair Ease.” The Order of Fair Ease takes a point from every Order, of course it takes the weak point in every case. To begin with, the Order is entirely confined to gentlefolk—one wonders whether Rabelais had read this satire, and whether any part of it suggested the Abbey of Thelema. “Quar en l’Ordre est meint prodhoume, E meinte bele e bone dame. En cel ordre sunt sanz blame, Esquiers, vadletz, e serjauntz; Mès à ribaldz e à pesauntz Est l’ordre del tot defendu Qe jà nul ne soit rescu.” As at the Abbey of Sempringham, the Order is to receive both men and women; but whereas at Sempringham there are walls and ditches to separate the Brethren from the Sisters, in this Order there is to be no wall or ditch or anything to separate them. Three times a day, at least, they are to eat, and if they do it in company the Order will be none the worse. From Beverley they are to take the custom of eating and drinking well at dinner, at supper, and at collation; and after collation every one is to have a piece of candle as long as from the elbow to the finger ends; and to go on drinking so long as the candle lasts.