friars; but we must remember that at the same time there were many earnest, learned, and excellent men in the mendicant orders; even as Mawworm and John Wesley might flourish together in the same body. [Illustration: _Costumes of the Four Orders of Friars._] The convents of friars were not independent bodies, like the Benedictine and Augustinian abbeys; each order was an organised body, governed by the general of the order, and under him, by provincial priors, priors of the convents, and their subordinate officials. There are usually reckoned four orders of friars--the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustines. "I found there freres, All the foure orders, Techynge the peple To profit of themselves." _Piers Ploughman_, l. 115. The four orders are pictured together in the woodcut on the preceding page from the thirteenth century MS. Harl. 1,527. They were called _Friars_ because, out of humility, their founders would not have them called _Father_ and _Dominus_, like the monks, but simply _Brother_ (_Frater, Frère, Friar_). The DOMINICANS and FRANCISCANS arose simultaneously at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Dominic, an Augustinian canon, a Spaniard of noble birth, was seized with a zeal for converting heretics, and having gradually associated a few ecclesiastics with himself, he at length conceived the idea of founding an order of men who should spend their lives in preaching. Simultaneously, Francis, the son of a rich Italian merchant, was inspired with a design to establish a new order of men, who should spend their lives in preaching the Gospel and doing works of charity among the people. These two men met in Rome in the year 1216 A.D., and some attempt was made to induce them to unite their institutions in one; but Francis was unwilling, and the Pope sanctioned both. Both adopted the Augustinian rule, and both required not only that their followers personally should have no property, but also that they should not possess any property collectively as a body; their followers were to work for a livelihood, or to live on alms. The two orders retained something of the character of their founders: the Dominicans that of the learned, energetic, dogmatic, and stern controversialist; they were defenders of the orthodox faith, not only by argument, but by the terrors of the Inquisition, which was in their hands; even as their master is, rightly or wrongly, said to have sanctioned the cruelties which were used against the Albigenses when his preaching had failed to convince them. The Franciscans retained something of the character of the pious, ardent, fanciful enthusiast from whom they took their name. [Illustration: _S. Dominic and S. Francis._]