A great religious revival began with the coming of the Mendicant Friars, who, according to the celebrated Grostete, 'illumined our whole country with the light of their preaching and learning.' The Franciscans and Dominicans reached England in 1224, and were established at Oxford within two years afterwards, where the Grey Friars of St. Francis soon obtained as great a predominance as the Dominicans or Black Friars had gained in the University of Paris. St. Francis himself had set his face against literature. Professor Brewer pointed out in the _Monumenta Franciscana_ that his followers were expected to be poor in heart and understanding: 'total absolute poverty secured this, but it was incompatible with the possession of books or the necessary materials for study.' Even Roger Bacon, when he joined the Friars, was forbidden to retain his books and instruments, and was not allowed to touch ink or parchment without a special licence from the Pope. We may quote one or two of the anecdotes about the Saint. A brother was arguing with him on the text 'Take nothing with you on the way,' and asked if it meant 'absolutely nothing'; 'Nothing,' said the Saint, 'except the frock allowed by our rule, and, if indispensable, a pair of shoes.' 'What am I to do?' said the brother: 'I have books of my own,' naming a value of many pounds of silver. 'I will not, I ought not, I cannot allow it,' was the reply. A novice applied to St. Francis for leave to possess a psalter: but the Saint said, 'When you have got a psalter, then you'll want a breviary, and when you have got a breviary you will sit in a chair as great as a lord, and will say to some brother, Friar! go and fetch me my breviary!' And he laid ashes on his head, and repeated, 'I am your breviary! I am your breviary!' till the novice was dumbfounded and amazed; and then again the Saint said that he also had once been tempted to possess books, and he almost yielded to the request, but decided in the end that such yielding would be sinful. He hoped that the day would come when men would throw their books out of the window as rubbish. A curious change took place when the Mendicants got control of the schools. It was absolutely necessary that they should be the devourers of books if they were to become the monopolists of learning. In the century following their arrival, Fitz-Ralph, the Archbishop of Armagh, complained that his chaplains could not buy any books at Oxford, because they were all snapped up by the men of the cord and cowl: 'Every brother who keeps a school has a huge collection, and in each Convent of Freres is a great and noble library.' The Grey Friars certainly had two houses full of books in School Street, and their brothers in London had a good library, which was in later times increased and richly endowed by Sir Richard Whittington, the book-loving Lord Mayor of London.