A large part of their revenue was derived from bequests. To minister to the sick and the dying was one of the first duties which St. Francis practised himself and enjoined on his followers: that in this respect the English Franciscans followed his precepts may be seen in the tradition of them which remained in the memory of this country and which Shakespeare has expressed in ‘Romeo and Juliet’: ‘Going to find a barefoot brother out, One of our order, to associate me, Here in this city visiting the sick, And finding him, the searchers of the town, Suspecting that we both were in a house Where the infectious pestilence did reign, Seal’d up the doors and would not let us forth.’ (Act V, Scene II.) But work like this receives little notice in history, and where it is mentioned it is usually upon the sordid aspect of the case--the greed for legacies--that the chroniclers insist. In connexion with Oxford there are perhaps in the extant records only two instances of a Franciscan being found in the chamber of sickness or death. On Nov. 24, 1357, the will of Robert de Trenge[654], Warden of Merton, was proved by the sworn testimony of Friar John of Nottingham of the Order of Friars Minors, and Master Walter Moryn, clerk. The will itself is dated June 14, 1351, but in the Middle Ages it was rarely that a man made his will until he felt that his hours were numbered, and although Robert de Trenge seems to have lived some time longer, he was probably now lying in expectation of death, struck down perhaps by the dreaded plague. The other instance is of later date, namely 10th Dec., 1514[655]. A scholar, John Eustas, had died intestate at Oxford; ‘at the instance of his administrators, Friar Richard of Ireland, of the Order of Minors, appeared before us (the commissary), and confessed that he had abstracted from the goods of the aforesaid dead man, without competent legal authority, two mantles and thirty-one yards of linen cloth, and in gold 13_s._ 4_d._, which goods he has still in his possession.’ A few days later Friar Richard Lorcan was ordered by the court to restore these goods under penalty of the law[656].