The intellectual torpor which oppressed Oxford for more than a century after the disappearance of Wiclif and his followers was due less to the repressive measures adopted by Archbishop Arundel, than to the want of vitality, of adaptability to new modes of thought, in the scholastic philosophy and method, with which the intellectual life of Oxford had for so long been identified. The University as a whole did not extend a warm welcome to the New Learning, and it was to be expected that the Mendicant Orders especially should be attached to the old state of things, with which their past greatness was connected, and to which their present position and any prestige they still possessed were due[749]. The Grey Friars consequently were inclined to oppose the revival of learning; and Tyndale no doubt classed them among ‘the old barking curs, Duns’ disciples and like draff called Scotists, the children of darkness,’ who ‘raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew[750].’ Dr. Henry Standish, sometime Warden of the Grey Friars of London and Provincial Minister of England, attacked Erasmus’ version of the New Testament in a sermon at Paul’s Cross and in conversation at Court, and seems to have been the recognised leader of the ‘Trojan’ party in England[751]. But even among the Minorites there are traces of the influence of the Renaissance. Another Provincial Minister, Richard Brynkley, was a student of Greek, and was supplied with a copy of the Gospels in Greek from the Franciscan Library at Oxford. Friar Nicholas de Burgo seems to have been one of that band of Humanists whom Wolsey attracted to Oxford, that they might propagate in his own University the learning and culture of Italy[752]. The close historical relation, notwithstanding the fundamental differences, between the intellectual movement and the religious movement, was neatly expressed in a saying current among the friars: ‘Erasmus laid the egg; Luther hatched it[753].’ The beginnings of the English Reformation in its religious aspect are to be sought among the educated classes, especially at Cambridge. The Minorites, while generally hostile to the new religion[754], did not take a leading part in suppressing it. And when it is remembered how very little progress the Lutheran doctrines made in England before the Dissolution, the few instances of sympathy with those doctrines recorded in the lives of Oxford Franciscans acquire a certain importance[755]. These, however, were exceptional cases. If we trace the fortunes of individual Franciscans after the Dissolution, it will be found that no generalization as to their attitude towards the Reformation can be made. A few remained loyal to the old religion[756], others embraced the new[757], and on both sides persecution was suffered for conscience’ sake[758]; others again contrived to reconcile themselves with both old and new according to circumstances[759].