These mendicant friars were looked upon with great jealousy by the clergy, who attributed to them the decrease in the number of students in the universities. Fitz Ralph, archbishop of Armagh and chaplain to Richard de Bury, accuses them of doing "grete damage to learning:" curiously enough, his accusation, contained in an oration denouncing them, bears testimony to their love of books and to their industry in collecting them. "For these orders of beggers, for endeles wynnynges that thei geteth by beggyng of the foreside pryvyleges of schriftes and sepultures and othere, thei beth now so multiplyed in conventes and in persons. That many men tellith that in general studies unnethe, is it founde to sillynge a pfitable book of ye faculte of art, of dyvynyte, of lawe canon, of phisik, other of lawe civil, but all bookes beth y bougt of freres so that en ech convent of freres is a noble librarye and a grete, and so that ene sech frere that hath state in schole, siche as thei beth nowe, hath an hughe librarye. And also y sent of my sugettes to schole thre other foure persons, and hit is said me that some of them beth come home agen for thei myst nought find to selle ovn goode Bible; nother othere couenable books." Richard de Bury's example gave a stimulus to those who succeeded him, both at Durham and elsewhere. As the styles of architecture varied in England and France,--agreeing in leading particulars, but each acquiring for itself a set of distinctive characteristics,--so did the art of illumination. In the purely Gothic work, such as prevailed from 1250 to 1400, extreme _finesse_ in execution, tenderness of colour, gentleness of expression, piquancy of ornament, and elegance of composition, may be regarded as almost invariable attributes of French productions. In England, on the other hand, the style was not so harmonious but more vigorous, the colouring was fuller and deeper, the action of the figures more intense, the power of expression more concentrated, and reaching occasionally in its energy almost to caricature, the sense of humour always freely developed, and a more generally active sentiment of life impressed upon design, not only in figure subjects, but in ornament. In the latter, monkeys and other animals, dragons, and comic incidents, are very frequently intermingled with graceful foliage and heraldic embellishments. In fact it is to the credit of both countries that, with so much that is excellent in common, they should still have displayed such free and distinctive features as marked the works of each respectively. About the year 1400, in both countries the mechanical reproduction of the accredited types and leading incidents of Scripture and of Catholic faith began to be abandoned; and, mainly from the necessity of giving to the historical personages introduced in secular romances and chronicles individual force and vigour, an attention to portraiture and a