[14] Mon. Franc. I, p. 17: ‘Fuit autem area ipsa brevis et arcta nimis’; p. 34, ‘Usque ad tempus Fratris Alberti domus ipsa diversorio careret.’ Wiclif attributed the great plague in a large measure to the friars herding together in cities; Trialogus, IV, cap. 32 (p. 370).
[15] Mon. Franc. I, 34.
[16] Barth. of Pisa, Liber Conform. f. 79b: cf. Mon. Franc. I, 16, 542. The prelates referred to are Ralph Maidstone and John Reading.
[17] Liberate Roll, 23 Hen. III, m. 6: ‘ccc ulnas panni grisei’ for Minorites; and m. 3: ‘Lij ulnas Russetti ad tunicas faciendas ad opus xiij fratrum Minorum de Rading’, scilicet ulnam de precio xi denariorum ad plus.’ Four ells went to make a habit. The quality was not the best, the ordinary price for russet—i.e. undyed cloth of black wool—was 1s. 4d. an ell; Rogers, ‘Hist. of Prices,’ II, 536-7. At the end of the fourteenth century Friar W. Woodford says that the friars were better clothed in England than elsewhere owing to the abundance of wool in this country; Twyne, MS. XXI, 501.
[18] Mon. Franc. I, 66: cf. ibid. 55.
[19] Or ‘idiots,’ as Brewer translates (Mon. Franc. I, 631) the original ‘omnes fatui nativi,’ Lanerc. Chron. 30. Cf. Mon. Franc. I, 564 (Testament of St. Francis): ‘We were content to be taken as ideotis and foolys of euery man.’
[20] Mon. Franc. I, 28; other convents were less scrupulous; see Liberate Roll, 23 Hen. III, m. 6—an order to buy ‘ccc paria sotularium’ at the Winchester fair for the Friars Minors there.
[21] Lanerc. Chron. 31.
[22] Eccleston, p. 38.
[23] Ibid. p. 52.