ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE FRIARS’ MANNER OF LIFE AND MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD: BENEFACTORS.
Lost records.—Mendicancy.—Procurators and limitors.—Career of Friar Brian Sandon.—Charges of immorality against the friars.—Their worldly manner of life before the Dissolution.—Poverty of the Convent.—Sources of income.—Annual grants from the King and others.—Frequency of bequests to the friars.—List of benefactors.—Classes from which the friars were drawn.—Motives which led men to become friars.
Of the internal economy of the Franciscan house at Oxford, or indeed of any friary in England, little is known or ever can be known. The Registrum Fratrum Minorum Londoniae is, in Brewer’s words, ‘the only work of the kind extant. A painful proof, if such were needed, of the utter devastation committed when the Franciscan convents were dissolved, and their libraries dispersed[577].’ We may here give some account of the records which must once have existed in every Franciscan house or province. From the earliest times an annual compotus[578] or balance-sheet of income and expenditure was drawn up, and if in later days this was sometimes omitted, an ex-warden was always liable to be called to render an account to his successor[579]. In each convent would also be kept a list of the brethren who died there[580]; and lists both of living benefactors and of dead, for whose souls prayers or masses were to be said[581], while many in their lifetime received ‘letters of confraternity[582].’ In the decrees of the General Chapter of Paris in 1292 it is commanded[583] that each minister should have the lives and acts of holy friars carefully collected in his province and entered in special registers, and bring them to the General Chapter; also that all notable excesses of friars, grave crimes, and credible accusations, the sentences passed and punishments inflicted on the offenders, should be noted in books kept for the purpose, preserved in the archives of the province, and faithfully handed on to each succeeding minister. The acts of Provincial Chapters were also kept[584]. Of these and similar records we have, besides the London register already alluded to, only a few letters of fraternity[585]. Of English Franciscan records originated by or relating to the convent at Oxford, not one (unless the list of lectors and the account of the controversy with the Dominicans in 1269[586] can be called records) is known to exist[587]. Any account, therefore, of the internal life of the convent must be meagre and unsatisfactory in the highest degree.
The hours and numbers of daily services seem to have differed little, if at all, from those observed in other monastic institutions[588]. We may therefore omit this subject and treat of the points which receive additional elucidation from documents relating to Oxford.
The first means of livelihood of the Mendicant Friars was naturally begging. Certain of the brethren were appointed by the Warden to ‘procure’ food for the convent during some fixed period[589]. There were no definite rules as to how many friars should be sent as ‘procuratores’ or ‘limitors’[590]; the details depended on the necessities of the convent and the will of the Superior[591]. Each house had definite ‘limits’ assigned to it, within which its members might beg[592]. The friars went two and two, accompanied by a servant or boy[593] who carried the offerings, which were usually in kind. The friar in Chaucer’s ‘Sompnoure’s Tale,’ himself a ‘maister[594]’ in the schools, after preaching in the church went round the village—
‘In every hous he gan to pore and prye
And beggyd mele or chese, or ellis corn[595].’
A good deal of private begging was done by the student friars to obtain the means of study[596]. Roger Bacon appealed to his brother in England, to his powerful and wealthy acquaintances, for money to carry out the commands of the Pope[597].
‘But how often (he writes to the latter) I was looked upon as a dishonest beggar, how often I was repulsed, how often put off with empty hopes, what confusion I suffered within myself, I cannot express to you. Even my friends did not believe me, as I could not explain the matter to them; so I could not proceed in this way. Reduced (angustiatus) to the last extremities, I compelled my poor friends[598] to contribute all that they had, and to sell many things and to pawn the rest, often at usury, and I promised them that I would send to you all the details of the expenses and would faithfully procure full payment at your hands. And yet owing to their poverty I frequently abandoned the work, frequently I gave it up in despair and forbore to proceed.’
Begging of this kind would either be unauthorized or legalized by special license. The statutes of the Order[599] enact that every convent shall have its ‘procurator’ or ‘syndicus,’ who shall transact all the legal business of the house and receive in the name of the Roman Church for the use of the friars all pecuniary alms and bequests, or all such alms and bequests as can be changed into money. The express object of these constitutions was to
‘preserve the Order in its purity and prevent the brethren being immersed in secular affairs[600].’