That the monks were not unpopular is proved by two facts. First, that the House of Commons only passed the first Act of Suppression of the smaller houses under the coercion of the king’s personal threats; and, secondly, that the suppression was so resented by the people that in several parts of the country the people rose in armed rebellion against it.
But we must be content to indicate thus briefly that the monastic institution in many ways exercised a powerful influence upon the national life and religion.
The Mendicant Orders require a more lengthened consideration, for they were founded as an auxiliary to the ancient diocesan and parochial institution, in direct pastoral ministrations to the people, and played an important part in the religious life of the nation.
In the thirteenth century—as again in our day—the increasing population had grown too great for the agricultural needs of the country, and the surplus population had flocked into the towns. The result then, as now, was overcrowding, the building of unhealthy houses in the suburbs, poverty, dirt, and disease; and, as a consequence, ignorance and irreligion. Leprosy, brought probably from the East by the returning Crusaders, had become permanent and widely spread among all ranks and classes.[408] At the same time a wave of wild opinions, political and religious, was sweeping across Europe which reached this island almost a century later under the name of Lollardism, and created disaffection in Church and State.
The intellectual disorder excited the zeal of the Spanish canon, Dominic, who organized an order of preaching friars, to go about teaching the truth and contending against dangerous error. About the same time the heart of Francis, a citizen of Amalfi, was fired with compassion for the misery of the poor and sick, and he organized an order of brothers, whose duty it was to minister to suffering humanity. Both orders speedily became very popular, and spread over Europe. The Dominicans introduced themselves into England at Oxford, in 1221, and were patronized by Archbishop Stephen Langton. The first Franciscans came three years afterwards to Canterbury; and both orders spread as rapidly here as in the other countries of Europe.
A Semi-choir of Franciscan Friars.
(Fourteenth century MS. in British Museum. Domitian, A. 17.)
The organization of both orders ran on the same lines. Each was an ecclesiastical army. Each had a general of the order residing in Rome, under the special protection and correction of one of the cardinals. Under the general was a provincial in each country into which the order extended. The houses of the order in each country were gathered into groups, called by the Dominicans, “Visitations,” and by the Franciscans, “Custodies.” The English province of the Franciscans was divided into seven custodies or wardenships, each including eight or nine convents,[409] and comprising most of the great towns. The Dominicans had fifty-eight convents here; the Franciscans 75. The officers were all elected at a chapter, were required to resign at the ensuing chapter, and might be removed at any time for insufficiency or misconduct.
The Carmelite Friars had their origin in the East, and were introduced into England by Sir John de Vesey, on his return from the Crusade in the early part of the thirteenth century. It had ultimately about five houses in England. The Austin Friars, founded about the middle of the century, had about forty-five houses here. These make up the four orders, Black, Grey, White, and Austin. All smaller foundations were suppressed or included in the Austins, by the Council of Lyons, in 1370.