‘Laurence de Gisors acknowledged before H. le Galeis the Mayor that he owed Sir Philip le Taylor a cask of wine to be delivered on a certain love day (diem amoris) because the said Laurence killed a dog belonging to him.’
CHAPTER XI
The Church and Education
THE influence of the Church during the mediæval period was great. In London the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s (secular canons) held the first place after the bishop, then came other bodies of secular and regular canons, followed by the monks and friars and officers of the hospitals, etc. Last in rank, but most esteemed by the people, came the rectors and vicars of the various parishes. Here was a large army of persons forming the officials of the Church, and the buildings of the Church occupied a very large portion of the city and of the land beyond its walls.
Between the secular and the regular clergy a great feud always existed. During the Saxon period the number of religious houses was few, but a great increase occurred almost immediately after the Conquest. Monasteries grew in number rapidly during the Norman period, but in time the monks having grown rich and lazy the need of a revival became evident. The great movement of evangelisation which took place during the early Plantagenet period when the friars came from Italy to England caused a religious revolution.
Poverty and humility were the great principles of the friars, but these were soon forgotten, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries all the regulars became equally obnoxious to the reformers. Wycliffe and his followers preached against them, and writers with such different views as Langland and Chaucer had little but evil to say of them. Chaucer condemns monks and friars alike, and reserves his praise for the poor parish priest.
We must first deal with the bishop and the secular clergy, and then consider the conditions relative to the establishment of the regulars, ending with a note on education in London during the Middle Ages.