house had; and having a very large extent of ground within its liberty, the same was shut up with four gates, and all the inhabitants within it were subject to none but the King, the superior of the monasteries and justices of that precinct; so that neither the Mayor nor the sheriffs, nor any other officers of the City of London, had the least jurisdiction or authority therein. All which liberties the inhabitants preserved some time after the suppression of the monastery.’ Thomas Lord Wake is said to have intended to bring Dominican nuns into England, and he had the King’s license for this purpose, but he does not appear to have carried out his intention. The nuns of Dartford, in Kent, are supposed to have been of this Order at one time.
Grey Friars.—The Italian, St. Francis, was the founder of this Order, whose rule he drew up in 1209. It was approved of by Pope Innocent III. in 1210, and by the Lateran Council in 1215. His followers were called Franciscans from their founder, Grey Friars from their clothing, and Minor Friars from their humility.
Nine Grey Friars landed at Dover in the eighth year of Henry III. (1223-1224), five of them settled at Canterbury, and there founded the first house of the Order in England. The remaining four established themselves in London, lodging for fifteen days with the Dominicans in Holborn. These four, we learn from a Cottonian MS. (Vitellius, F. xii., 13, fol. 45) were (1) Richard Pugworth, an Englishman, priest and preacher; (2) Richard Senonef, English, clerk acolyte, a youth; (3) Henry Detrews, by nation a Lombard, lay brother; (4) Monachetus, also a lay brother.
These four men founded the great London house of Grey Friars. They removed to Cornhill, where they erected cells, made converts, and acquired the goodwill of the Mayor and citizens. John Ewin, mercer, appropriated to the use of the friars a piece of ground within Newgate. Here a noble building was erected by the help of numerous distinguished persons, which contained a church, a chapter house, a dormitory, a refectory, an infirmary, etc. The district was long known as Greyfriars, and afterwards as Christ Church or Christ’s Hospital.
The habit of the friars was a loose garment of a grey colour reaching down to their ankles, with a cowl of the same, and a cloak over it when they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords and went barefoot.
In connection with the Franciscans were the nuns of the Order of St. Clare, founded at Assisi by St. Clare about 1212. The nuns observed St. Francis’s rule and wore the same coloured habit as the Franciscan Friars. They were called Poor Clares and also Minoresses.
About the year 1293 Blanche, Queen of Navarre, wife to Edward, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, founded a house for the Minoresses on the east side of the street leading from the Tower to Aldgate without the walls of the city. This street is still known as the Minories. There were only three other houses of this Order in England, viz.: at Waterbeche and Denny in Cambridgeshire, and Brusyard in Suffolk.
Austin Friars.—The history of the foundation of the Friars Eremites of the Order of St. Augustine has not been given with any fulness, and its origin is somewhat uncertain. They came to England from Italy about 1250, and a house in Broad Street ward was founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1253. The habit of the Austin Friars was a white garment and scapulary when they were in the house, but in the choir and when they went abroad they had over the former a sort of cowl and a large hood, both black; round their waist they had a black leather girdle fastened with an ivory bone.[373]