[393] “English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle of Hampole,” edited by Rev. George Perry, 1866, Early English Text Society, Preface, pp. ix, xv–xix. See before, p. [141].
[394] The Dominicans in 1221; the Franciscans in 1224. See Dr. Jessopp, “The Coming of the Friars,” London, 1888, pp. 32–34, a work in which shine the ample knowledge and wide sympathies of the late rector of East Dereham, the “Arcady for better for worse” where he spent so many years. When Taine made his last visit to England I wanted, if I may be permitted to recall a personal souvenir, to give him a lunch where each of those invited would be a representative Englishman. Robert Browning represented poetry; Augustus Jessopp, who deeply impressed the chief guest, the country clergy.
[395] “Vision,” Text C, pas. xi. l. 14.
[396] Prologue to “Canterbury Tales.”
[397] Jack Straw, according to the confession which his contemporary the monk Thomas Walsingham relates of him, would have liked to keep no other ecclesiastics on earth but the mendicant friars: “Soli mendicantes vixissent super terram qui suffecissent pro sacris celebrandis aut conferendis universæ terræ.” “Historia Anglicana,” vol. ii. p. 10, Rolls Series.
[398] “Piers Plowman,” Skeat’s edition, Text C, pass. xxiii. l. 274.
“Ac it is ferre agoo · in seynt Fraunceys tyme.”
Text B, pass. xv. l. 226.
[400] “The Rule and Life of the Friars Minors,” in Dugdale’s “Monasticon Anglicanum,” London, 1817, vol. vi. p. 1504.