[401] “Liber de adventu Minorum in Angliam,” in “Monumenta Franciscana,” ed. Brewer, Rolls Series, 1858, p. 28. The author, Thomas of Eccleston, himself a Franciscan, saw the most flourishing period of the mendicant orders; his book, of extreme naïveté, abounds in visions and tales of wonders.
[402] Matthew Paris, “Historia Anglorum,” London, 1866, vol. iii. p. 145, Rolls Series.
[403] “Monumenta Franciscana,” Rolls, p. xxix.
[404] “Speculum Vitæ B. Francisi et sociorum ejus, opera fratris Guil. Spoelberch,” Antwerp, 1620, part i. cap. 4.
[405] Thirty-two years after the friars had appeared in England, they already possessed forty-nine convents (“Monumenta Franciscana,” ed. Brewer, 1858, p. 10). In Matthew Paris will be found a good description of the behaviour of the friars minor in England on their arrival, of the poor, humble, and useful life that they first led. “Historia Anglorum,” ed. Madden, 1866, vol. ii. p. 109.
[406] See “Defensionem curatorum contra eos qui privilegiatos se dicunt” (4to, undated), a speech made in 1357, by Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, in which are denounced the successive encroachments of the mendicant friars to the detriment of the secular clergy.
[407] “Monumenta Franciscana,” ut supra, pp. 514, etc. This library had been founded by the celebrated Richard Whittington, who was Mayor of London in 1397–98, 1406–07, and 1419–20.
[408] “More canum cadaveribus assistentium, ubi quisque suam particulam avide consumendam expectat.” Rolls Series, vol. i. 38; sub anno 1291–92.
[409] Wyclif’s “Select English Works,” ed. Thos. Arnold, 1869, vol. iii. pp. 348, 380.
[410] “Monumenta Franciscana,” p. 541. Hence the reproaches the satirists: