Translation.—Charity is wounded, love is sick; perfidy reigns, and malice is engendered. The fraud of the rulers prevails, peace is trodden under foot; faith fettered in prison is very desolate.—At present, a writing is of no use; but right and law lie as it were asleep, and the care of the wicked race is blind, it has not sufficient foresight to fear the future.—The sons of iniquity crush those who resist; the peace of the church perishes, and the proud reign. The wicked prelates support this state of things by their supineness, for they refuse to suffer death for justice.—Peace being altogether overthrown, love is cooled; all the land of England is moist with weeping, and all friendship and kindness has disappeared; all seek consolation and quiet.—The little orphans lament the loss of their father, and, deprived of their mother, they sorrow in the midst of hunger; they who at first were very powerful, now fall by the sword, and their parents weep.—Lo! wicked children rob the poor; lo! the wealth of the rich is increased by exacting gifts; almost all the nobles spend their time in contriving evil; the mad esquires delight in malice.—Lo! the rapacious men appear on every side; lo! the supporters of peace and justice perish; these cruel butchers despise doctrine, and the holy preachers have no effect.—These men will not be amended by the force of sermons; nor do they make any account of the lives of men; they all plunder together, like robbers. Take vengeance upon them, O God of vengeance.
One of the legacies which St. Louis left to Christendom was the number of new orders of monks which had been created during his reign and by his encouragement. They soon spread from France into England; but they were very far from being popular in either country, and were the constant butt of the gibes and jokes of the poets. The following is a bitter satire upon the different orders of monks in England in the reign of Edward I. The idea of caricaturing them by feigning one order which should unite the different characteristic vices of all the others, was not new.
THE ORDER OF FAIR-EASE.
[MS. Harl. No. 2253, fol. 121 ro. Reign of Ed. II.]
Qui vodra à moi entendre,
Oyr purra e aprendre
L’estoyre de un Ordre novel,
Qe mout est delitous e bel: