Of the Secular Canons, who willingly serve ladies, our masters have taken a point, and will that this point be well observed and well used; for know that this point is more needful than any in the Order, in order to solace the brethren. And so it is commanded very straightly, on pain of excommunication, that the brethren be constant companions of the sisters, both before matins and after, so that the brethren be not blamed for neglecting them, nor the Order receive discredit.
The Grey Monks are a hard race; yet, nevertheless, from their order our masters will that the Order have one of their points for mortification; and in fact it is not over courteous,—for they go to matins without breeches. So ought our brethren to do, to be more at their ease. And when they make no prayer, they must be on their knees, to have greater and more effectual devotion: and they ring with one bell, and no more,—it is their order and usage:—but our brethren, to double it, must sound with two bells. Our Order has such difference, that our sisters must lay down flat and pray on their backs, they do it out of great devotion.
Also they take in patience, it is a point from the Order of Silence; each is a good order, without doubt, but none of the others is so valuable;—therefore they will take one point of this order for our purpose. Each is shut up in his cell, to repose himself alone; so our brothers must be, and each at his window must have some plants to comfort him, and his sister in his arms, and he must be shut up privately, that nobody may disturb them.
We must not forget, if our Order is to last, the Friars Minors, in no case; so must we have a point of their order, to be of more account. Their order is founded in poverty, therefore they go the open way to heaven completely; and I will tell you exactly how they seek poverty always; when they travel through the country, they take up their lodgings with the chief baron or knight, or with the chief person or priest, there where they can be satiated; but, by St. Peter of Rome! they will never lodge with a poor man,—so long as there are richer men to be found, they prefer asking a lodging of them. In the same manner our brethren must not take up their lodging, nor seek other place, than where they know there is plenty, and there they ought in charity to eat flesh and whatever they find, as the Friars Minors do.
As we owe something to the Minors, we will borrow also of the Preachers; they do not go bare-foot like the others, but they go preaching with shoes on, and if it happen any time that they have sore feet, they may, if they like, ride on horseback at their ease all the day long. But quite in another manner ought our brethren to do, when they preach through the land; for they must ride thus always both far and near: and when they make any sermon, they must be within doors. And always after dinner they ought rightly to preach; for many a man is of such a character, that his heart is harder than stone; but when he shall have once drunk, then as soon as he has heard the Order, and the hearts shall be moistened, however little they might have heard, they will listen to the Order, when they have heard the sermon.
Thus is our Order founded, and our brothers have deemed right, that each county must have an abbot, who has power to receive sisters and brothers, and make and hold full orders, and that the points shall be held which our masters have provided. A provincial ought to go and inquire in the land, to know who will hold the Order. And he who shall break it, shall be chastised in private, and reproved for his trespass. And those who shall be found to have made good use of the order, must, for their humility, be raised to dignity, and they shall be abbots or priors to hold the order in honours. Thus do the Augustine Monks, who know so many devices; every where they give full encouragement to those who hold the Order loyally, and those who will hold the Order shall be praised everywhere.
Now ends our Order, which agrees with all good orders, and it is the Order of Fair-Ease, which to many may it please too well!
Edward endeavoured to call off the vigour of his subjects from domestic sedition to foreign wars. But the expenses dependent upon the latter only added to the many burdens under which the English peasantry laboured; and it is now that we begin to find the complaints of the latter vented in the shape of popular songs.