That dele with purses, pinnes and knyves,
With gyrdles, gloves, for wenches and wyves.”
Walsingham, a monk of St. Alban’s, says of them, “The friars, unmindful of their profession, have even forgotten to what end their Orders were instituted; for the holy men their law-givers desired them to be poor and free of all kinds of temporal possessions, that they should not have anything which they might fear to lose on account of saying the truth. But now they are envious of possessions, approve the crimes of the great, induce the commonalty into error, and praise the sins of both: and with the intent of acquiring possessions ... call good evil and evil good.”
And a popular song of the fourteenth century says of them:—
“Full wisely can they preach and say;
But as thei preche no thing do thei,
I was a frere ful many a day,
Therefore the sothe I wate.
But when I saw that thair lyvyng
Accordyd not to thair preching,