lost their way and came to a farmhouse of the Benedictines.  It was nearly night and raining.  They gently knocked, and asked admittance for God’s sake.  The porter gazed on their patched robes and beggarly aspect and supposed them to be mimics or despised persons.  The prior, pleased with the tidings, invited them in.  But instead of sportively performing, these two friars insisted, with sedate countenances, that they were men of God.  Whereat the Benedictines in jealousy, and displeased to be cheated out of their expected fun, kicked and buffeted the two poor monks and turned them out of doors.  One young monk pitied them and smuggled them into a hay-loft where we trust they slept soundly and safe from the cold and rain.”  The two friars finally reached Oxford and were well received by their Dominican brothers.  Such was the simple beginning of a brilliant career that was profoundly to affect the course of English history.  Both at Cambridge and Oxford the monastic orders exercised a remarkable influence.  Traces of their labors and power may still be seen in the names of the colleges, and in the religious portions of the university discipline.  They built fine edifices and manned their schools with the best teachers, so that they became great rivals of the regular colleges which did not have the funds necessary to compete with these wealthy beggars.  Another cause of their rapid progress was the exodus of students from Paris to England.  During the quarrel at Paris, Henry III. of England offered many inducements to the students, who left for England in large numbers.  Many of them were prejudiced in favor of the friars, and they naturally drifted to the monastic college.  The secular clergy charged the friars with inducing the college students to enter the monasteries or to turn begging monks.  The pope, the king, and the parliament became involved in the struggle, which grew more bitter as the years passed.  After a while Wyclif appeared, and when he began his mighty attack upon the friars the joy with which the professors viewed the struggle can be appreciated.

The Decline of the Mendicants

The Mendicant friars won their fame by faithful and earnest labors.  Men admired them because they identified themselves with the lowest of mankind and heroically devoted themselves to the poor and sick.  These “sturdy beggars,” as Francis called his companions, were contrasted with the lazy, rich, and, too often, licentious monks of the other orders.  Everywhere the friars were received with veneration and joy.  The people sought burial in their rags, believing that, clothed in the garments of these holy beggars, they would enter paradise more speedily.