Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

558 NOTES.(3) The Augustine or Austin Friars, so named from St. Augustine ofHippo. They clothedjn black, with a leathern girdle. They were firstcongregated into one body by Pope Alexander IV, under one Lanfranc.in 1256. They are distinct from the Augustine Canons.(4) The Carmelites, or White Friars, whose dress was white, over adark-brown tunic. They pretended that their order was of the highestantiquity and derived from Helias, i. e. the prophet Elijah ;that a successionof anchorites had lived in Mount Carmel from his time tillthirteenth century ; and that the Virgin was the special protectress oftheir order. Hence they were sometimes called ' Maries men,' as at1. 48, with which cf. 1. 384.As the priority of the foundation of the orders is discussed in the poem.1 add that the dates of their^frs/ institution are, Augustines, 11 50; Carmelites,1 1 60; Dominicans, 1206; Franciscans, 1209.153. The first, i.e. the Dominicans, as being the wealthiest, proudest,and most learned. In the next line they are called the Preachers.157. 'It was a singular change when the friars began to dwell inpalaces and stately houses. . . . Richard Leatherhead, a grey friar fromLondon, having been made bishop of Ossoiy, in a.d. 13 18, pulled downthree churches to get materials for his palace. But the conventualbuildings, especially of the Black Friars, are described by the author ofPierce Plowman's Creed, a poet of Wyclifife's time, as rivalling the oldmonasteries in magnificence.'—Massingberd, Hist. Eng. Refonn. p. 119.The following remark on this subject'is striking : S^\^lk raaner of menthedigging {building) thus biggings semen to turn bred into stones ;that isto sey, the bred of the pore, that is, almis beggid, into hepis of stonis,that is, into stonen howsis costly and superflew, and therfor they semenwerrar {worse) than the fend, that askid stonis into bred.'—Apologyattributed to Wyclif, p. 49 (Camden Soc). Compare also,'Hi domos conficiunt miroe largitatis,Politis lapidibus, quibusdam quadratis ;Totum tectum tegitur lignis levigatis ;Sed transgressum regulae probant ista satis.With an O and an I, facta vestra tabent,Christus cum sic dixerat, " foveas Analpes habent.'"Political Poems (ed. T. Wright), vol. i. p. 255.Pecock, bishop of Chichester, in his Repressor (ed. Babington, p. 543),complains that the Wyclifites blamed the friars for ha\'ing ' grete.large, wijde, hise, and stateli mansiouns for lordis and ladies ther-yn toreste, abide, and dwelle.'158. Say I, saw I. We generally find sej, sei^. See 11. 208, 421.1 59- y sernede, I gazed with attention; ^erne, eagerly, earnestly.