FOR

THE GREYFRIARS.

1OR a good many years a gradually increasing interest has been felt in the older religious Orders. This has been partly due to the study of art and especially architecture; partly to the numerous valuable publications (such as the Rolls Series and various monastic chronicles) which have, of late, from time to time appeared, and partly to positive changes in religious belief, and the ever wider diffusion of High Church sentiments. Englishmen now fifty years old had little opportunity in their childhood of seeing a monk or a friar. In 1846 the only religious house of men thoroughly established in England was St. Bernard's Abbey, near Loughborough. Forty-three years have inade great changes in this respect, and so widespread has become the interest felt in such communities, that we think a few particulars respecting the most popular and widespread of the medieval religious Orders -that of the Franciscans or Greyfriars-may not be unwelcome to our readers.

This religious Order initiated a great innovation. Up to about A.D. 1210, the regular 2 clergy had been 'monks'— almost all Benedictines, Cistercians, or Carthusians.3

The

1 Then recently erected (Augustus Welby Pugin being architect) for a community of Cistercian monks who still dwell there-now under the rule of their third abbot.

2 The clergy were divided into 'seculars' and 'regulars.' The secular clergy comprised the bishops, cathedral chapters, parish priests, curates, and all clerics subject only to their bishop.

3 Each monastery of Carthusians in England was called a 'Charterhouse,' and in Italy a 'Certosa.' Such was the well-known Charterhouse' in the City. A new Charterhouse inhabited by French Carthusians has lately been built at Parkminster, near West Grinstead, in Sussex.

Franciscans assumed the simple name of 'Brothers'—' Frati' --and became known as 'Friars,' an appellation also given to the Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians.

The Dominicans were generally known as Blackfriars,1 because they wear in church a black cloak and hood over their white habit. The Carmelites were called Whitefriars, because they wear a white cloak and hood over their brown habit. The Franciscans were known as the Greyfriars, because such was the colour of their habit. They use no cloak in church, and they were, and are, further distinguished by being girt with a knotted cord.2

Their founder, as almost every one knows, was St. Francis of Assisium-a saint who has exercised a wider influence and inspired a deeper devotion than has any other Christian since the days of the Apostles. His influence was not exercised in Court rivalries or political struggles. It was a gentle, personal influence elevating the aspirations of individual hearts and aiding each to repress his baser and more selfish tendencies.

A loving admiration for St. Francis has extended far beyond even the limits of the Roman communion. The present writer's personal experience convinces him of this; but it needs no more than a reference to the writings of Mrs. Oliphant, Mr. Stevens, Rev. J. M. Wilson, Dr. Jessopp, etc., to prove it. The fact ought not to cause wonder. No other saint has shown so conspicuously and indisputably a heart overflowing with charity-with the most intense love of God and tenderness to his fellow-creatures, including even the brute creation.

1 The Augustinians (who wear a black habit) were sometimes called 'Blackfriars,' though they seem to have been more generally known as Austinfriars. The districts in London known as 'Blackfriars,' 'Whitefriars,' an 'Austinfriars' respectively, indicate the situations wherein the friaries of these three Orders formerly existed.

2 On which account they were known in France as Cordeliers.

VOL. I.

T

The true Franciscan spirit is emphatically the spirit of charity; and charity is also the characteristic of the most advanced phase of our present civilisation. The difficult problem, how to benefit our poor materially, without simultaneously injuring them in other ways, is the anxious and arduous study of the choice spirits of our day. It is only in recent years that the claims of the lower animals on our consideration have also been energetically, even passionately, urged; and surely the society for animal protection might well take St. Francis for its patron.

But though charity, rather than learning, is the leading Franciscan characteristic, the Order may claim a high place as regards intellect, especially its English Province. No less than sixty-seven friars were professors at Oxford,1 and seventythree at Cambridge. Those brilliant and laborious thinkers. known as 'the Schoolmen,' 2 are now beginning to meet with due appreciation after three and a half centuries of neglect. Of the whole group, one mind was admittedly the most acute, the Franciscan Scotus, known as Doctor subtilissimus, the fearless critic of St. Thomas Aquinas. But the Franciscan most interesting to the lovers of the critical and experimental sciences of our own day is certainly Friar Roger Bacon. His love for physical science is widely known, but the breadth of

1 The first at Oxford was Adam of the Marsh, especially beloved of the illustrious Bishop Grostete, who was so attached to the Franciscans. His letters (published in the Rolls Monumenta Franciscana, edited by Dr Brewer) give us a vivid picture of the England of his day. Repeated applications for English friars were made from abroad, and they were sent to act as professors at Lyons, Paris, and Cologne.

2 He who has been termed the father of the schoolmen, Alexander of Hales, was an English Franciscan, as also was Occam of the renowned logical 'Razor.'

3 The founder of the philosophical school known as the Scotists. He is believed to have been born in Northumberland in 1274, and he died at Cologne (the university of which he started) in 1308. He lies buried there in the old Franciscan Church, which is once more in the hands of his order. The chief part of his manuscripts, after being paraded about Oxford, were burnt there as 'Popish rags,' in 1550.

his views concerning Holy Scripture is much less so. Aided by him, Robert Elsmere would have had little to fear from his neighbour the Squire, who would have been met by principles capable of discounting beforehand his whole contention.

But in addition to the moral and intellectual claims of the Greyfriars on our sympathy, they possess a special interest on purely historical grounds. Dr. Jessopp has written admirably on 'The Coming of the Friars.' We would invite him to employ his facile and attractive pen in picturing for us 'The Going of the Friars.' And a sadly pathetic picture he might thus draw. The English Franciscans were widely beloved. Their general poverty shielded them from much of the envy and hostility felt against richer Orders, and the immediate cause of the destruction of the most venerated section of them, the Observants, was grateful fidelity to an ill-used woman and a fallen cause. But many of our readers may be inclined to ask, 'Who are the Observants?' Before, then, saying more as to our English Greyfriars, it may be well to give a brief sketch of the evolution of the Order.

St. Francis, who was born A.D. 1182, obtained from Pope Innocent III. a verbal approbation of his rule and Order in 1210. In 1223 this was confirmed by Honorius III. The saint died in 1226, on October 4th, which day is celebrated as his feast throughout the Catholic Church. Besides his friars and nuns, he also instituted what was at first called the 'Order of Penance,' but which is now known as 'the Third Order.' This includes men and women, married and single, who live in the world without any external sign of their inner spiritual allegiance, save a certain sobriety of dress and demeanour.

So rapid was the growth of the whole Order that at its first chapter, held by St. Francis only ten years after its foundation, no less than 5000 friars attended. Forty years later they had 1400 houses, and in 1680—in spite of losses in

Protestant countries-they had augmented to upwards of 100,000 members.

St. Louis of France and St. Elizabeth of Hungary joined the Third Order in its earliest days, and in the present age it probably includes a greater number of souls than it did in the preceding century. Kings, nobles, philosophers, merchants, small tradesmen, artisans, and beggars are to be found amongst its ranks in continental Europe, and in our own country it is worthily represented in both Houses of Parliament, on the bench, amongst our barristers, surgeons, and physicians, and our officers of both navy and army.

The rule of life adopted by the first disciples of St. Francis was extremely austere, but by degrees, here and there, relaxations were introduced which called forth many local attempts at a return to primitive strictness of life.

The great convent of Assisi itself became relaxed, but that of St. Mary-of-the-Angels (which had ever been considered the headquarters of the Order) maintained the stricter rule.

The great writer St. Bonaventure (known as the Seraphic Doctor), and the celebrated St. Anthony of Padua (whose magnificent shrine remains intact in that city) were conspicuous supporters of reform.

In the year 1415 a final split took place, one section of the whole Order adopting the mitigations which had been introduced, especially in the matter of poverty. The members of this section became known as Conventuals. They practically reverted to the life of monks, and were the owners of many magnificent monasteries and churches. The members of the other section became known as Observants. They adhered to the primitive Franciscan customs, and have generally maintained to this day the austerity of their rule.

The division of the Franciscans into these two sections was first officially sanctioned by Pope Martin v. in 1430, and