the king, and the Pope meet with the same fate. And in his rejection no little skill is frequently brought into play that as little offence may be given as possible. He knows how important it is to preserve the rights of patrons, and therefore only interferes when higher claims come in. Sometimes he is obliged to temporize, sometimes to offer to provide for the applicant's protégé by some other means,-occasionally to give way altogether. But if ever the persons to whom he has thus once submitted presume on an easy victory afterwards 1, he soon makes them feel that they will lose their labour. On one occasion, that of an application from the all-powerful cardinal legate Otho, with whom he seems to have been on very intimate terms, after using various arguments against the institution of the person presented, he refers the case to Otho's own conscience, and leaves it to him to decide. How frequently and often shamelessly these applications were made these Letters afford ample proof. And the influence brought forward to bear upon the bishop was often such as must have made refusals very difficult. Thus we find Otho's influence used to obtain a benefice for a lad under age and not yet in orders (p. 151). Immediately on his election to his bishoprick, a deacon was presented to him not tonsured, dressed in scarlet clothes and jewelled, a layman, or rather soldier, in dress and manners; soon afterwards a boy "videlicet adhuc ad Ovidium epis"tolarum palmam porrigens" " (p. 63). On another occa

2

Infidelity in Europe.

sion he is asked to admit to the living of Stamford on
Avon a person "omnino fere illiteratus" (p. 204). And
judging from the numerous instances of which we find
mention in these Letters, of similar requests addressed
to a prelate whose character and determination must
have been so well known, how many more must there
have been made to others, in whose case it was only
to ask and have? And still more so in the instance of
such prelates as were Italians themselves, and whose
prejudices would naturally be in favour of their
countrymen. This would incline us to form a sad
picture of what, to a great extent, must have been the
condition of the Church of England at the time, even
had we not direct testimony that the natural result
did actually follow from such presentations. And I
think we shall thus get the true idea of the well known
sharpe pistle" of Grosseteste (cxxviii.) to the Pope, Higden.
refusing a canonry at Lincoln to his nephew Frederick
di Lavagna. It was rather his youth and unfitness for
the post, than that he was the Pope's nephew and
nominee that caused his rejection. Indeed, no one can
exceed Grosseteste in his reverence for the papal
power, and for Innocent IV. in particular, as shown in
several of the other Letters in the present volume.

But there were other influences at work at this time that affected the rest of Christendom as well as England, and tended to make the work of an English prelate a very arduous one. The Crusades had brought the influence of Saracen thought and Saracen tastes into Europe1, and these combined with the other infidel tendencies of the age,-the Manichæism which certainly gained strength from the increased intercourse between east and west,-were bearing their natural fruit in

1 See Mr. Brewer's Preface to 2 Ibid., p. xxxix. Monumenta Franciscana, p. x.

spreading unbelief throughout Christendom. Added to this, the study of Aristotle, introduced through translations1 from the Arabick, and with commentators like Averrhoes, had doubtless the same tendency with many minds. And though on the one hand fire and sword had been unsparingly used, and on the other (though somewhat later) the great efforts of the schoolmen were directed to reconciling Aristotle with Revelation, yet the poison had to some extent done its work, especially in England. The influence of the emperor Frederick II., suspected, if not actually guilty, of the worst infidelity, and his terrible struggle with the see of Rome, must have added no little weight to the same scale. Now the chief means that the age afforded for struggling against and resisting these tendencies were the rise and influence of the two orders of friars, the Franciscans and Dominicans. The Franciscans and The use to be made of these Grosseteste seems to Dominihave seen at once, nor was he slow to avail himself cans. of them, especially of the former. Their first establishEccleston, ment in England took place in September 1224, and as we find them almost immediately after (November)

pp. 5, 9.

Aristotle, especially as we find
Grosseteste quoting the Ethics fre-
quently, he goes on to say:
"Had
"I the power over all the books of
"Aristotle [i. e. translations], I
"would have them all burnt, as it
"is only waste time, and the cause
"of error to study in them."---Com-
pendium Studii, p. 469.

* See Wood, Hist. et. Antiq.
Univ. Oxon., p. 62. As regards
the Franciscans, see Brewer, as
above quoted. My only object is
to show Grosseteste's connexion
with them.

62=i. p.

192.

settling at Oxford, we can have little doubt that it was through Grosseteste's influence and invitation, as he was at that time probably resident there, if not actually chancellor, and as he became their first rector. The Dominicans had previously established themselves there Wood, i. in 1221. His affection for both the orders was very great, and continued through life. Thus, on entering on his bishoprick, we find that almost his first request was that he might have two of the friars with him, a request repeated frequently as regards both orders; and later he appears as insisting on the importance of members of these two orders as latera to the Archbishop of Canterbury'. In some of the Letters in the present volume he bears very remarkable testimony to their great zeal and usefulness. Thus, writing to Epist. lviii. Gregory IX., he says: "Your holiness may be P. 180. "assured that in England inestimable benefits have "been produced by the friars; for they illuminate our "whole country with the light of their preaching and

learning. Their holy conversation excites vehemently "to contempt of the world and to voluntary poverty, "to the practice of humility in the highest ranks, to "obedience to the prelates and head of the Church, "to patience in tribulation, abstinence in plenty, in a word, to the practice of all virtues. If your "holiness could see with what devotion and humility "the people run to hear the word of life from them, "for confession and instruction as to daily life, and "how much improvement the clergy and the regulars "have obtained by imitating them, you would indeed

say that they that dwell in the land of the shadow

of death, upon them hath the light shined."

In

1 See Adam de Marisco's Letter cxi. p. 242, where he mentions that

certain sum for the expenses of the
Friars Minors at their chapter of
Gloucester.

Epist. xxxiv. p. 120.

similar terms he speaks of them to Cardinal Raynald, afterwards Pope Alexander IV., at a time when there was great danger from some internal cause to the Epist. lix. order,-"unius hominis effrænata voluntate occasionem P. 182. "vel causam præstante," which I am inclined to suppose refers to the disputes in the chapters of the order relating to the twice deposed minister-general Helias. See Eccleston, pp. 44-47. On another (probably earlier) occasion he writes to Alexander de Stavensby, Bishop of Lichfield, who had spoken bitterly against them because they wished to live at Chester in company with the Dominicans: "Your discretion "knows how useful the presence and intercourse "of the Friars Minors is to the people with whom they dwell, since both by the word of preaching "and the example of a holy and heavenly conversation, and the devotion of continual prayer, they are indefatigable in causing peace and in illuminating the country, and in this part supply in a "great measure the defect of the prelates 1." The difficulty seemed to be a fear that the alms of the city would not be sufficient for the Minorites and the Dominicans together, and that the Dominicans had first occupied the ground. The Dominicans, however, never obtained the influence in England or the hold upon the people that the Franciscans did 2. On A. de Ma- one occasion Grosseteste endeavoured to arrange, though risco, Epist. viii. p. 91. without effect, a mission of the Franciscans to Denmark.

chial

Another reason for his patronage of the new reli- The parogious orders was the state of the parochial clergy clergy.

1 There seems a hint here that | the Bishop of Lichfield's duties were not performed as diligently as they might be; but prælati means the clergy holding preferment as well as the bishops. The friars were generally disliked by the bishops ; see Adam de Marisco's Letter

from Lyons on this subject, ccxiii.
p. 377, and also by the parochial
clergy. See p. 317 of the present
volume.

* See the account of the quarrel
between the two orders in Matt.
Par. p. 611.