It is hardly
conceivable that the places of those clergy who died during the eight
years of the interdict were supplied by fresh ordinations; and some
excuse may have been found for the outrageous demands of the Pope to
present to English benefices in the fact that many cures must have
been vacant, and the supply of qualified Englishmen to succeed them
had fallen short.
Strange to say, in the midst of all this religious famine, and while
the Church was being ruthlessly pillaged and her ministers put to
rebuke, there was more intellectual activity in the country than had
existed for centuries. The schools at Oxford were attracting students
from far and near; and when, in consequence of the disgraceful murder
of three _clerics_ in 1209, apparently at the instance of King
John, the whole body of masters and scholars dispersed--some to
Cambridge, others to Reading--it is said their number amounted to
3,000. These were for the most part youths hardly as old as the
undergraduates in a Scotch university in our own time; but there was
evidently an ample supply of competent teachers, or the reputation of
Oxford could not have been maintained.
It was during the year after the Chapter of the Dominicans held at
Bologna in 1220, that the first brethren of the order arrived in
England. They were under the direction of one Gilbert de Fraxineto,
who was accompanied by twelve associates.
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