In no part of England were the Franciscans received with more
enthusiasm than in Norfolk. They appear to have established
themselves at Lynn, Yarmouth, and Norwich in 1226. Clergy and laity,
rich and poor, united in offering to them a ready homage. To this day
a certain grudging provincialism is observable in the East Anglian
character. A Norfolk man distrusts the settler from "the Shires," who
comes in with new-fangled reforms. To this day the home of wisdom is
supposed to be in the East. When it was understood that the virtual
leader of this astonishing religious revival was a Norfolk man, the
joy and pride of Norfolk knew no bounds. Nothing was too much to do
for their own hero. But when it became known that Ingworth had been
welcomed with open arms by Robert Grosseteste, the foremost scholar
in Oxford--he a Suffolk man--and that Grosseteste's friend, Roger de
Weseham, was their warm supporter, son of a Norfolk yeoman, whose
brethren were to be seen any day in Lynn market--the ovation that the
Franciscans met with was unparalleled. There was a general rush by
some of the best men of the county into the order.
Already St. Francis had found it necessary to include in the
fraternity a class of recognized associates who may be described as
the _unattached_. These were the _Tertiaries_--laymen who were
not prepared to embrace the vows of poverty and to surrender
their all--but well-wishers pledged to support the Minorites, and to
co-operate with them when called upon, showing their good-will
sometimes in visiting the sick and needy, sometimes in engaging in
the work of teaching, or accompanying the preachers when advisable,
and bound by their engagement to set an example of sobriety and
seriousness in their dress and manners.
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