Not so was it in England; there the supply of
brethren animated by genuine enthusiasm and burning zeal for the
cause they had espoused was unexampled. Perhaps there more than
anywhere else such labourers were needed, perhaps too they had a
fairer field. Certainly there they were truer to their first
principles than elsewhere.
Outside the city walls at Lynn and York and Bristol; in a filthy
swamp at Norwich, through which the drainage of the city sluggishly
trickled into the river, never a foot lower than its banks; in a mere
barn-like structure, with walls of mud, at Shrewsbury, in the
"Stinking Alley" in London, the Minorites took up their abode, and
there they lived on charity, doing for the lowest the most menial
offices, speaking to the poorest the words of hope, preaching to
learned and simple such sermons--short, homely, fervent, and
emotional--as the world had not heard for many a day. How could such
evangelists fail to win their way? Before Henry III.'s reign was half
over the predominance of the Franciscans over Oxford was almost
supreme. At Cambridge their influence was less dominant only because
at Cambridge there was no commanding genius like Robert Grosseteste
to favour and support them.
St. Francis's hatred of book-learning was the one sentiment that he
never was able to inspire among his followers.
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