The Coming of the Friars: And Other Historic EssaysT.F. Unwin, 1889 - 344 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abbey Abbot appears Archdeacon Assisi became Benedictine Bishop Bishop of Norwich Black Death buildings called Cambridge canons chaplains church Cistercians clergy clerics cloister Cluniac convent Court Rolls damned daughter dead deal died diocese East Anglia ecclesiastical England English evidence fact father Ferentino Ferentinum fourteenth century Francis free tenants Friars going hands hear heard held heriot hundred years ago Isabella of Angoulême John Reeve King labour land learning less living London look lord manor married mendicant orders ment Minorites monastery monks Muggleton Muggletonians never Norfolk Norwich Oxford parish passed pestilence Peter Romayn plague Pope preach prior prophets Quakers Ralph Red religious house Richard Roman Rome Rougham scholars Scriptorium seems six hundred sometimes steward things thirteenth century tion Tittleshall town University village villeins visitation wife William women words young
Popular passages
Page 227 - And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, Which men deliver to one that is learned, Saying, Read this, I pray thee: And he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, Saying, Read this, I pray thee : And he saith, I am not learned.
Page 225 - THE glories of our birth and state Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armour against fate : Death lays his icy hands on kings ; Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Page 7 - It seems hardly worth while to notice that the observance of Sunday was almost universally neglected, or that sermons had become so rare that when Eustace, Abbot of Flai, preached in various places in England in 1200, miracles were said to have ensued as the ordinary effects of his eloquence. Earnestness in such an age seemed in itself miraculous. Here and there men and women, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, raised their sobbing prayer to heaven that the Lord would shortly accomplish...
Page 36 - What keeps a spirit wholly true To that ideal which he bears? What record? not the sinless years That breathed beneath the Syrian blue: 'So fret not, like an idle girl, That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. Abide: thy wealth is gather'd in, When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl.
Page 4 - ... and then only approximately, in the village community. In the towns of the Middle Ages it was not even attempted. The other idea, of men and women weary of the hard struggle with sin and .fleeing from the wrath to come, joining together to give themselves up to the higher life, out of the reach of temptation and safe from the witcheries of Mammon — that, too, was a grand idea, and not unfrequently it had been carried out grandly. But the monk was nothing and did nothing for the townsman ; he...
Page 136 - God in frequent processions : in the spring of the foregoing year, it began to show itself in a sad and wonderful manner; and, different from what it had been in the east, where bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here there appeared certain tumours in the groin, or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of the body : in some cases large and but few in number, in others less and more numerous, both sorts the usual messengers...
Page 76 - In the winter time things went very hard indeed with all classes. There was no lack of fuel, for the brakes and waste afforded turf which all might cut, and kindling which all had a right to carry away ; but the poor horses and sheep and cattle were half starved for at least four months in the year, and one and all were much smaller than they are now. I doubt whether people ever fatted their hogs as we do. When the corn was reaped, the swine were turned into the stubble and roamed about the underwood...
Page 230 - To say of it that it is quite the most sumptuous work that has ever proceeded from the Cambridge Press, is to say little. It is hardly too much to say that it is one of the most important contributions to the social and intellectual history of England which has ever been made by a Cambridge man.
Page 177 - On the 29th of May he could bear it no longer. Do you ask was he afraid ? Not so ! We shall see that he was no craven ; but the bravest men are not reckless, and least of all are they the men who are careless about the lives or the feelings of others. The great cemetery of the city of Norwich was at this time actually within the cathedral Close. The whole of the large space enclosed between the nave of the cathedral on the south and the bishop's palace on the east, and stretching as far as the Erpingham...
Page 4 - A twelfth soon was added — he, moreover, a layman of gentle blood and of knightly rank. All these had surrendered their claim to everything in the shape of property, and had resolved to follow their great leader's example by stripping themselves of all worldly possessions, and suffering the loss of all things. They were beggars — literally barefooted beggars. The love of money was the root of all evil. They would not touch the accursed thing lest they should be defiled — no, not with the tips...