SECTION IX. To the VISION OF PIERCE PLOWMAN has been commonly annexed a poem called PIERCE THE PLOWMAN'S CREDE, and which may properly be considered as its appendage". It is professedly written in imitation of our VISION, but by a different hand. The author, in the character of a plain uninformed person, pretends to be ignorant of his creed; to be instructed in the articles of which, he applies by turns to the four orders of Mendicant friars. This circumstance affords an obvious occasion of exposing in lively colours the tricks of those societies. After so unexpected a disappointment, he meets one Pierce, or Peter, a plowman, who resolves his doubts, and teaches him the principles of true religion. In a copy of the CREDE lately presented to me by the bishop of Gloucester, and once belonging to Mr. Pope, the latter in his own hand has inserted the following abstract of its plan. "An ignorant plain man having learned his Pater-noster and Ave-mary, wants to learn his creed. He asks several religious men of the several orders to teach it him, First of a friar Minor, who bids him beware of the Carmelites, and assures him they can teach him nothing, describing their faults, &c. But that the friars Minors shall save him, whether he learns his creed or not. He goes next to the friars Preachers, whose magnificent monastery he describes; there he meets a fat friar, who declaims against the Augustines. He is shocked at his pride, a The first edition is by R. Wolfe, London, 1553. 4to. In four sheets. It was reprinted, and added to Rogers's, or the fourth edition of the Vision, 1561. It was evidently written after the year 1384. Wickliffe died in that year, and he is mentioned as no longer living in Signat. C. ii. edit. 1561. Walter Britte or Brithe, a follower of Wickliffe, is also mentioned, Signat. C. iii. Britte is placed by Bale in 1390. Cent. vi. 94. See also Fuller's Worth. p. 8, Wales, The reader will pardon this small anticipation for the sake of connection. and goes to the Augustines. They rail at the Minorites. He goes to the Carmes; they abuse the Dominicans, but promise him salvation, without the creed, for money. He leaves them with indignation, and finds an honest poor PLOWMAN in the field, and tells him how he was disappointed by the four orders. The plowman answers with a long invective against them." The language of the CREDE is less embarrassed and obscure than that of the VISION. But before I proceed to a specimen, it may not be perhaps improper to prepare the reader, by giving an outline of the constitution and character of the four orders of Mendicant friars, the object of our poet's satire: an enquiry in many respects connected with the general purport of this History, and which, in this place at least, cannot be deemed a digression, as it will illustrate the main subject, and explain many particular passages, of the PLOWMAN'S Crede. Long before the thirteenth century, the monastic orders, as we have partly seen in the preceding poem, in consequence of their ample revenues, had degenerated from their primitive austerity, and were totally given up to luxury and indolence. Hence they became both unwilling and unable to execute the purposes of their establishment: to instruct the people, to check the growth of heresies, or to promote in any respect the true interests of the church. They forsook all their religious obligations, despised the authority of their superiors, and were abandoned without shame or remorse to every species of dissipation and licentiousness. About the beginning therefore of the thirteenth century, the condition and circumstances of the church rendered it absolutely necessary to remedy these evils, by introducing a new order of religious, who being destitute of fixed possessions, by the severity of their manners, a professed contempt of riches, and an unwearied perseverance in the duties of preaching and prayer, might restore respect to the monastic institution, and recover the honours of the church. These were the four orders of mendicant or begging friars, And of some perhaps quoted above from the VISION. commonly denominated the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, and the Augustinesd. These societies soon surpassed all the rest, not only in the purity of their lives, but in the number of their privileges, and the multitude of their members. Not to mention the success which attends all novelties, their reputation arose quickly to an amazing height. The popes, among other uncommon immunities, allowed them the liberty of travelling wherever they pleased, of conversing with persons of all ranks, of instructing the youth and the people in general, and of hearing confessions, without reserve or restriction: and as on these occasions, which gave them opportunities of appearing in public and conspicuous situations, they exhibited more striking marks of gravity and sanctity than were observable in the deportment and conduct of the members of other monasteries, they were regarded with the highest esteem and veneration throughout all the countries of Europe. In the mean time they gained still greater respect, by cultivating the literature then in vogue, with the greatest assiduity and success. Gianoni says, that most of the theological professors in the university of Naples, newly founded in the year 1220, were chosen from the Mendicants. They were the principal teachers of theology at Paris, the school where this science had received its origin. At Oxford and Cambridge. respectively, all the four orders had flourishing monasteries. The most learned scholars in the university of Oxford, at the close of the thirteenth century, were Franciscan friars: and long after this period, the Franciscans appear to have been the sole support and ornament of that university 8. Hence it was The Franciscans were often styled friars-minors, or minorites, and greyfriars: the Dominicans, friars-preachers, and sometimes black-friars; the Carmelites, white-friars; and the Austins, greyfriars. The first establishment of the Dominicans in England was at Oxford in 1221. Of the Franciscans, at Canterbury. These two were the most eminent of the four orders. The Dominican friary at Oxford stood in an island on the south & This circumstance in some degree roused the monks from their indolence,. and induced the greater monasteries to procure the foundation of small colleges that bishop Hugh de Balsham, founder of Peter-house at Cambridge, orders in his statutes given about the year 1280, that some of his scholars should annually repair to Oxford for improvement in the sciences". That is, to study under the Franciscan readers. Such was the eminence of the Franciscan friary at Oxford, that the learned bishop Grosthead, in the year 1253, bequeathed all his books to that celebrated seminary. This was the house in which the renowned Roger Bacon was educated; who revived, in the midst of barbarism, and brought to a considerable degree of perfection, the knowledge of mathematics in England, and greatly facilitated many modern discoveries in experimental philosophy. The same fraternity is likewise said to have stored their valuable library with a multitude of Hebrew manuscripts, which they purchased of the Jews on their banishment from England'. Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author of PHILOBIBLON, and the founder of a library at Oxford, is prolix in his praises of the in the universities for the education of their novices. At Oxford the monks had also schools which bore the name of their respective orders: and there were schools in that university which were appropriated to particular monasteries. Kennet's Paroch. Ant. p. 214. Wood, Hist. Ant. Univ. Oxon. i. 119. Leland says, that even in his time, at Stamford, a temporary university, the names of halls inhabited by the novices of Peterborough, Sempringham, and Vauldrey abbies, were remaining. Itin. vi. p. 21. And it appears, that the greater part of the proceeders in theology at Oxford and Cambridge, just before the Reformation, were monks. But we do not find, that in consequence of all these efforts, the monks made a much greater figure in literature. In this rivalry which subsisted between the Mendicants and the monks, the latter sometimes availed themselves of their riches: and with a view to attract popularity, and to eclipse the growing lustre of the former, proceeded to their degrees in the universities with prodigious parade. In the year 1298, William de Brooke, a Benedictine of Saint Peter's abbey at Glou cester, took the degree of doctor in divinity at Oxford. He was attended on this important occasion by the abbot and whole convent of Gloucester, the abbots of Westminster, Reading, Abingdon, Evesham, and Malmesbury, with one hundred noblemen and esquires, on horses richly caparisoned. These were entertained at a sumptuous feast in the refectory of Gloucester college. But it should be observed, that he was the first of the Benedictine order that attained this dignity. Wood, Hist. Ant. Univ. Oxon. i. 25. col. 1. See also Stevens, Mon. 1. 70. "De scholaribus emittendis ad universitatem Oxonie pro doctrina." Cap. xviii. Leland. Script. Brit. p. 283. This house stood just without the city walls, near Little-gate. The garden called Paradise was their grove or orchard. * It is probable, that the treatises of many of Bacon's scholars and followers, collected by Thomas Allen in the reign of James the First, still remain among the manuscripts of Sir Kenelm Digby in the Bodleian library. I Wood, ubi supr. 1. 77. col. 2. Mendicants for their extraordinary diligence in collecting books. Indeed it became difficult in the beginning of the fourteenth century to find any treatise in the arts, theology, or canon law, commonly exposed to sale: they were all universally bought up by the friars". This is mentioned by Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh, in his discourse before the pope at Avignon in 1357, their bitter and professed antagonist; who adds, without any intention of paying them a compliment, that all the Mendicant convents were furnished with a "grandis et nobilis libraria." Sir Richard Whittington built the library of the Grey Friars in London, which was one hundred and twenty-nine feet long, and twelve broad, with twenty-eight desks P. About the year 1430, one hundred marks were paid for transcribing the profound Nicholas de Lyra, in two volumes, to be chained in this library. Leland relates, that Thomas Wallden, a learned Carmelite, bequeathed to the same library as many manuscripts of approved authors, written in capital Roman characters, as were then estimated at more than two thousand pieces of gold'. He adds, that this library, even in his time, exceeded all others in London for multitude of books and antiquity of copies. Among many other instances which might be given of the learning of the Mendicants, there is one which greatly contributed to establish scarce six thousand. At Bennet in Cambridge, there is a curious manuscript of one of Fitzrauf's Sermons, in the first leaf of which there is a drawing of four devils, hugging four mendicant friars, one of each of the four orders, with great familiarity and affection. MSS. L. 16. This book belonged to Adam Eston, a very learned Benedictine of Norwich, and a witness against Wickliffe at Rome, where he lived the greatest part of his life, in 1970. P Stowe's Surv. Lond. p. 255. edit. 1599. ° MSS. Bibl. Bodl. Propositio coram papa, &c. And MSS. C. C. C. Oxon. 182. Propositio coram, &c. See a translation of this Sermon by Trevisa, MSS. Harl. 1900. fol. Pergam. 2. See f. 11. See also Browne's append. Fascic. Rer. expetend. fugiend. ii. p. 466. I believe this discourse has been printed twice or thrice at Paris. In which, says the archbishop, there were thirty thousand scholars at iii. p. 52. Oxford in my youth, but now (1357) Stowe, ibid. p. 256. Stevens, Monast. i. 112. r Aurei. Script. Brit. p. 441. And Collectan. |