lives among the people, and feels with the people. He is the true friend
of the poor, and being such, has, as one might say, his finger in every
pie: for "a fly and a friar will fall in every dish and every business."
His readily-proffered arbitration settles the differences of the humbler
classes at the "love-days," a favourite popular practice noted already in
the "Vision" of Langland; nor is he a niggard of the mercies which he is
privileged to dispense:--

Full sweetly did he hear confession,
And pleasant was his absolution.
He was an easy man to give penance,
Whereso wist to have a good pittance;
For unto a poor Order for to give,
Is signe that a man is well y-shrive;
For if he gave, he durste make a vaunt
He wiste that a man was repentant.
For many a man so hard is of his heart
He can not weep although he sorely smart.
Therefore instead of weeping and of prayers
Men must give silver to the poore Freres.

Already in the French "Roman de la Rose" the rivalry between the Friars
and the Parish Priests is the theme of much satire, evidently unfavourable
to the former and favourable to the latter; but in England, where Langland
likewise dwells upon the jealousy between them, it was specially
accentuated by the assaults of Wyclif upon the Mendicant Orders. Wyclif's
Simple Priests, who at first ministered with the approval of the Bishops,
differed from the Mendicants, first by not being beggars, and secondly by
being poor. They might perhaps have themselves ultimately played the part
of a new Order in England, had not Wyclif himself by rejecting the