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hands and leaned forward, "and I'll lose my head right off."

"You mustn't do that," she tried to joke; "heads are very useful."

"I'm going back next month to New York; California's a pretty good journey from there, but before three months are over I expect you'll see me coming along. My goodness! why, I've thought of nothing but you since that day you came into the office."

She pretended not to hear. "I wish you had written my name in the books," she had been clutching the parcel, and nervously managed to open it. "Oh, what lovely bindings!" she exclaimed. "Do put my

name in them."

"I will." He pulled a fountain pen out of his pocket and wrote, "To Winifred Findon,

with respect and regard, from Jefferson Werriss."

"It's a nice name, it looks like a millionaire's," she said, sensible of the expensiveness of the books; "I believe you are one, Mr Werriss.”

"Well, I can raise enough for the fare to that honey-farm, but I'm not a millionaire." He didn't mention that his father was one, who, having been poor in his youth, tempered his wealth and made his sons work for their living. Miss Findon didn't discover this, nor some other things that surprised her, till just before they were married in Los Angeles.

"You were very artful," she laughed.

"I was, but I have found it answer. Guess I shall have to go on with it occasionally," he added. "You see women have to be circumvented."

A HOUSE OF AUSTIN FRIARS.

BY LADY BARKER.

THE mediæval friar differed from his religious brother the monk, in that he was a wanderer by instinct and profession. The monk lived in his cloister, and the business of his life was to save his own soul; the friar went out into the world to teach and to preach and to save the souls of others. In the early days he dwelt among the poor and outcast, earning his own living, or accepting food and lodging from any who would give it him in charity; passing through the land with no worldly possessions but the clothes he wore and the staff in his hand. But as the years passed by, law and order became necessary, even in such an altruistic profession as his, and with the advent of organisation came also the necessity for possesions. Houses were built, money and lands were accepted, and before long the friars were as comfortably housed as ever the monks had been. But even after their houses were built they still continued to come and go freely in the world, and were in no way hampered by restrictions which kept them within the bounds of their own conventual buildings. On joining their Order they were admitted not to the membership of one particular house, as were the monks, but to a province of the Order.

Many studied in Paris or

other seats of learning. Some were lecturers, chaplains, tutors, and the highest offices of Church and State were open to them. Some lived the conventual life in the Houses of the Order, supporting themselves and their community by their begging and wandering from village to village to collect alms.

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Chaucer's delightful description of the friar among his Canterbury pilgrims brings us intimately in touch with this cheerful person in his somewhat degenerate days. He was a merry fellow, in a double worsted cloak, who was friendly terms with well-to-do people, but did not consider it becoming to associate with lepers and poor people. He heard confession "ful swetely," his absolution was pleasant and penance easy. He was of much help in settling love affairs. He could sing a merry song, and his eyes twinkled in his head "as doon the sterres on a frosty night." Can we wonder that he retained much of his popularity even after the Reformers had found occasion to object to his ways? But this account belongs to the days of Wycliffe, when the power of the friars was already on the wane, and their early traditions of poverty and humility were almost forgotten.

It was at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries that

built themselves their permanent homes.

the mendicant friars first began to spread over Europe. There were four principal Orders,— There is at the British the Franciscans, the Domini- Museum a collection of deeds cans, the Carmelites, and the dealing with the property and Friars Eremite of the Order of affairs of an English House of St Augustine, or Austin Friars, Austin Friars at Clare, in Sufas they were more familiarly folk. The collection, which is called. Of these, the Francis- evidently a fifteenth-century cans were the most famous transcript of the original deeds, and popular in mediæval is entitled "Registrum CartEurope, and at the present arum Monasterii Heremitarium day far more is written St Augustini de Clare," and is concerning them than of preserved among the Harleian the other Orders. For some MSS. It contains about 200 reason the Austin Friars have deeds, written in Monk Latin, received comparatively little and ranging in date from 1250 notice, except in Germany, to 1464. No systematic arwhere their history has an rangement has been followed added interest from the fact by the scribe who copied the that Martin Luther was at deeds, and they are not easy one time a member of this for any but an expert to read. Order. They were originally But they provide a rich fund hermits, as their name implies, of entertainment for those who following the rule of St Augus- care to look into them, partine of Hippo; but they pro- ticularly such as know the bably gave up their hermit neighbourhood of Clare well, ways when they spread from and have a friendly feeling the East to the West and towards the places mentioned. within a very few years of their arrival in England they were evidently anxious to possess the typical monastic buildings which were more or less common to all religious Orders. These buildings invariably included a church, a chapterhouse, a frater or refectory for meals, a dorter or dormitory, a farmery hall or infirmary for the sick and aged friars, a guest-house, and that typical centre of medieval life the cloisters, round which the other buildings would be grouped. But the early friars were can have been written. There content with small begin- are such detailed particulars nings, and only gradually of the de Clare family, their

This same House has a second history, a long poem in the form of question and answer, between a Secular Priest and a Friar, which gives an account of the descent of the Lords of Clare from the foundation of the Friary 1248 to the 1st May 1460. The poem has been preserved by Weever, who printed it in his 'Funeral Monuments,' which first appeared in the year 1631. On first reading the poem it is a little difficult to understand by whom and for what purpose it

births, deaths, and marriages, and above all their constant benefactions to the Friars of Clare, that it almost seems intended for a history of the Lords of Clare, or of the building of the Friary. But in reading between the lines another point of view becomes apparent. The Wars of the Roses were just beginning, and it seems likely that the poem was in reality a fifteenth century political pamphlet, written with the intention of advertising the royal descent of Richard, Duke of York, through the de Clares, and raising popular enthusiasm for him and his cause by praising the good works of his ancestors. There is no actual mention of his claim to the throne, but the poem is a veiled proclamation of his rights, and ends with the pious wish that God will advance him in virtue and victory over all his enemies. It is, in fact, just such a weapon of political intrigue as might be passed through the land with great effect by the friars and merchants, the pilgrims and wanderers of one class or another who abounded in those days, and as often as not added the business of news carriers and political agitators to their legitimate callings.

By reading this poem in conjunction with the Register of Deeds, and comparing them both with contemporary political and religious history, it is possible to gain an insight into the inner life of the Friary, and become almost personally ac

quainted with one little group of men and the House in which they dwelt.

Clare was a busy town in medieval days, and we can well imagine the excitement that the arrival of the first little group of friars must have caused. They came as reformers, full of religious enthusiasm, ready to preach in the market - place or at the street corner, using the common language of the common people, rejecting learned discourses in a foreign tongue, and setting little store by the Latin services which so often kept the Christian religion a thing apart from the poor and humble. It is true there had been plenty of religion before their day. The parish priests had done what they could to keep alive the flame of Faith. The great and beautiful churches of the monks were full of the music of chants, the dignity and magnificence of religious ceremonial, the colours of painted glass, of vestments, and of jewels. There were strange penances, mysterious religious ecstasies, much learning, and many books behind the closed doors of the monasteries. But such things belonged to those who could lead the life of Religion. How could the man who made candles or the man who baked bread hope to participate in such glory and grandeur?

But the friars came with a different tale. It was they who held the keys of Heaven, and no man was too poor or too lowly to enter in.

They

themselves were men without pride, without learning, without worldly possessions. They were glad enough to take one meal in the house of one poor man, the next in the house of another. Doubtless they became the talk of the town and their popularity knew knew no bounds. Soon all must have felt that they needed a church of their own where they could constantly preach to those who were only too willing to hear. They needed a house, too, close by, where they could meet and live together. Such, we may picture, was the coming of the friars to Clare, and almost immediately we can pick up the thread of their actual history from their own legal deeds, all properly signed and attested, and taking their story out of the realms of conjecture into the realities of fact.

According to the poem, Austin Friars were first brought to England by Richard de Clare, who established them at Clare in 1248. The deeds give the next step in their story, and we find that they received a Papal Bull in 1250, authorising them to hear confession and impose penances. This Bull was inspected and accepted by Ralph, Bishop of Norwich, in 1291, and thirty years later it seems to have become a matter of dispute between the friars and the Vicar of Clare. It is not difficult to see that the Bull may well have proved a cause of friction. The matter was almost what might have been

termed a question of professional etiquette: and with the right to take over so large a portion of the Vicar's duties, the friars would naturally have also obtained no small share of his fees. But the friars won their point, and the articles of agreement were read during Mass in the parish church of Clare, by Friar Geoffrey de Caunfeld, Proctor of the Priory. Of the Vicar's feelings on the subject we have no record.

Having found for themselves a sphere of work and a powerful patron, the friars soon began to enlarge their borders and establish themselves permanently at Clare. After the death of Richard, his widow Matilda, Countess of Gloucester and Hertford, increased their foundation with many gifts which she gave for the salvation of the soul of her late husband, Richard de Clare, and of her own soul and the souls of all their ancestors and descendants. These gifts were chiefly small parcels of land, and the Register of Deeds also records the boundaries and dimensions of the lands and the title-deeds of previous owners from whom Matilda had acquired them. There are over a hundred deeds dealing with the transfer of land from one owner to another, many of which appear to have no connection with the friars, and almost seem to suggest that the Friary became a kind of record office for the town. But in most cases a careful search through the Register will show that sooner or later

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