10 September 1224 A.D. Franciscans First Arrive in Dover, England
10
September 1224 A.D. Franciscans First Arrive in Dover, England
Graves, Dan. “Franciscans 1st Arrived in
England.” Christianity.com. Jul 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1201-1500/the-franciscans-1st-arrived-in-england-11629825.html. Accessed 20 May 2014.
Vagabonds!
Spies! Robbers! That is what the first gray friars* were taken to be when they
arrived in England. The nine arrived at Dover on this day, September 10, 1224. Thomas of Eccleston, their historian fixed the
place and date. "In the year of our Lord 1224," he wrote, in the time
of the Lord Pope Honorius...in the eighth year of the Lord King Henry, son of
John, on the Tuesday after the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,
which that year was upon Sunday, the Friars Minor first came into England at
Dover."
When the
Franciscans asked for food, they found themselves locked up as vagabonds. Word
of their arrival spread and by morning a large crowd had gathered. "If
indeed we are spies and robbers, here is a rope to hang us with!" said one
of the friars, removing the rope around his waist. The mood of the crowd
changed and the friars were sent on their way. They headed for Canterbury.
The first
friars were as a breath of fresh air to a nation where the clergy had largely
fallen away from the ideals of their calling. Robert Grosseteste, the great
reforming bishop of his day, declared that the clergy corrupted the people.
Ignorant and idle, they gambled, haunted taverns, rioted and committed every
sort of sexual sin. Those who should have corrected them either lived far away
or held too many different church positions to take care of any one of them, or
were crooked themselves. Haughtiness marked the higher clergy.
By
contrast, these first Franciscans lived simple, pure lives and embraced
poverty. When they offended someone, they were instantly contrite and begged
pardon. They walked barefooted and applied themselves to caring for the sick,
preaching to the poor, singing and praying. The friaries they built were the
simplest. The effect of their example was revolutionary.
The
people crowded to hear these new teachers. The Franciscans made so many
conversions that the order spread across England like a grass fire in a dry
summer. By mid-century there were fifty friaries and 1,500 friars. Robert
Grosseteste became their lecturer early on. A man of immense learning as well
as holiness, he warned the friars that they must study the Divine law or they
would soon find themselves as degenerate as other religious leaders.
Grosseteste
warned them and taught them, but before the century closed, the friars had
accumulated wealth and were drifting from the ideals that had made them so
strong. In the fourteenth century, another reformer, John Wycliffe, who looked
back to Grosseteste with deep respect, saw once again an England which was
oppressed by many worldy bishops, monks--and friars.
Nonetheless,
the Franciscans made a strong impact for good on the nation, especially through
the University of Oxford. Their most famous product at Oxford in those early
years was Roger Bacon, although John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham
followed. John Peckham, a Franciscan, became Archbishop of Canterbury around
the middle of the thirteenth century. The friars declined somewhat after the
church troubles of following centuries and Henry VIII knocked the order in the
head when he closed their monasteries at the Reformation.
*The
Franciscans later adopted brown robes.
Bibliography:
1.
Callus,
D. A., et al. Robert Grosseteste; Scholar and Bishop; Essays in Commemoration
of the Seventh Centenary of His Death. London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
2.
"Franciscan
Order." Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross
and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
3.
Hutton,
Edward. The Franciscans in England 1224-1538. London: Constable and co., 1926.
Last
updated July, 2007
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