cian order in Baltinglass, not long after, treading in his steps, was accused for delivering in his determinations at Oxford, that "thee friars of the four mendicant orders are not, nor ever were instituted by God's inspiration; but that contrary to the general council of Lateran, held under Innocent the third (which prohibited the bringing in of any more new religious orders into the Church) and by feigned and false dreams, pope Honorius being persuaded by the friars, did confirm them;" and that "all' the doctors which did determine for the friars' side, were either afraid to speak the truth, lest their books should be condemned by the friars that had gotten to be inquisitors; or said, As it seemeth, or proceeded only by way of disputation and not of determination: because if they had spoken the truth plainly in the behalf of the Church, the friars would have persecuted them, as they did persecute the holy doctor Armachanus." Which Crumpe himself found afterwards to be too true by his own experience; for he was forced to deny and abjure these assertions in the house of the Carmelite friars at Stanford, before William Courtney, archbishop of Canterbury: and then silenced, that he should not exercise publickly any act in the schools, either by reading, preaching, disputing, or determining, until he should have a special licence from the said archbishop so to do.

But to leave the begging friars, being a kind of creatures unknown to the Church for twelve hundred years after Christ, and to return to the labouring monks: we find it related of our Brendan, that he "governed three

e Quod fratres de quatuor ordinibus mendicantium non sunt nec fuerunt Domino inspirante instituti; sed contra concilium generale Lateranense sub Innccentio tertio celebratum, ac per ficta et falsa somnia, papa Honorius suasus a fratribus eos confirmavit. Act. contra Henr. Crumpe, in Thomæ Waldensis Fasciculo zizaniorum, quem manuscriptum habeo.

Quod omnes doctores determinantes pro parte fratrum e capitulo Dudum, vel timuerunt veritatem dicere, ne eorum libri per fratres inquisitores hæretica pravitatis damnarentur: vel dixerunt, ut videtur, vel solum disputative et non determinative processerunt: quia si plane veritatem pro Ecclesia dixissent, persecuti eos fuissent fratres, sicut persequebantur sanctum doctorem Armachanum. Ibid.

* Tribus monachorum (qui suis, sibi ipsi laboribus victum, manibus operando

thousand such monks, who by their own labours and handy-work did earn their living;" which agreeth well with that saying ascribed to him by the writer of his life: "Ah monk ought to be fed and clothed by the labour of his own hands." Neither was there any other order observed in that famous monastery of Bangor among the Britons, "wherein there is said to have been so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven portions (together with the rectors appointed over them) none of all those portions had less than three hundred persons in them: all which (saith Bede) were wont to live by the labour of their own hands." From the destruction of which monastery, unto the erection of Tuy Gwyn, or White-house, (which is said to have been about the year MCXLVI.) the setter forth of the Welsh chronicle observeth that there were no abbeys among the Britons.

Here in Ireland bishop Colman founded the monastery of Magio, in the county of Limerick, for the entertainment of the English: where they "didm live according to the example of the reverend fathers (as Bede writeth) under a rule and a canonical abbot, in great continency and sincerity, with the labour of their own hands." Like whereunto was the monastery of Mailros also, planted by bishop Aidan and his followers in Northumberland, where St. Cuthbert had his education, who affirmed, that "the"

suppeditabant) millibus præfuisse creditur. Nicol. Harpsfield. hist. eccles. Angl. lib. 1. cap. 25.

h Monachum oportet labore manuum suarum vesci et vestiri. Vit. S. Brendani.

i In quo tantus fertur fuisse numerus monachorum ; ut cum in septem portiones esset cum præpositis sibi rectoribus monasterium divisum, nulla harum portio minus quam trecentos homines haberet: qui omnes de labore manuum suarum vivere solebant. Bed. lib. 2. histor. ecclesiast. cap. 2.

k Chronicle of Wales, pag. 253, 254.

1 Vid. Annal. Hibern. a Camdeno edit. ad ann. 1370.

m Ad exemplum venerabilium patrum, sub regula et abbate canonico, in magna continentia et sinceritate proprio labore manuum vivunt. Bed. lib. 4. hist. eccles. cap. 4.

n Jure, inquit, est cœnobitarum vita miranda, qui abbatis per omnia subjiciuntur imperiis: ad ejus arbitrium cuncta vigilandi, orandi, jejunandi, atque operandi tempora moderantur. Bed. vit. Cuthbert. pros. cap. 22.

life of such monks was justly to be admired, which were in all things subject to the commands of their abbot; and ordered all the times of their watching, praying, fasting, and working, according to his direction,"

Excubiasque, famemque, preces, manuumque laborem
Ad votum gaudent proni frænare regentis.

As for their fasting (for of their watching and praying there is no question made; and of their working we have already spoken sufficiently) by the rule of Columbanus, they were "every day to fast, and every day to eat;" that by this means "the enabling of them for their spiritual proficiency might be retained, together with the abstinence that did macerate the flesh." He would therefore have them "every day to eat, because they were every day to profit;" and because "abstinence", if it did exceed measure, would prove a vice and not a virtue;" and he would have them to fast every day too, that is, not to eat any meat at all (for other fasts were not known in those days) until evening. "Lett the food of monks (saith he) be mean, and taken at evening; flying satiety and excess of drink, that it may both sustain them and not hurt them." This was the daily fasting and feeding of them that lived according to Columbanus his rule, although the strictness of the fast seemeth to have been kept on Wednesdays and Fridays only, which were the days of the week, wherein the ancient Irish, agreeable to the custom of the Grecian rather than the Roman Church, were wont to observe abstinence both from meat and from the marriage bed". Whence in the book before alleged, of the

• Id. Carm. cap. 20.

P Quotidie jejunandum est, sicut quotidie reficiendum est. cap. 5.

Columb. Regul.

Quia hæc est vera discretio, ut possibilitas spiritalis profectus cum abstinentia carnem macerante retentetur. Ibid.

Ideo quotidie edendum est, quia quotidie proficiendum est. Ibid.

Si enim modum abstinentia excesserit, vitium non virtus erit. Ibid.
Cibus sit vilis et vespertinus monachorum, satietatem fugiens et potus cbrie-

tatem; ut et sustineat, et non noceat. Ibid.

"Synodus Hiberniensium dicit, In tribus quadragesimis anni, in die Domi

daily penances of monks, we find this order set down by the same Columbanus: that "Ifw any one, unless he were weak, did upon the Wednesday or Friday eat before the ninth hour, (that is to say, before three of the clock in the afternoon, according unto our account) he should be punished with fasting two days in bread and water;" and in Bede's ecclesiastical history, that such as followed the information of Aidan, did upon the same days observe their fast until the same hour: in which history we also read of bishop Cedd, who was brought up at Lindisfarne with our Aidan and Finan, that keeping a strict fast, upon a special occasion, in the time of Lent, he did "every day, except the Lord's day, continue his fast, as the manner was, until the evening, and then also did eat nothing but a small pittance of bread, and one egg, with a little milk mingled with water." Where by the way you may note, that in those days eggs were eaten in Lent, and the Sundays excepted from fasting, even then when the abstinence was precisely and in more than an ordinary manner observed.

But generally for this point of the difference of meats, it is well noted by Claudius out of St. Augustine, that "the children of wisdom do understand, that neither in abstaining nor in eating is there any virtue; but in con

nico et in quarta feria et sexta, conjugales continere se debent. Canonum collectio, cujus initium: Sancta synodus bis in anno decrevit habere concilia. MS.

in bibliotheca Cotton.

w Si quis ante horam nonam quarta sextaque feria manducat, nisi infirmus; duos dies in pane et aqua. Columban. lib. de quotidianis pœnitent. monachor. cap. 13.

* Cujus exemplis informati, tempore illo, religiosi quique viri ac fœminæ, consuetudinem fecerunt per totum annum, (excepta remissione quinquagesima paschalis) quarta et sexta sabbati jejunium ad nonam usque horam protelare. Bed. lib. 3. hist. eccles. cap. 5.

y Quibus diebus cunctis, excepta Dominica, jejunium ad vesperam juxta morem protelans; nec tunc nisi panis permodicum, et unum ovum gallinaceum, cum parvo lacte aqua mixto percipiebat. Ibid. cap. 23.

z Ostendens evidenter, filios sapientiæ intelligere, nec in abstinendo nec in manducando esse justitiam; sed in æquanimitate tolerandi inopiam, et temperantia per abundantiam non se corrumpendi, atque opportune sumendi vel non sumendi ea, quorum non usus sed concupiscentia reprehendenda est. Claud. lib. 2. in Matth.

tentedness of bearing the want, and temperance of not corrupting a man's self by abundance, and of opportunely taking or not taking those things, of which not the use but the concupiscence is to be blamed:" and in the life of Furseus, the hypocrisy of them is justly taxed, that "being assaulted with spiritual vices, do yet omit the care of them, and afflict their body with abstinence": who" abstaining from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, fall to wicked things as if they were lawful: namely, to pride, covetousness, envy, false witnessing, backbiting." Of whom Gildas giveth this good censure, in one of his epistles which now are lost: "These men, while they do feed on bread by measure, for this same very thing do glory without measure; while they use water, they are withal drenched with the cup of hatred; while they feed on dry meats, they use detractions; while they spend themselves in watchings, they dispraise others that are oppressed with sleep; preferring fasting before charity, watching before justice, their own invention before concord, severity before humility, and lastly, man before God. Such mens' fasting, unless it be proceeded unto by some virtues, profiteth nothing at all: but such as accomplish charity, do say with the harp of the holy Ghost: All our righteousnesses are as the cloth of a menstruous woman." Thus Gildas: who upon this ground layeth down this sound conclusion, wherewith we

a Sunt nonnulli, qui spiritualibus vitiis impugnantur; sed his omissis, corpus in abstinentia affligunt. Vit. S. Fursei.

b Multi enim cibis, quos Deus ad percipiendum cum gratiarum actione creavit, abstinentes, hæc nefanda quasi licita sumunt; hoc est superbiam, avaritiam, invidiam, falsum testimonium, blasphemiam. Ibid.

e Gildas in epistolis suis. Hi dum pane ad mensuram vescuntur, pro hoc ipso sine mensura gloriantur, dum aqua utuntur, simul odii poculo potantur; dum siccis ferculis vescuntur, detractionibus utuntur; dum vigiliis expendunt, alios somno pressos vituperant : jejunium caritati, vigilias justitiæ, propriam adinventionem concordiæ, clausulam Ecclesiæ (al. Cellæ), severitatem humilitati, postremo hominem Deo anteponunt. Horum jejunium, nisi per aliquas virtutes adfectatur, nihil prodest; qui vero caritatem perficiunt, cum cithara Spiritus sancti dicunt: Quasi pannus menstruatæ, omnes justitiæ nostræ sunt. Ex libro canonum Cottoniano, titulorum 66.