heir labors
and power may still be seen in the names of the colleges, and in the
religious portions of the university discipline. They built fine
edifices and manned their schools with the best teachers, so that they
became great rivals of the regular colleges which did not have the funds
necessary to compete with these wealthy beggars. Another cause of their
rapid progress was the exodus of students from Paris to England. During
the quarrel at Paris, Henry III. of England offered many inducements to
the students, who left for England in large numbers. Many of them were
prejudiced in favor of the friars, and they naturally drifted to the
monastic college. The secular clergy charged the friars with inducing
the college students to enter the monasteries or to turn begging monks.
The pope, the king, and the parliament became involved in the struggle,
which grew more bitter as the years passed. After a while Wyclif
appeared, and when he began his mighty attack upon the friars the joy
with which the professors viewed the struggle can be appreciated.

_The Decline of the Mendicants_

The Mendicant friars won their fame by faithful and earnest labors. Men
admired them because they identified themselves with the lowest of
mankind and heroically devoted themselves to the poor and sick. These
"sturdy beggars," as Francis called his companions, were contrasted with
the lazy, rich, and, too often, licentious monks of the other orders.
Everywhere the friars were received with veneration and joy. The people
sought burial in their rags, believing that, clothed in the garments of
these holy beggars, they would enter paradise more speedily.

Instead of seeking the seclusion of the convent to save his own soul,
the friar displayed remarkable zeal trying to save mankind. He became
the arbiter in the quarrels of princes, the prime mover in treaties
between nations, and the indispensable counselor in political
complications. The pope employed him as his authorized agent in the most
difficult matters touching the welfare of the church. His influence upon
the common people is thus described by the historian Green: "The theory
of government wrought out in the cell and lecture-room was carried over
the length and breadth of the land by the Mendicant brother begging his
way from town to town, chatting with the farmer or housewife at the
cottage door and setting up his portable pulpit in village green or
market-place. The rudest countryman