xy. Francis of Assisi strove to reproduce again on
earth the life of Christ--in the letter and in the spirit; and the
religious poetry of Wales in the thirteenth century is saturated with
Franciscan feeling--full of intense realisation of the childhood and
suffering of Christ, the humanity of God. This may be illustrated by
the following poem by a Welsh friar of the thirteenth century, Madawc
ap Gwallter:--

"A Son is given us,
A kind Son is born ...
A Son to save us,
The best of Sons.

A God, a man,
And the God a man
With the same faculties.
A great little giant,
A strong puny potentate
Of pale cheeks.

Richly poor
Our father and brother,
Exalted, lowly,
Honey of minds;
With the ox and ass,
The Lord of life
Lies in a manger;
And a heap of straw
As a chair,
Clothed in tatters;

Velvet He wants not,
Nor white ermine--
To cover Him;
Around His couch
Rags were seen
Instead of fine linen."

I do not know the dates of the foundations of the Welsh Franciscan
houses; the dates given in Mr. Newell's scholarly "History of the
Church in Wales" are impossible. Llanfaes is said to have been
established by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, and Franciscan influence would
come to Wales through Thomas the Welshman, Bishop of St. David's
(1247), who had been lecturer to the Franciscans at Oxford, and was
famous for his piety and learning. Another Franciscan I wish to
mention is Friar John the Welshman, who in his old age was employed to
negotiate with the Welsh in 1282. He had studied and taught at Oxford
and Paris, and made a creditable show beside such intellectual giants
as Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, his contemporaries. The widespread
and lasting popularity of his works is shown by the large number of
manuscripts and early printed editions which have come down to us. But
his chief interest and life-work was the popularisation of knowledge
in the service of morality. He devoted his energies to training up
lecturers who should go to the Franciscan friaries in the chief towns
in England and Wales and teach friars and clergy the art of popular
preaching. Friar John of Wales was one of the chief inspirers of the
"University Extension" movement of the Middle Ages. These popular
preachers or lecturers did not do much for the advancement of sound
learning, because they did not study any science for