20 
The Fall of the Friars’ Houses and Alien 
Priovies in Celilts. 
By the Rav. W. G. Crark-MaxwBLL. 
[Read at the Bradford Meeting of the Society, July, 1897.} 
Gre ik story of the Fall of the Friars’ Houses in Wilts is soon 
ky told. There were but four establishments of the kind in 
the county, and they seem to have gone under in the year 1538 
without a struggle. It may be well, however, to add a few words 
of explanation of the reasons which led me to exclude the houses 
of friars from my former paper on monasteries, among which they 
might seem most naturally to be ranked.! 
The truth is, that friars were not monks, nor was a friary a 
monastery in any true sense of the term. We are apt, in looking 
back upon the religious orders, as we do, across an interval of three 
centuries, to blend them all into one general designation of “ monk,” 
but in reality the orders of friars differed widely from the monastic 
institution in (1) the date and method of its origin, (2) the object 
and method of its activity, (3) its relation to the house, /.e., the 
material fabric in which the community was lodged. 
(1) The foundation of the first order of friars dates from the 
time of St. Francis of Assisi; that of the first order of monks is lost 
in the mists of the first centuries of Christianity. It is true that 
Benedict of Nursia is usually looked upon as the founder of 
Western monachism, but he was merely the organiser of a com- 
munity already existing, and his rule made its way simply by its 
inherent excellence, not because Benedict was the first monk, or 
even the first framer of rules for monks. ; 
(2) Both monks and friars had this in common, that they had 
\ Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxviii., p. 288. 
