296 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
tury, the preaching friars of the Dominican and Franciscan orders 
carried to all parts of Europe the teachings of Christianity, and 
by their example forced all orders of the clergy to render more 
efficient and unselfish service to their fellow men. Then, as perhaps 
never before, from a sense of what humanity had lost through its 
neglect, the Church gave guidance and inspiration to the common 
people. The Crusades, the cathedrals, the saints’ legends, and the 
sacred plays, bear witness to the moral awakening. The people 
were ready for instruction, and the priests and friars strove ear- 
nestly to teach them. 
In accepting this new understanding of their duties to man, the 
preachers of the time changed radically their methods. They were 
at once forced to adapt their instruction, as the friars did, to the 
ill-trained audiences they addressed. In so doing they but followed 
a course not unknown in actuality, and long sanctioned in theory. 
The simplicity and directness of Augustine’s discourses witness con- 
clusively to the pains he took to reach the people. The necessity 
for such practical adaptation had been explained in detail by 
Gregory the Great in the long third part of the Pastoral Care. 
Moreover, in 816 those churchmen who seemed inclined to forget 
the teaching were reminded by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle that 
the same kind of nourishment was not suited to all stomachs.’ 
Preachers, therefore, were unquestionably familiar with the principle ; 
and they must soon have learned by experience, as their sermons 
were interrupted by disorders, or as they saw groups of men leaving 
their churches, what popular oratory demanded.2 The first reform, 
of course, was to substitute for the Latin language, which was 
always used in addressing the clergy, the speech of the people. 
Grosseteste at Lincoln and Abbot Samson at Bury St. Edmunds 
preached, and insisted that others preach, in English. But preachers 
had also to learn to vary their treatment of a subject to render it 
suitable to particular occasions. Undoubtedly, the friars showed 
the greatest readiness in adaptation, carrying it so far in the next 
century as to lay themselves open to charges of insincerity and fraud. 
But in general the preachers of the age worked zealously and 
creditably to impress upon the world the truths that it had for- 
gotten. 
In this common movement of reform and expansion the arts of 
the orator and rhetorician were not overlooked. Honorius of Autun 
1 Lecoy de la Marche, 207—08. 2) Tibid-; 2b: 
3 Speculum Ecclesiae, 830, Stevenson, 32, 297. 

