By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 



37 



sub-divisions and fresh Orders, varying somewhat in their title, their 

 dress and regulations. But the Benedictines were from first to last 

 the most numerous, the most powerful, and to use a common phrase, 

 the top Order. 



Besides monks, there were friars, which is simply the French 

 word freres, brethren. It is not easy now to distinguish the one class 

 from the other, but they were quite different at first. Generally 

 speaking the difference was this. Though they all lived in monas- 

 teries, the monks lived more within the precincts of their house, 

 among themselves. The friars were more at liberty : a kind of 

 ecclesiastical free-lances. They could wander about the country, 

 preaching wherever they pleased. But the chief difference (at first 

 at least) , was that the monks had settled property belonging to them 

 in common. The friars lived by begging : hence mendicant friars. 

 The first in England were the Dominican or Black friars : then 

 followed the Grey friars, friars Minors, Carmelites and others. To 

 say however that they had no property is not quite correct : for some 

 of them by degrees obtained a good deal : but at first they lived from 

 hand to mouth. There were very able and learned men among the 

 friars. The Grey friars in London were famous for learning and skill 

 in disputation : but it is to the Benedictine monks that the world is 

 more particularly indebted for the most laborious and costly fruits 

 and efforts of literature. A 11 these, both monks and friars, were totally 

 distinct from and had nothing to do with, what we call parochial 

 clergy. Living in monasteries, according to the rule of some Order 

 — ad regulam — the former were called the regulars — whereas the 

 country priests, living more in society and mixing with the worlds* 

 in seculo — were called the secular clergy. 



The parish clergy were not over well pleased with either friars or 

 monks. The friars having no fixed sphere of duty, used to ramble 

 about, invade parishes, introduce strange ideas and unsettle the people. 

 But against the monks, the parish clergy had a grievance of another 

 kind. 



Every one knows what the object was in first establishing our pre- 

 sent parochial system. Happen to it what may, there can be no doubt 

 that it was, in its origin, the well-considered work of far-seeing men. 



