Note 415 — Chapter I · WANDERING PREACHERS AND FRIARS

The complaints of the University of Oxford against the friars, stating how they wrongfully attracted with fruit and drink mere children, and taught them how to beg and to ingratiate themselves with the great, were among the severest: “Nam pomis et potu, ut populus fabulatur, puerulos ad religionem attrahunt et instigant, quos professos non instruunt sicut exigit ætas illa, sed mendicationis discursibus permittunt intendere; atque tempus, quo possint addiscere, captandis favoribus amicorum, dominarum et dominorum, sinunt consumere, in offensam parentium, puerorum periculum et ordinis detrimentum.” Year 1358, “Munimenta Academica,” Rolls Series, i. p. 207.