the parish priests, and it was among them that the friars mostly settled and worked. To help these poor creatures, they became physicians and nurses as well as preachers. They lived amongst the people, shared their lives, and did their utmost to alleviate their sorrows.
But the friars gave an impulse not only to philanthropy but also to learning. Their work as preachers naturally led them to the universities to study. The stimulus which they gave stirred up almost all the chief universities of Europe. At first they had their own schools privileged by the Pope. In Oxford, for instance, they erected their own buildings and engaged their own lecturers. Their first lecturer was Robert Grosseteste, afterwards the famous Bishop of Lincoln. After him came Adam Marsh, an eminent English theologian. These schools, set on foot by the Franciscans, produced a great effect upon the rest of the university system, an effect not entirely for good. There grew up a sort of rivalry between them and the university, and at Paris this rivalry led to very serious quarrels. In England also there were many struggles, because the friars, owning no authority but that of the Pope, claimed to settle their own course of education, and to have the university degrees given to them on their own terms. They claimed the Divinity degree without being obliged to go first through the Arts course, and in the long run to a great extent they had their own way. Their desires were of course contrary to our notion of the advisability of a broad preliminary training, before any special science is made the sole object of pursuit.
