to slay all nobles and prelates and monks, but to spare the Mendicants and such few parish priests as might be necessary to administer the sacraments. Some feeble efforts were made by the clergy to emulate the services and activity of the new-comers, but the sloth and self-indulgence of ages could not be overcome. It was inevitable that the strongest antagonism between the old order and the new should spring up, heightened by the duty which the friars felt of denouncing publicly the vices and corruption of the clergy. Already in the previous century the secular priesthood had complained bitterly of the impulse given to monachism by the founding and development of the Cistercians. They had even dared to make vigorous representations to the third Council of Lateran, in 1179, alleging that they were threatened with pauperization. Here was a new and vastly more dangerous inroad, and it was impossible that they should submit without an effort of self-preservation. There must be a struggle for supremacy between the local churches on the one hand and the papacy with its new militia on the other, and the conservatives manifested skill in their selection of the field of battle.[1]
The University of Paris was the centre of scholastic theology. Cosmopolitan in its character, a long line of great teachers had lectured to immense masses of students from every land, until its reputation was European and it was looked upon as the bulwark of orthodoxy. In every episcopate it could count its graduates
- ↑ Brev. Hist. Ord. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 357). — Extrav. Commun. Lib. III. Tit. vi. c. 8. — Concil. Nimociens. ann. 1298, c. 17. — Constit. Joann. Arcbiep. Nicos. ann. 1321, c. 10. — C. Avenionens. ann. 1326, c. 27; ann. 1337, c. 32.— C. Vaurens. ann. 1368, c. 63, 64.— Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 437 (Monument. Germ. Hist.). — Berger, Les Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 1875-8, 3252-5, 3413.— Ripoll I. 25, 132-33, 153-4; II. 61, 173; VII. 18.— Matt. Paris ann. 1234, p. 276; ann. 1235, pp. 286-7; ann. 1255, p. 616.— Potthast Regesta No. 8786a, 8787-9, 10052.— Trithem. Annal. Hirsaug. ann. 1268.— Cone. Biterrens. ann. 1233, c. 9.— C. Arelatens. ann. 1234, c. 2.— C. Albiens. ann. 1254, c. 17, 18.— S. Bonaventurae Libell. Apologet. Quaest. 1. — Abbat. Joachimi Concordiæ v. 49.
The details of the disgusting quarrels over the dying and dead are impressively set forth in a composition attempted by Boniface VIII., in 1303, between the clergy of Rome and the Mendicants (Ripoll II. 70). The constant litigation on the subject was one of the chief grievances of the spiritual section of the Franciscans (Hist. Tribulationum, ap. Archiv fiir Litteratur- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 297).
