Knights of the Temple or St. John,
(Further examples need I none)
Serving their Lord in praise and prayer,
No mendicancy finds he there.12070
Some monks do daily labour, but
Are nowise from God’s service shut
Therefor.
The mendicants’ estate
Gave rise to long and sharp debate
In days that I remember well.
If so it please you, will I tell
How that a man may beg at need
When he no otherwise can feed
Or pasture him, this, bit by bit,
I’ll show, and none can gainsay it.12080
Unless some sophist strove to tangle
The truth with false and tiresome jangle.
By none the case were better cleared
Than me, who all the field have eared.
LXIII
False-Seeming doth the case relate
Of mendicants and their estate.
What men may beg
I’ll next set forth each special case
Of all the mendicantine race:
And first of those poor cattle who
Too dull of wit are born to do12090
Aught for a living, they may go
And beg where’er they will, I trow,
Until some useful craft they learn
Whereby they meat and drink may earn
