Friary

“ A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man—he loved this little boy,
The boy loved him—and, when the Friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
So he became a very learned youth.
But Oh! poor wretch!—he read, and read, and read,
'Till his brain turned—and ere his twentieth year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place—
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him. ”

“ The Friar has walk'd out, and where'er he has gone,
The land and its fatness is mark'd for his own;
He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,
For every man's house is the Barefooted Friar's. ”

“ Friar (i. e. brother) , a name applied generally to members of religious brotherhoods, but which in its strict significance indicated an order lower than that of priest, the latter being called “father,” while they differed from monks in that they travelled about, whereas the monk remained secluded in his monastery; in the 13th century arose the Grey Friars or Franciscans, the Black Friars or Dominicans, the White Friars or Carmelites, Augustinians or Austin Friars, and later the Crutched Friars or Trinitarians. ”

“ In England the chief orders of friars were distinguished by the colour of their habit: thus the Franciscans or Minors were the Grey Friars; the Dominicans or Preachers were the Black Friars (from their black mantle over a white habit) , and the Carmelites were the White Friars (from their white mantle over a brown habit) : these, together with the Austin Friars or Hermits, formed the four great mendicant orders—Chaucer’s “alle the ordres foure.” Besides the four great orders of friars, the Trinitarians (q.v.) , though really canons, were in England called Trinity Friars or Red Friars ”

“ Fry. Liked the first part, sir, where he walked into thieving. Don't like his telling 'em he loves 'em. 'Tisn't to be supposed a gentleman could really love such rubbish as that. Sounds like palaver.
Hawes. Now I liked it all, though it spoiled my nap.
Fry. Well, sir, it is very good of you to like it, for I don't think you like the man.
Hawes. The man is all very well in his place. He ought to be bottled up in one of the dark cells all the week, and then brought up and uncorked in chapel o' Sundays. It is as good as a romance is a sermon of his.
Fry. That it is, sir. ”

“ Their intercessions went up for others than themselves. Every now and then guests from the great world came to stay within the abbey walls for rest and refreshment of soul, and now and then to end their days in an atmosphere of prayer and peace. In some ways, as we know, the coming of the Friars marked a stage of higher development, in that they [p.137] shared more fully the life of the people, at least in the simplicity and poverty of the early days of the Franciscan movement. ”

“ FRIAR. It is a leasing, credit me.
How chance, sir, then you were not sworn?
JOHN. What mean this groom and lozel friar,
So strictly matters to inquire?
Had I a sword and buckler here,
You should aby these questions dear.
FRIAR. Say'st thou me so, lad? lend him thine,
For in this bush here lieth mine.
Now will I try this new-come guest.
SCATH. I am his first man, Friar Tuck,
And if I fail, and have no luck,
Then thou with him shalt have a pluck.
FRIAR. Be it so, Scathlock. Hold thee, lad,
No better weapons can be had:
The dew doth them a little rust ”

“ Ever and anon the friar took up the little time-keeper, and shook it gently, as if to hasten the passage of the slow hours, and often, amid his watching and study, his head sank lower and lower towards the table, as if tired nature would assert her rights, and steep him in the swee oblivion of sleep, against his own powerful will. ”

“ There have been cases which I could name, where friars, coveting the wife or sister of a man, have procured his banishment or even secured for him an appointment at a distance, so that they might have the way open to accomplish their purposes. There was a fear which beset every man, even those who through fear were nearest to the friars, that if his eyes should light upon his wife or daughter in an envious way, if he did not give them up he was lost. ”

“ Six hundred years ago the Friars had been established in England about sixty years, and they were now by far the most influential Religionists in the country. The Friars, though always stationed in the towns, and by this time occupying large establishments which were built for them in Lynn, Yarmouth, Norwich, and elsewhere, were always acting the part of itinerant preachers, and travelled their circuits on foot, supported by alms. ”

“ We can hardly wonder at the burst of enthusiasm which welcomed the itinerant preacher whose fervid appeal, coarse wit, and familiar story brought religion into the fair and the market place. In England, where the Black Friars of Dominic arrived in 1221, the Grey Friars of Francis in 1224, both were received with the same delight. As the older orders had chosen the country, the Friars chose the town. They had hardly landed at Dover before they made straight for London and Oxford. ”

“ Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[Exit.]
ACT IV SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell. Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.
PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. ”

“ FRIAR. I prythee, Scarlet, let us two alone.
[Exit SCAR.
ELY. Friar, I see thou know'st me: let me go,
And many a good turn I to thee will owe.
FRIAR. My master's service bids me answer no,
Yet love of holy churchmen wills it so.
Well, good my lord, I will do what I may
To let your holiness escape away.
Enter ROBIN HOOD and LITTLE JOHN. [227]
Here comes my master: if he question you,
Answer him like a plain man, and you may pass.
ELY. Thanks, Friar.
FRIAR. O, my lord thinks me an ass.
ROB. H. Friar, what honest man is there with thee?
FRIAR. A silly man, good master. ”

“ With the dawn of the thirteenth century came the great revivalists--the friars. Wherever the friars established themselves they began not only to preach, but to teach. They were the awakeners of a new intellectual life; not only the stimulators of an emotional pietism always prone to run into religious intoxication and extravagance. ”

“ Some gentle heart will surely vex;
You ought to rather soften down
What else will make some fair one frown."
"Not so," said he; "'tis only those
Whom the dress fits will wear the clothes,
For each will on her neighbour try
The pointed truths the lines supply,
And all will laugh and much enjoy
What does not them, but friends, annoy."
"Then, sir, I would curtail that scene
In which the Friar feigns a dream ”

“ The gentleman, being now convinced of the Friar’s wickedness, returned to his wife’s room, and said to her—
“Of a certainty, sweetheart, the man who lay with you and did such fine things was our Father Confessor.”
The lady, who all her life long had held her honour dear, was overwhelmed with despair, and laying aside all humanity and womanly nature, besought her husband on her knees to avenge this foul wrong; whereupon the gentleman immediately mounted his horse and went in pursuit of the Friar. ”

“ The friar rode off alone; and after the foresters had lost sight of him they heard his voice through the twilight, singing,—
A staff, a staff, of a young oak graff, That is both stoure and stiff, Is all a good friar can needs desire To shrive a proud sheriffe. And thou, fine fellowe, who hast tasted so Of the forester’s greenwood game, Wilt be in no haste thy time to waste In seeking more taste of the same: Or this can I read thee, and riddle thee well, Thou hadst better by far be the devil in hell, Than the sheriff of Nottinghame. ”

“ On hearing this dream, the friars were frightened and behaved without very noticeable laughter [36] .’
Grostete said to a Friar Preacher, ‘Three things are necessary to temporal health—to eat, sleep, and be merry [37] .’ Excessive austerity was discountenanced by the authorities of the Oxford convent. Friar Albert of Pisa, who was himself ‘always cheerful and merry in the society of the brethren [38] ,’ compelled Friar Eustace de Merc, contrary to custom, to eat fish, saying that the Order lost many good persons through their indiscretion [39] . ”

“ Hours he would spend below at the butt of the meadow, nearby the water, sitting under the thorn bush and he playing upon the fideóg. Then he began to lose the use of his limbs, and crying he used to be within in the room. Some of the people who have knowledge say he is lying under a certain influence. He cannot speak now. The holy Friar will know what is best to be done. ”

“ The friar told him to blow as many blasts as he liked, and in an instant the forest echoed with his horn; it was but a few minutes before "half a hundred yeomen were racing over the lea". The friar stared when he saw them; then, turning to Robin, he begged of him a boon also, and leave being granted he gave three whistles, which were followed by the noise of a great crashing through the trees, as fifty great dogs bounded towards him.
"Here's a dog for each of your men," said the friar, "and I myself for you" ”

“ Every one was ready to die with laughing, seeing the chase of the two friars thus mounted, who both looked more dead than alive; the mare leaped from one side of the road to the other, and the enraged stallion after her, and of course the poor friar was often in danger of being wounded, as may well be imagined. ”

“ I used to enjoy these evenin’ fires with the Friar, as much as a dog likes to have his ears pulled by the hand he loves best. He would tell me tales of all the ages ’at man has lived on the face of the whole earth, and I’d sit and smoke my pipe, and make up what I’d ’a’ done, myself, if I’d been one o’ these big fellers. ”

“ It abounds in such stories as those of a black friar fatally thrown from a wild horse in the pathless wilderness; of a grey friar torn to pieces by a saw-mill; of a starving white friar stretched out to die under the green canopy of an oak; of priests swimming half-frozen rivers with the sacred vestments in their teeth ”

“ One change in the life of the friars—their gradual approximation to the seclusion of the older Orders, may be illustrated by two passages from Matthew Paris and Wiclif (allowance being made for the prejudices of the writers) . The friars, says the Benedictine historian, ‘wandered through cities and villages,’ and ‘had the ocean for their cloister’ (Chron. Majora, V, 529) . Wiclif attacks them for living ‘closed in a cloister,’ instead of going about among the people, ‘to whom thy maie most profite ghostlie ... ”

“ Freeze on to him. To cling to a man as hoarfrost clings to wood in winter.
Freight Train. An Americanism for goods train.
Freshman. An undergraduate in his first year at a university.
Friar. Agreeably to the Latin fratre, brother. This term signifies a member of a religious community as distinguished from a monk (Greek, monas, alone) , who was originally a hermit, and, except when at meals or at prayers in the monastery, spends his time in a cell.
Friar Street. Marks the eastern boundary of the monastery of the Dominicans or Black Friars anciently located south of Ludgate Hill. ”

“ We'll seek a place: the woods have many ears,
And some, methinks, are calling for the Friar. [263]
Enter LITTLE JOHN and SCATHLOCK, calling the
FRIAR, as before.
LIT. JOHN. The Friar! the Friar!
SCATH. Why, where's this Friar?
Enter FRIAR TUCK.
FRIAR. Here, sir: what is your desire?
Enter ROBIN HOOD and WARMAN. [264]
ROB. H. Why, Friar, what a murrain dost thou mean?
The king calls for thee; for a mighty stag
(That hath a copper-ring about his neck
With letters on it, which he would have read)
Hath Scarlet kill'd. I pray thee, go thy way. ”

“ Some were watering the fields with their little water-pots, making the summer showers.134 Some were pinching the cheeks of the apples to make them red, and others were reeling silk for the corn-tassels. Then Frey looked down upon the earth, where men were scurrying around like little ants, improving the blessings which his servants were sending, and often stopping their work to give thanks to their beloved Frey. ”

“ JOHN. Gramercy, Friar, for this gift,
And if thou come unto my shrift,
I'll make thee call those fellows fools
That on their foes bestow such tools.
SCATH. Come, let's to't.
[Fight, and the FRIAR looks on.
FRIAR. The youth is deliver [240] and light,
He presseth Scathlock with his might:
Now, by my beads, to do him right,
I think he be some tried knight.
SCATH. Stay, let us breathe!
JOHN. I will not stay;
If you leave, Friar, come away.
SCATH. I prythee, Friar, hold him play.
FRIAR. Friar Tuck will do the best he may. ”

“ Then the Friar stiffened up; any one in the world, or any thing, had the right to impose upon the Friar as a man; but when they tried to interfere with what he spoke of as his callin’, why, he swelled up noticeable. The Friar’s humility was genuine, all right; but it was about four times stiffer an’ spikier than any pride I’ve ever met up with yet.
“I shall not ride your hosses,” sez he, scornful, “nor shall I tread upon your land, nor shall I breathe your air, nor drink your water; but in the future, as in the past, I shall use for the Lord only those things which belong to the Lord. ”