y
of science or of sanctity had joined them; it may suffice to name Adam
of Marisco, Richard of Cornwall, Bishop Robert Grossetete, one of the
proudest and purest figures of the Middle Ages, and Roger Bacon, that
persecuted monk who several centuries before his time grappled with and
answered in his lonely cell the problems of authority and method, with a
firmness and power which the sixteenth century would find it hard to
surpass.

It is impossible that in such a movement human weaknesses and passions
should not here and there reveal themselves, but we owe our chronicler
thanks for not hiding them. Thanks to him, we can for a moment forget
the present hour, call to life again that first Cambridge chapel--so
slight that it took a carpenter only one day to build it--listen to
three Brothers chanting matins that same night, and that with so much
ardor that one of them--so rickety that his two companions were obliged
to carry him--wept for joy: in England as in Italy the Franciscan gospel
was a gospel of peace and joy. Moral ugliness inspired them with a pity
which we no longer know. There are few historic incidents finer than
that of Brother Geoffrey of Salisbury confessing Alexander of
Bissingburn; the noble penitent was performing this duty without
attention, as if he were telling some sort of a story; suddenly his
confessor melted into tears, making him blush with shame and forcing
tears also from him, working in him so complete a revolution that he
begged to be taken into the Order.

The most interesting parts are those where Thomas gives us an intimate
view of the friars: here drinking their beer, there hastening, in spite
of the Rule, to buy some on credit for two comrades who have been
maltreated, or again clustering about Brother Solomon, who had just come
in nearly frozen with cold, and whom they could not succeed in
warming--_sicut porcis mos est cum comprimendo foverunt_, says the pious
narrator.[7] All this is mingled with dreams, visions, numberless
apparitions,[8] which once more show us how different were the ideas
most familiar to the religious minds of the thirteenth century from
those which haunt the brains and hearts of to-day.

The information given by Eccleston bears only indirectly on this book,
but if he speaks little of Francis he speaks much at length of some of
the men who have been most closely mingled with his life.

III. CHRONICLE OF FRA SALIMBENI[9]

As celebrated as it is little know