Leaving some of their
number at Canterbury, four of the Franciscans went on to London, and
thence a little later two of them set out for Oxford. Alike at London
and at Oxford, they found a cordial welcome from the Dominicans, eating
in their refectories, and sleeping in their dormitories, until they
were able to erect modest quarters in both places. The brethren of the
new order excited unbounded enthusiasm. Necessity and choice combined
to compel them to interpret their vow of poverty as St. Francis would
have wished. They laboured with their own hands at the construction of
their humble churches. The friars at Oxford knew the pangs of debt and
hunger, rejected pillows as a vain luxury, and limited the use of boots
and shoes to the sick and infirm. The faithful saw the brethren singing
songs as they picked their way over the frozen mud or hard snow, blood
marking the track of their naked feet, without their being conscious of
it. The joyous radiance of Francis himself illuminated the lives of his
followers. "The friars," writes their chronicler, "were so full of fun
among themselves that a deaf mute could hardly refrain from laughter at
seeing them.
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