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Henry III. and Edward
selected mendicants as their confessors. The strongest and holiest of
the bishops, Grosseteste, became their most active friend. Simon of
Montfort sought the advice and friendship of a friar like Adam Marsh.
The mere fact that Stephen Langton and Peter des Roches were their first
patrons in England shows how they appealed alike to the best and worst
clerical types of the time.
[1] _Chron. Maj._, v., 194.
Men and women of all ranks, while still living in the world and
fulfilling their ordinary occupations, associated themselves to the
mendicant brotherhoods. Besides these _tertiaries_, as they were
called, still wider circles sought the friars' direction in all
spiritual matters and showed eagerness to be buried within their
sanctuaries. Nor did the friars limit themselves to pastoral care. They
won a unique place in the intellectual history of the time. They made
themselves the spokesmen of all the movements of the age. They were
eager to make peace, and Agnellus himself mediated between Henry III.


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