A Jotischky writes:
| Of course the professions of monks and friars are different - no offence
| taken by my shorthand, I hope. But were monks and friars in the Middle
| Ages always so precise about the distinctions between them?
In cases the distinction was paramount. Matthew Paris (a
Benedictine monk) accused Robert Grosseteste of trying turn all
monks in his diocese into friars. And, Henry of Ghent in one of his
anti-mendicant quodlibets notes that the mendicants do not fit into
the accepted categories of practicing christians: they are different
from laymen, clerics and monks.
Whether Matthew and Henry really echo common sentiments is certainly
a major question to be answered, but they at least demonstrate that
the difference between monk and friar was real to the medieval mind.
Cheers
Jim
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James R. Ginther
Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
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E-mail: Phone: +44.113.233.6749
[log in to unmask] Fax: +44.113.233.3654
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http://www.leeds.ac.uk/trs/trs.html
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"Excellencior enim est scriptura in mente viva quam in
pelle mortua" -Robert Grosseteste.
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