tion of the mechanism of the discipline of the Church. By means of the friars, the Popes entirely upset the control of the bishops, and in consequence the bishops tended to become more and more merely secular personages, so entirely were they robbed of any ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The organisation of the parish fell in pieces, because it was cut through and through by these prowling friars. Sometimes the clergy of the Church of England are tempted to think that if they could be as the parish priests were before the Reformation, and were free of the presence of the dissenting minister, they would get on very well. Never was there a greater delusion; for the friars were far more destructive to ecclesiastical jurisdiction than any Nonconformist body could be at the present day, to the influence of any sensible clergyman.
Another point to be considered is the influence of the friars upon literature. They may be said to have initiated an entirely new departure in Italian literature, and therefore in the literature of Europe. Before their time, the poetry of the troubadours had developed into the philosophic treatment of ideal love which Dante has immortalised in his Vita Nuova. But that motive was in time entirely worked out, and the new motive of the popular poetry came from the Franciscans. It is to be traced in many directions, but especially in hymns. That great hymn, the "Dies Iræ," was the work of a Franciscan, Thomas of Celano. Jacopone da Todi, the greatest of the Franciscan poets, poured forth his verses in a way which stirred the minds of all who heard him; no one could have been more simple,
