Friars+-+The+Canterbury+Tales

CHAUCER Geoffrey Chaucer was born about 1343 and he was the son of a wine merchant. He received an excellent education for the wealth of his family. He wrote the Canterbury Tales and he talked about friars.

The Friars Prologue This worthy limiter, this noble friar,  He turned always a lowering face, and dire,   Upon the summoner, but for courtesy   No rude and insolent word as yet spoke he. But at the last he said unto the wife:  "Lady," said he, "God grant you a good life!   You have here touched, as I may prosperous be,   Upon school matters of great difficulty;   You have said many things right well, I say;   But, lady, as we ride along our way,   We need but talk to carry on our game,   And leave authorities, in good God's name,   To preachers and to schools for clergymen.   But if it pleases all this company, then,   I'll tell you of a summoner, to make game.   By God, you could surmise it by the name   That of a summoner may no good be said;   I pray that no one will be angry made.   A summoner is a runner up and down   With summonses for fornication known,   And he is beaten well at each town's end." Our host then spoke: "O sir, you should attend  To courtesy, like man of your estate;   In company here we will have no debate.   Tell forth your tale and let the summoner be." "Nay," said the summoner, "let him say to me  What pleases him; when it falls to my lot,   By God I'll then repay him, every jot.   I'll then make plain to him what great honour   It is to be a flattering limiter;   I'll certainly tell him what his business is." Our host replied: "Oh peace, no more of this!" And after that he said unto the friar:  "Tell now your tale to us, good master dear."

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50 years ago the first group of Franciscan friars came to live on the Werd island in Stein am Rhein in northeastern Switzerland. As in the past, the friars go out on the streets, bringing hope to drug addicts and homeless people.

Friar's Life Friar's live contemplative lives in friary. Friars do their work nearly entirely out in the world. Friars are not "cloistered." That is the single largest salient difference between friars and monks. There are others, but that's the big one. Many friars leave the friary early in the mornings, after Lauds (formerly Prime, at around 6AM), to some kind of work for the larger secular, community (the town or county) in which the friary is located... volunteering (or sometimes in paid positions) in hospitals, hospices, homeless shelters, soup kitches, or whatever else seems appropriate. They stop for the prayers, as needed, but only if they can. Most friars are happy if they can get to just one of the three daily prayers whenever they're out and about in the world. When they're at the friary, though, none of the prayers are typically optional; and all friars respond to the tolling of the bell by going to the chapel and praying the office together. Some both friaries and monasteries are big on "hospitality," and offer places for people to stay in an almost hotel; or they offer pilgrims the opportunity to live as a guest in the community... typically for a week at a time, in a sort of spiritual retreat sort of thing. Some of them have guest rooms which actually look like hotel rooms, while others want the visitor to experience monastic life, and so offer them modified versions of the very kinds of tiny cells in which the monks live. Most -- especially monasteries; but many friaries, as well -- eat all meals in contemplative silence and so visitors can find that quite disconcerting if they're not used to it. For that reason, some friaries and monasteries which offer rooms or cells will have a special room for guest meals, where a few monks will join the guests and conduct prayers, and ask that they eat in silence or not; but, in either case, before the plates are cleared, there can be conversation and even laughter and the asking of questions, etc. In such places, the guests sometimes have their plates cleared by staff, but in others the monks want guests to experience the clearing of plates and even taking turns in the kitchen, just as the monks do. The friar's life is, in the main, about work. Most of the hours of most of their days are about doing some kind of work which either serves the community, or serves God. Their life was about manual labor, solitude, community life, fasting and vigils. Friars are "mendicant,"in fact that they effectively beg for donations, for alms, for food, to support both themselves, and the friary. Even mendicant Friaries usually also get more formal donations from the church, but true mendicant friars actually beg for food and donations in a manner similar to the famous mendicants St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Dominic.

Federica Lafratta, Adriana Rizzo, Alessandra Torrisi.