King, Georgiana Goddard: A brief account of the military orders in Spain (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1921)

IN SPAIN

177


AND MONOGRAPHS

Humility
essential

Friends of
God

hiciese alar de de nobles a, who boasted
of nobility, did public penance in the refec-
tory.

This is a strange story: who are these
strange brethren that live together like
primitive Christians in community of
goods and perfect brotherhood, sharing all,
injuring none, aiding the helpless, meek
and lowly of heart? From time to time
some people have been like that, and have
called themselves the friends of God:
in Milan in the eleventh century, in France
in the twelfth, in south Germany in the
fifteenth. There were some in Umbria in
the twelfth century, led by a certain Fran-
cis: there were some in Galicia in the
fourth, adherents of a Bishop Priscillian.
They were never much liked by other
people, and were extirpated now by sword
and now by flame; nor did the authori-
ties call them friends of God, but heretics
generally, and in special cases (in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries) by such