Fennie pray a cost in the news

and there's to all of physical

and bless you all of physical.

He bless you, Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London and the LMU in Munich.

Online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, none for me thanks, Franciscan poverty.

The medieval's would I think have been puzzled by our phrase poor as a church mouse.

Not that mice in general had it good in the middle ages, but if any mouse at the time was

well off, it was probably the mouse who lived in a church.

Extraordinary amounts of wealth were held by the church at this time, thanks to centuries worth of donations from secular rulers who wished to express, or at least be seen to express, piety.

The census of the Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, shows that at that time 26% of land in the area

surveyed belonged to church institutions as compared to only 17% for the royal family.

Indeed, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was in large part just an extension of the nobility,

with many a well-born son being parked in a monastery or other religious

setting because he was not the first in line for inheritance.

If you want to see just how flush the church was, go to the British city of Lincoln, where you can still see the Bishop's

Palace, in part built right around the time that Robert Grosatase was Bishop there.

Even a glance at this imposing the structure will be enough to confirm that medieval bishops were not so much church mice as big cheeses.

And then came Francis of Assisi.

In this sort of gesture pioneered by such ancient heroes of ascetic Christianity as Anthony

the Great, Francis abandoned a life of material comfort to devote himself to charity. He lived in deliberate poverty, and the

rule of his order demanded that his followers do the same. It reads in part,

...