Langland’s Franciscanism.

WL echoes antimendicant rhetoric in his denunciations of friars enmeshed in the world and lax in the observance of their rule, and in the final vision he specifically recalls FitzRalph’s argument that friars should not have cure of souls but instead be returned to their rule. PPl scholarship has not sufficiently appreciated WL’s Franciscanism, however-his critique echoes the internal Franciscan reformist tradition, which arose as a consequence of the Order’s clericalization and its need to define to its members the nature of poverty and learning. In comparison to the antimendicant tradition, the reformist tradition conceived issues differently, omitted certain charges advanced by non-mendicants and tended to focus on topics central to the identity of the Order.