Unclean Barefooted Minstrel Friar

A monk. Of the various orders of religious "brothers" or friars, the most important were the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Augustines, and the Carmelites.

"Moreover at this time, some five or six years before, there was on the Main a Barefooted Friar who was driven out from among the people, for he was unclean [with leprosy]. He made the best songs and carols in the world, both words and melodies, wherein there lived not his like in Rhineland or in these parts. And, whatsoever he sang, all men sang it gladly after him; all masters, pipers, and other minstrels followed his songs and words. It was he who made that song: 'Far from the village am I bann'd,/ All doors are closed to wretched me!/ Unfaith, unfaith is all I see/ On every hand."

Tilman von Wolfhagen, The Limburg Chronicle (1374).