Richard returned to England, found the temporalities of his See
disgracefully wasted by the King, sought and obtained an interview with
Henry, but achieved nothing. For a time he lived at Tarring with a poor
priest named Simon, for in his own diocese he was a beggar and a
stranger as it were in a foreign land. In 1246, however, the Pope
having threatened excommunication, the King gave way, and Richard at
once began to reform his diocese, to discipline his priests, and to
restore the ritual of his cathedral, and indeed of all the churches in
his diocese. He lived a life of severe asceticism, and gave so much in
alms that he was always a beggar. Usurers were punished by
excommunication, and Jews were forbidden to build new synagogues. It
was he, too, who first established the custom of the Easter offering
contribution from the faithful to the Cathedral, known later as St
Richard's pence. He loved the Friars, more especially the Dominicans,
who had befriended him at Orleans, and to which Order his confessor
belonged. He ardently preached the crusade and was eagerly loyal to St
Peter.
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