The Crossed Friars are said by some to have taken their origin in the Low Countries, by others to have come from Italy in very early times, having been instituted or reformed by one Gerard, prior of St. Maria di Morella at Bologna. In 1169 Pope Alexander III. took them under his protection and gave them a fixed rule of life. These friars first came to England in the year 1244. Matthew Paris, writing of that time, says that they appeared before a synod held by the bishop of Rochester, each carrying a stick upon which was a cross. They presented documents from the pope and asked to be allowed to make foundations of their fraternity in England. Clement Reyner puts their first establishment in this country at Reigate, in 1245, and their second in London in 1249. This last is the better known, as it has given the name of Crutched Friars to a locality in the city of London. The friars had a third house at Oxford, and altogether there were six or seven English friaries. Besides the cross upon their staves, from which they originally took their name, the friars had a red cloth cross upon the breasts of their habits.
The origin of these friars is uncertain, and they were apparently only known in England, and so may perhaps be considered to have had their beginning in this country. Matthew Paris says that in the year 1257 they were given a house at Cambridge, in Trumpington Street. He describes their dress as being very like that of the Dominicans, from which it was distinguished only by having a red star, of five points with a round blue centre, on the scapular. This badge recalled the meaning of their name, representing as it did the star which led the Magi to Bethlehem.
These friars were apparently of English origin. Some have thought that they were the same as the "Friars of the Sack," but this is by no means clear. Polydore Vergil says that Edmund of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III., on his return from Germany in A.D. 1257, built and endowed a fine monastery at Ashridge. This he gave "to a new order of men, never before known in England, called _Boni Homines_, the Bonshommes. They followed the rule of St. Augustine, wearing a blue-coloured dress of a form similar to that of the Augustinian hermits." The only other house possessed by the Bonshommes was at Edingdon.