it and this even though there is sufficient besides for the curates to live upon, and though perchance in old time something else has been assigned in place of it. In some places there has been asked, it is said, tithe of both chickens and eggs; in some places of milk and cheese; and in some others tithe of the ground and also of all that falleth to the ground. In other places tithes of servants' wages is claimed without any deduction; and indeed it is in but few places that any servant shall go quite without some payment of tithe, though he may have spent all in sickness, or upon his father and mother, or such necessary expenses."

Our author, from whom we get so much information as to the relations which existed in pre-Reformation times between the clergy and people, goes on to give additional instances of the possible hardships incidental to the collection of the ecclesiastical dues. These, where they exist, he, no doubt rightly, thinks do not tend to a good understanding between those who have the cure of souls, and who ought to be regarded rather in the light of spiritual fathers, than of worldly tax collectors. He admits, however, that these are the abuses of the few, and must not be considered as universally true of all the clergy. "And though," he concludes, "these abusions are not used universally (God forbid that they should), for there are many good curates and other spiritual men that would not use them to win any earthly thing, yet when people of divers countries meet together, and one tells another of some such extremity used by some curates in his country, and the other in like manner to him, soon they come to think that such covetousness and harsh dealing is common to all curates. And although they do not well in so doing, for the offence of one priest is no offence of any other, if they will so take it; yet spiritual men themselves do nothing to bring the people out of this judgment; but allow these abuses to be used by some without correcting them.""

To these objections, and more of the same kind, Sir Thomas More did not make, and apparently did not think it at all necessary to make, any formal reply. Indeed, he probably considered that where such things could be proved it would be both just and politic to correct them. His failing to reply on this score, however, seems to have been interpreted by Saint-German as meaning his rejection of all blame attaching to the clerical profession in these matters. In the Deballacion of Salem and Byzance, More protests that this is not his meaning at all. "He says," writes he, "that I, in my mind, prove it to be an intolerable fault in the people to misjudge the clergy, since I think they have no cause so to do, and that there I leave them, as if all the whole cause and principal fault was in the temporality." This, More declares he never dreamed of, for "if he seek these seven years in all my Apology, he shall find you no such words" to justify this view. On the contrary, he will find that "I say in those places, that the people are too reasonable to take this or that thing' amiss for any reasonable cause of division.'" The fact is, "I have never either laid the principal fault to the one or to the other." To much that Saint-German said, More assented; and his general attitude to the general accusations he states in these words: "Many of them I will pass over untouched, both because most of them are such as every wise man will, I suppose, answer them himself in the reading, and satisfy his own mind without any need of my help therein, and because some things are there also very well said."

Reading the four books referred to above together, one is forced to the conviction that the description of Sir Thomas More really represents the state of the clergy as it then was. That there were bad as well as good inay be taken for granted, even without the admissions of More; but that as a body the clergy, secular or religious, were

1 English Works, p. 936.

as hopelessly bad as subsequent writers have so often asked their readers to believe, or even that they were as bad as the reports, started chiefly by Lutheran emissaries, who were striving to plough up the soil in order to implant the new German teachings in the place of the old religious faith of England, would make out, is disproved by the tracts of both Saint-German and Sir Thomas More. In such a discussion it may be taken for granted that the worst would have appeared. Had the former any evidence of general and hopeless corruption he would, when pressed by his adversary, have brought it forward. Had the latter whose honesty and full knowledge must be admitted by all-any suspicion of what later generations have been asked to believe as the true picture of ecclesiastical life in pre-Reformation England, he would not have dared, even if his irreproachable integrity would have permitted him, to reject as a caricature and a libel even Christopher Saint-German's moderate picture.

In one particular More categorically denies a charge made by Tyndale against the clergy in general, and against the Popes for permitting so deplorable a state of things in regard to clerical morals. As the charge first suggested by Tyndale has been repeated very frequently down to our own time, it is useful to give the evidence of so unexceptional authority as that of the Lord Chancellor of England. Tyndale declared that although marriage was prohibited by ecclesiastical law to the clergy of the Western Church, the Pope granted leave "unto as many as bring money to keep concubines. And after asserting that this was the case in Germany, Wales, Ireland, &c., he adds, "And in England thereto they be not few who have (this) licence— some of the Pope, and some of their ordinaries." To this More says: "We have had many pardons come hither, and many dispensations and many licences too, but yet I thank our Lord I never knew none such, nor I trust never shall, nor Tyndale, I trow either; but that he listeth loud to lie. And as for his licences customably given by

the ordinaries, I trust he lies in regard to other countries, for as for England I am sure he lies."1

It would of course be untrue to suggest that there were no grounds whatever for objection to the clerical life of the period. At all times the ministers of the Church of God are but human instruments, manifesting now more now less the human infirmities of their nature. A passage in a sermon preached by Bishop Longland of Lincoln in 1538 suggests that the most crying abuse among the clergy of that time was simony. "Yet there is one thing, or ill which the prophet saw not in this city (of Sodom). What is that? That which specially above other things should have been seen. What is it? That which most is abused in this world. I pray thee, what is it? Make no more ado: tell it. That which almost destroyed the Church of Christ. Then, I pray thee, shew it: shew what it is: let it be known, that remedy may be had and the thing holpen. What is it? Forsooth it is simony, simony: chapping and changing, buying and selling of benefices and of spiritual gifts and promotions. And no better merchandise is nowadays than to procure advowsons of patrons for benefices, for prebends, for other spiritual livelihood, whether it be by suit, request, by letters, by money bargain or otherwise: yea, whether it be to buy them or to sell them, thou shalt have merchants plenty, merchants enough for it.

"These advowsons are abroad here in this city. In which city? In most part of all the great cities of this realm. In the shops, in the streets, a common merchandise. And they that do come by their benefices or promotions under such a manner shall never have grace of God to profit the Church."2

It is interesting to recall the fact that the late Mr. Brewer, whose intimate knowledge of this period of our national history is admitted on all hands, arrived, after the

English Works, p. 620.

...

2 A Sermonde made in 1538. By John Longlande, Bishop of Lincolne. London: f. 2.

fullest investigation, at a similar conclusion as to the real state of the Church in pre-Reformation England. Taking first the religious houses, this high authority considers that no doubt many circumstances had contributed at this time to lower the tone of religious discipline; but taking a broad survey, the following is the historian's verdict: That in so large a body of men, so widely dispersed, seated for so many centuries in the richest and fairest estates of England, for which they were mainly indebted to their own skill, perseverance, and industry, discreditable members were to be found (and what literary chiffonnier, raking in the scandalous annals of any profession, cannot find filth and corruption ?) is likely enough, but that the corruption was either so black or so general as party spirit would have us believe, is contrary to all analogy, and is unsupported by impartial and contemporary evidence." 1

"It is impossible," he says in another place, "that the clergy can have been universally immoral and the laity have remained sound, temperate and loyal." This, by the way, is exactly what More, who lived in the period, insisted upon.

"But," continues Brewer, "if these general arguments are not sufficient, I refer my readers to a very curious document, dated the 8th of July, 1519, when a search was instituted by different commissioners on a Sunday night, in London and its suburbs, for all suspected and disorderly persons. I fear no parish in London, nor any town in the United Kingdom, of the same amount of population, would at this day pass a similar ordeal with equal credit." And in another place he sums up the question in these words: "Considering the temper of the English people, it is not probable that immorality could have existed among the ancient clergy to the degree which the exaggeration of poets, preachers, and satirists might lead us to suppose. 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 600.

1 Henry VIII., vol. ii., pp. 50-1.