certain day Fare to sould te laye men fasten? let te prester fasten.' So we, God knows, begin to fast very

little ourselves, but bid the 'prester to fasten.'”1

"And as to such mortifications as the wearing of hair shirts, it would indeed be hard to bind men, even priests, to do this though among them many do so already, and some whole religious bodies too." If he says, as he does, that this "does not appear," what would he have? Would he wish them to publish to the world these penances? If they take his, Saint-German's advice, "they will come out of their cloisters every man into the market-place, and there kneel down in the gutters, and make their prayers in the open streets, and wear their hair shirts over their cowls, and then it shall appear and men shall see it. And truly in this way there will be no hypocrisy for their shirts of hair, and yet moreover it will be a good policy, for then they will not prick them." 2

In the same way More points out that people in talking against the wealth of the clergy are not less unreasonable than they are when criticising what they call their idle, easy lives. "Not indeed that we might not be able always to find plenty content to enter into their possessions, though we could not always find men enough content to enter their religions;" but when the matter is probed to the bottom, and it is a question how their wealth "would be better bestowed," then "such ways as at the first face seemed very good and very charitable for the comfort and help of poor folk, appeared after reasoning more likely in a short while to make many more beggars than to relieve those that are so already. And some other ways that at first appeared for the greater advantage of the realm, and likely to increase the king's honour and be a great strength for the country, and a great security for the prince as well as a great relief of the people's charges, appeared clearly

after further discussion to be 'clean contrary, and of all other ways the worst.'

"And to say the truth," he continues, "I much marvel to see some folk now speak so much and boldly about taking away any possessions of the clergy." For though once in the reign of Henry IV., about the time of a great rumble that the heretics made, when they would have destroyed not only the clergy but the king and his nobility also, there was a foolish and false bill or two put into Parliament and dismissed as they deserved; yet in all my time, when I was conversant with the court, I had never found of all the nobility of this land more than seven (of which seven there are now three dead) who thought that it was either right or reasonable, or could be any way profitable to the realm, without lawful cause to take away from the clergy any of the possessions which good and holy princes, and other devout, virtuous people, of whom many now are blessed saints in heaven, have of devotion towards God given to the clergy to serve God and pray for all Christian souls."1

In his Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, made in 1532, when Sir Thomas More was still Lord Chancellor of England, he protests against imputations made by his adversary and his follower Barnes, that the clergy were as a body corrupt. "Friar Barnes lasheth out against them, against their pride and pomp, and all their lives spent in vicious living, "as if there were not a good priest in all the Catholic Church. He jesteth on them because they wear crowns and long gowns, and the bishops wear rochets. And he hath likened them to bulls, asses, and apes, and the rochets to smocks." "But he forgets how many good virtuous priests and religious people be put out of their places (in Germany) and spoiled of their living, and beaten, and sent out a-begging, while heretics and apostates, with their women, keep their shameless lives

1 Ibid., p. 885.

with the living that holy folks have dedicated unto God for the support of such as would serve God in spiritual cleanness and vowed chastity. He knows well enough, I warrant you, that the clergy can never lack persecution where heretics may grow; nor soon after the temporality either, as it has hitherto been proved in every such country yet." i

1

He will not repeat all his "ribald railing upon all the clergy of Christendom who will not be heretics" when he calls" them bulls, apes, asses, and abominable harlots and devils." "No good man doubts, although among the clergy there are many full bad (as, indeed, it were hard to have it otherwise among so great a multitude, whilst Christ's own twelve were not without a traitor), that there are again among them many right virtuous folk, and such that the whole world besides fares the better for their holy living and their devout prayer."

1 Bishop Fisher gives much the same testimony to the moral character of the religious generally in his sermon against Luther. After praising the state of virginity, he continues: “And it is not to be doubted but that there is in Christendom at this day many thousands of religious men and women that full truly keep their religion and their chastity unto Christ. If Almighty God did reserve in that little portion of Jewry so great a multitude beyond the estimation of the prophet, what number suppose ye doth yet remain in Christendom of religious men and women, notwithstanding this great persecution of religious monasteries, both of men and women, done by these heretics by this most execrable doctrine? It is not to be doubted but in all Christendom be left many thousands who at this hour live chaste, and truly keep their virginity unto Christ." (A Sermon had at Paulis, Berthelet, f. g. ii.).

2 Ibid., p. 735. Sir Thomas More, in his Dyalogue, thinks that the number of priests without very definite work had tended to diminish the respect paid to them by the laity. "But were I Pope," he says, "I could not well devise better provisions than by the laws of the Church are provided already, if they were as well kept as they are well made. But as for the number, I would surely see such a way therein that we should not have such a rabble that every man must have a priest in his house to wait upon his wife. This no man lacketh now, to the contempt of the priesthood, (placed) in as vile an office as his horsekeeper. That is truth,

Beyond the above supposed causes for the growth of the dislike of the clergy which Sir Thomas More weighs and considers in the above extracts, Saint-German gives others which are instructive as to the actual status of the clergy; but with which, as they do not reflect upon their moral character, Sir Thomas More was not immediately concerned in his reply. One occasion of the present difficulties and division, writes Saint-German, "has partly arisen by temporal men who have desired much the familiarity of priests in their games and sports, and who were wont to make much more of those who were companionable than of those that were not so, and have called them good fellows and good companions. And many also would have chaplains which they would not only suffer, but also command, to go hunting, hawking, and such other vain disports; and some would let them lie among other lay servants, where they could neither use prayer nor contemplation."

Some even go so far as to insist on their chaplains wearing "liveries," which "are not convenient in colour for a priest to wear." Others give them worldly businesses to attend to in the way of stewardships, &c., "so that in this way their inward devotion of heart has become as cold and as weak, in a manner, as it is in lay men." Nevertheless, in spite of the evil effect to be feared from this training, they do not hesitate to put them into the first benefice they have to dispose of; "and when they have done so, they will anon speak evil of priests, and report great lightness in them, and lightly compare the faults of one priest with another." This they do "even when they themselves have been partly the occasion of their offences."

indeed, quod he, and in worse, too, for they keep hawks and dogs." If the laws of the Church were kept, there would not be the excessive number of priests for fit and proper positions, so that "the whole order is rebuked by the priests' begging and lewd living who are either obliged to walk as rovers, and live upon trentals or worse, or serve in a secular man's house" (English Works, p. 223).

Moreover, "where by the law all priests ought to be at the (parish) church on Sundays and holidays, and help the service of God in the choir, and also, when there, to be under the orders of the curate (or parish priest of the place), yet nevertheless many men who have chaplains will not allow them to come to the parish church; and when they are there, will not suffer them to receive their orders from the curate, but only from themselves; nor will they tolerate seeing them in the choir;" and what is the case with "chaplains and serving priests is also (true) of chantry priests and brotherhood priests in many places."

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To remedy these evils, Saint-German thinks, as indeed every one would be disposed to agree with him, that priests should be prohibited from hunting and all such games as are unsuitable to the priestly character, "though perchance he may, as for recreation, use honest disports for a time." Moreover, he should not "frequent the ale house or tavern," and, if in his recreations the people are offended, he should be warned by an abbot and a justice of the peace of the shire." If, after this, he does not change, he ought to be suspended. Further than this, no one should be permitted to have a chaplain who has not "a standing house," where the priest is able to have his private chamber with a lock and key, so that "he may use himself therein conveniently in reading, prayer or contemplation, or such other labours and business as it is convenient for a priest to use.' "'1

Both in his work on the Division and in his previous tract, A Dyalogue between a Student of Law and a Doctor of Divinity, Saint-German lays great stress upon the question of mortuaries, as one that gave great offence to lay people at the period when he wrote. As he explained in the Dyalogue, the State had already interfered to regulate the exactions made by custom at funerals, but nevertheless "in some places the Church claims to have the taper that stands in the middle of the hearse over the heart of the

1 A treatise concerning the division, ff. 14-16.