It is very generally asserted that on the eve of the Reformation the laity in England had no particular love or respect for churchmen. That there were grave difficulties and disagreements between the two estates is supposed to be certain. On the face of it, however, the reason and origin of what is frequently called “the grudge” of laymen against the ecclesiastics is obviously much misunderstood. Its extent is exaggerated, its origin put at an earlier date than should be assigned to it, and the whole meaning of the points at issue interpreted quite unnecessarily as evidence of a popular and deep-seated disbelief in the prevailing ecclesiastical system. To understand the temper of people and priest in those times, it is obviously necessary to examine into this question in some detail. We are not without abundant material in the literature of the period for forming a judgment as to the relations which then existed between the clerical and lay elements in the State. Fortunately, not only have we assertions on the one side and on the other as to the questions at issue, but the whole matter was debated at the time in a series of tracts by two eminent laymen. This discussion was carried on between an anonymous writer, now recognised as the lawyer, Christopher Saint-German, and Sir Thomas More himself.

Christopher Saint-German, who is chiefly known as the writer of a Dyalogue in English between a Student of Law and a Doctor of Divinity, belonged to the Inner Temple, and was, it has already been said, a lawyer of considerable repute. About the year 1532, a tract from his pen called A treatise concerning the division between the spiritualtie and temporaltie appeared anonymously. To this Sir Thomas More, who had just resigned the office of Chancellor, replied in his celebrated Apology, published in 1533. Saint-German rejoined in the same year with A Dyalogue between two Englishmen, whereof one is called Salem and the other Bizance, More immediately retorting with the Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance. In these four treatises the whole matter of the supposed feud between the clergy and laity is thrashed out, and the points at issue are clearly stated and discussed.

Christopher Saint-German’s position is at first somewhat difficult to understand. By some of his contemporaries he was considered to have been tainted by “the new teaching” in doctrinal matters, which at the time he wrote was making some headway in England. He himself, however, professes to write as a loyal believer in the teaching of the Church, but takes exception to certain ecclesiastical laws and customs which in his opinion are no necessary part of the system at all. In these he thinks he detects the cause of the “division that had risen between the spiritualtie and the temporaltie.” Sir Thomas More, it may be remarked, is always careful to treat the writer as if he believed him to be a sincere Catholic, though mistaken in both the extent of the existing disaffection to the Church and altogether impracticable in the remedies he suggested. In some things it must, however, be confessed, granting Saint-German’s facts, that he shows weighty grounds for some grievance against the clergy on the part of the laity.

The treatise concerning the division begins by expressing regret at the unfortunate state of things which the author pre-supposes as existing in England when he wrote in 1532, contrasting it with what he remembered before. “Who may remember the state of this realm now in these days,” he writes, “without great heaviness and sorrow of heart? For whereas, in times past, there has reigned charity, meekness, concord, and peace, there now reigns envy, pride, division, and strife, and that not only between laymen and churchmen, but also between religious and religious, and between priests and religious, and what is more to be lamented also between priests and priests. This division has been so universal that it has been a great (cause of) disquiet and a great breach of charity through all the realm.”[121]

It must be confessed that if this passage is to be taken as it stands, the division would appear to have been very widely spread at the time. Sir Thomas More, whilst denying that the difficulty was so great as Saint-German would make out, admits that in late years the spirit had grown and was still growing apace. He holds, however, that Saint-German’s reasons for its existence are not the true ones, and that his methods will only serve to increase the spirit of division. As regards the quarrels between religious, at which Saint-German expresses his indignation, he says: “Except this man means here by religious folk, either women and children with whose variances the temporality is not very much disturbed, or else the lay brethren, who are in some places of religion, and who are neither so many nor so much esteemed, that ever the temporality was much troubled at their strife, besides this there is no variance between religious and religious with which the temporality have been offended.”[122] Again: “Of some particular variance among divers persons of the clergy I have indeed heard, as sometimes one against another for his tithes, or a parson against a religious place for meddling with his parish, or one place of religion with another upon some such like occasions, or sometime some one religious (order) have had some question and dispute as to the antiquity or seniority of its institution, as (for instance) the Carmelites claim to derive their origin from Elias and Eliseus: and some question has arisen in the Order of Saint Francis between the Observants and the Conventuals (for of the third company, that is to say the Colettines, there are none in this realm). But of all these matters, as far as I have read or remember, there were never in this realm either so very great or so many such (variances) all at once, that it was ever at the time remarked through the realm and spoken of as a great and notable fault of the whole clergy.” Particular faults and petty quarrels should not be considered the cause of any great grudge against the clergy at large. “And as it is not in reason that it should be, so in fact it is not so, as may be understood from this:” … “if it were the case, then must this grudge of ours against them have been a very old thing, whereas it is indeed neither so great as this man maketh out, nor grown to so great (a pass) as it is, but only even so late as Tyndale’s books and Frith’s and Friar Barnes’ began to go abroad.”[123]

Further, in several places Sir Thomas More emphatically asserts that the talking against the clergy, the hostile feeling towards them, and the dissensions said to exist between them and lay folk generally, were only of very recent origin, and were at worst not very serious. “I have, within these four or five years (for before I heard little talk of such things),” he writes, “been present at such discussions in divers good companies, never talking in earnest thereof (for as yet I thank God that I never heard such talk), but as a pass-time and in the way of familiar talking, I have heard at such times some in hand with prelates and secular priests and religious persons, and talk of their lives, and their learning, and of their livelihood too, and as to whether they were such, that it were better to have them or not to have them. Then touching their livelihood (it was debated), whether it might be lawfully taken away from them or no; and if it might, whether it were expedient for it to be taken, and if so for what use.”[124]

To this Saint-German replies at length in his Salem and Bizance, and says that Sir Thomas More must have known that the difficulties had their origin long before the rise of the new religious views, and were not in any sense founded upon the opinions of the modern heretics.[125] More answers by reasserting his position that “the division is nothing such as this man makes it, and is grown as great as it is only since Tyndale’s books and Frith’s and Friar Barnes’ began to be spread abroad.” And in answer to Saint-German’s suggestion that he should look a little more closely into the matter, he says: “Indeed, with better looking thereon I find it somewhat otherwise. For I find the time of such increase as I speak of much shorter than I assigned, and that by a great deal. For it has grown greater” by reason of “the book upon the division,” which Saint-German with the best of intentions had circulated among the people.[126]

Putting one book against the other, it would appear then tolerably certain that the rise of the anti-clerical spirit in England must be dated only just before the dawn of the Reformation, when the popular mind was being stirred up by the new teachers against the clergy. There seems, moreover, no reason to doubt the positive declaration of Sir Thomas More, who had every means of knowing, that the outcry was modern—so modern indeed that it was practically unknown only four or five years before 1533, and that it originated undoubtedly from the dissemination of Lutheran views and teachings by Tyndale and others. It is useful to examine well into the grounds upon which this anti-clerical campaign was conducted, and to note the chief causes of objection to the clergy which are found set forth by Saint-German in his books. In the first place: “Some say,” he writes, that priests and religious “keep not the perfection of their order,” and do not set that good example to the people “they should do.” Some also work for “their own honour, and call it the honour of God, and rather covet to have rule over the people than to profit the people.” Others think more about their “bodily ease and worldly wealth and meat and drink,” and the like, even more than lay people do. Others, again, serve God “for worldly motives, to obtain the praise of men, to enrich themselves and the like, and not from any great love of God.”

Such is the first division of the general accusations which Saint-German states were popularly made against the clergy in 1532. Against these may be usefully set Sir Thomas More’s examination of the charges, and his own opinion as to the state of the clergy. In his previous works he had, he says, forborne to use words unpleasant either to the clergy or laity about themselves, though he had “confessed what is true, namely, that neither were faultless.” But what had offended “these blessed brethren,” the English followers of Luther, was that “I have not hesitated to say, what I also take for the very truth, that as this realm of England has, God be thanked, as good and praiseworthy a temporality, number for number, as any other Christian country of equal number has had, so has it had also, number for number, compared with any other realm of no greater number in Christendom, as good and as commendable a clergy. In both there have never been wanting plenty of those who have always been ‘naught’; but their faults have ever been their own and should not be imputed to the whole body, neither in the spirituality nor temporality.”[127]

Turning to the special accusation made by Saint-German that ecclesiastics “do not keep the perfection of their order,” More grants that this may “not be much untrue.” For “Man’s duty to God is so great that very few serve Him as they should do.”…“But, I suppose, they keep it now at this day much after such a good metely manner as they did in the years before, during which this division was never dreamed of, and therefore those who say this is the cause have need to go seek some other.”[128] To the second point his reply is equally clear. It is true, More thinks, that some ecclesiastics do look perhaps to their own honour and profit, but, he asks, “were there never any such till so lately as the beginning of this division, or are all of them like this now?” No doubt there are some such, and “I pray God that when any new ones shall come they may prove no worse. For of these, if they wax not worse before they die, those who shall live after them may, in my mind, be bold to say that England had not their betters any time these forty years, and I dare go for a good way beyond this too. But this is more than twenty years, and ten before this division” (between the clergy and laity) was heard of.[129] Further, as far as his own opinion goes, although there may be, and probably are, some priests and religious whom the world accounts good and virtuous, who are yet at heart evil-minded, this is no reason to despise or condemn the whole order. Equally certain is it that besides such there are “many very virtuous, holy men indeed, whose holiness and prayer have been, I verily believe, one great special cause that God has so long held His hand from letting some heavier stroke fall on the necks of those whether in the spirituality or temporality who are naught and care not.”[130]

In his Apology, Sir Thomas More protested against the author of the work on the Division translating a passage from the Latin of John Gerson, about the evil lives of priests; and on Saint-German excusing himself in his second book, More returns to the point in The Debellation of Salem and Bizance. More had pleaded that his opponent had dragged the faults of the clergy into light rather than those of the laity, because if the priests led good lives, as St. John Chrysostom had said, the whole Church would be in a good state; “and if they were corrupt, the faith and virtue of the people fades also and vanishes away.” “Surely, good readers,” exclaims More, “I like these words well.” They are very good, and they prove “the matter right well, and very true is it, nor did I ever say the contrary, but have in my Apology plainly said the same: that every fault in a spiritual man is, by the difference of the person, far worse and more odious to God and man than if it were in a temporal man.” And indeed the saying of St. Chrysostom “were in part the very cause that made me write against his (i.e. Saint-German’s) book. For assuredly, as St. Chrysostom says: ‘If the priesthood be corrupt, the faith and virtue of the people fades and vanishes away.’ This is without any question very true, for though St. Chrysostom had never said it, our Saviour says as much himself. ‘Ye are (saith He to the clergy) the salt of the earth.’ … But, I say, since the priesthood is corrupted it must needs follow that the faith and virtue of the people fades and vanishes away, and on Christ’s words it must follow that, if the spirituality be nought, the temporality must needs be worse than they. I, upon this, conclude on the other side against this ‘Pacifier’s’ book, that since this realm has (as God be thanked indeed it has) as good and as faithful a temporality (though there be a few false brethren in a great multitude of true Catholic men) as any other Christian country of equal size has, it must needs, I say, follow that the clergy (though it have some such false evil brethren too) is not so sorely corrupted as the book of Division would make people think, but on their side they are as good as the temporality are on theirs.”[131]

On one special point Saint-German insists very strongly. As it is a matter upon which much has been said, and upon which people are inclined to believe the worst about the pre-Reformation clergy, it may be worth while to give his views at some length, and then take Sir Thomas More’s opinion also on the subject. It is on the eternal question of the riches of the Church, and the supposed mercenary spirit which pervaded the clergy. “Some lay people say,” writes Saint-German, “that however much religious men have disputed amongst themselves as to the pre-eminence of their particular state in all such things as pertain to the maintenance of the worldly honour of the Church and of spiritual men, which they call the honour of God, and in all such things as pertain to the increase of the riches of spiritual men, all, religious or secular, agree as one.” For this reason it is found that religious men are much more earnest in trying to induce people to undertake and support such works as produce money for themselves, such as trentals, chantries, obits, pardons, and pilgrimages, than in insisting upon the payments of debts, upon restitution for wrong done, or upon works of mercy “to their neighbours poor and needy—sometimes in extreme necessity.”[132]

Sir Thomas More replies that those who object in this way, object not so much because the trentals, &c., tend to make priests rich, but because they “hate” the things themselves. Indeed, some of these things are not such that they make priests so very rich, in fact, as to induce them to use all endeavour to procure them. The chantries, for example, “though they are many, no one man can make any very great living out of them; and that a priest should have some living of such a mean thing as the chantries commonly are, no good man will find great fault.” As for pilgrimages, “though the shrines are well garnished, and the chapel well hanged with wax (candles), few men nowadays, I fear, can have much cause to grudge or complain of the great offerings required from them. Those men make the most ado who offer nothing at all.” And with regard to “pardons,” it should be remembered that they were procured often “by the good faithful devotion of virtuous secular princes, as was the great pardon purchased for Westminster and the Savoy” by Henry VII. “And in good faith I never yet perceived,” he says, “that people make such great offerings at a pardon that we should either much pity their expense or envy the priests that profit.”

“But then the trentals! Lo, they are the things, as you well know, by which the multitude of the clergy and specially the prelates, all get an infinite treasure each year.” For himself, Sir Thomas More hopes and “beseeches God to keep men devoted to the trentals and obits too.” But where this “Pacifier” asserts that “some say that all spiritual men as a body induce people to pilgrimages, pardons, chantries, obits, and trentals, rather than to the payment of their debts, or to restitution of their wrongs, or to deeds of mercy to their neighbours that are poor and needy, and sometimes in extreme necessity, for my part, I thank God,” he says, “that I never heard yet of any one who ever would give that counsel, and no more has this ‘Pacifier’ himself, for he says it only under his common figure of ‘some say.’”[133]

In his second reply, More returns to the same subject. Saint-German speaks much, he says, about “restitution.” This, should there be need, no reasonable man would object to. “But now the matter standeth all in this way: this man talks as if the spirituality were very busy to procure men and induce people (generally) to give money for trentals, to found chantries and obits, to obtain pardons and to go on pilgrimages, leaving their debts unpaid and restitution unmade which should be done first, and that this was the custom of the spirituality. In this,” says More, “standeth the question.” The point is not whether debts and restitution should be satisfied before all other things, which all will allow, but whether the “multitude of the clergy, that is to say either all but a few, or at least the most part, solicit and labour lay people to do these (voluntary) things rather than pay their debts or make restitution for their wrongs.… That the multitude of priests do this, I never heard any honest man for very shame say. For I think it were hard to meet with a priest so wretched, who, were he asked his advice and counsel on that point, would not in so plain a matter, though out of very shame, well and plainly counsel the truth, and if perchance there were found any so shameless as to give contrary counsel, I am very sure they would be by far the fewer, and not as this good man’s first book says, the greater part and multitude.” What, therefore, More blames so much is, that under pretext of an altogether “untrue report” the clergy generally are held up to obloquy and their good name slandered.[134] If he thinks that “I do but mock him to my poor wit, I think it somewhat more civility in some such points as this to mock him a little merrily, than with odious earnest arguments to discuss matters seriously with him.”

In some things even Saint-German considers the outcry raised against the clergy unreasonable. But then, as he truly says, many “work rather upon will than upon reason,” and though possessed of great and good zeal are lacking in necessary discretion. Thus some people, seeing the evils that come to the Church from riches, “have held the opinion that it was not lawful for the Church to have any possessions.” Others, “taking a more mean way,” have thought that the Church ought not to have “that great abundance that” it has, for this induces a love of riches in churchmen and “hinders, and in a manner strangles, the love of God.” These last would-be reformers of churchmen advocate taking away all that is not necessary. Others, again, have gone a step further still, “and because great riches have come to the Church for praying for souls in Purgatory, have affirmed that there is no Purgatory.” In the same way such men would be against pardons, pilgrimages, and chantries. They outwardly appear “to rise against all these … and to despise them, and yet in their hearts they know and believe that all such things are of themselves right good and profitable, as indeed they are, if they are ordered as they should be.”[135]

Sir Thomas More truly says that what is implied in this outcry against the riches of the clergy is that as a body they lead idle, luxurious, if not vicious lives. It is easy enough to talk in this way, but how many men in secular occupations, he asks, would be willing to change? There might be “some who would, and gladly would, have become prelates (for I have heard many laymen who would very willingly have been bishops), and there might be found enough to match those that are evil and naughty secular priests, and those too who have run away from the religious life, and these would, and were able to, match them in their own ways were they never so bad. Yet, as the world goes now, it would not be very easy, I ween, to find sufficient to match the good, even though they be as few as some folk would have them to be.”

In the fifteenth chapter of his book on the Division, Saint-German deals specially with the religious life and with what in his opinion people think about it, and about those who had given up their liberty for a life in the cloister. The matter is important, and considerable extracts are necessary fully to understand the position. “Another cause” of the dislike of the clergy by the laity is to be sought for in the “great laxity and liberty of living that people have seen in religious men. For they say, that though religious men profess obedience and poverty, yet many of them have and will have their own will, with plenty of delicate food in such abundance that no obedience or poverty appears in them. For this reason many have said, and yet say to the present day, that religious men have the most pleasant and delicate life that any men have. And truly, if we behold the holiness and blessed examples of the holy fathers, and of many religious persons that have lived in times past, and of many that now live in these days, we should see right great diversity between them. For many of them, I trow, as great diversity as between heaven and hell.” Then, after quoting the eighteenth chapter of The Following of Christ, he proceeds: “Thus far goeth the said chapter. But the great pity is that most men say that at the present day many religious men will rather follow their own will than the will of their superior, and that they will neither suffer hunger nor thirst, heat nor cold, nakedness, weariness nor labour, but will have riches, honour, dignities, friends, and worldly acquaintances, the attendance of servants at their commands, pleasure and disports, and that more liberally than temporal men have. Thus, say some, are they fallen from true religion, whereby the devotion of the people is in a manner fallen from them.”

“Nevertheless, I doubt not that there are many right good and virtuous religious persons. God forbid that it should be otherwise. But it is said that there are many evil, and that in such a multitude that those who are good cannot, or will not, see them reformed. And one great cause that hinders reform is this: if the most dissolute person in all the community, and the one who lives most openly against the rules of religion, can use this policy, namely, to extol his (form of) religious life above all others, pointing them out as not being so perfect as that to which he belongs, anon he shall be called a good fervent brother, and one that supports his Order, and for this reason his offences shall be looked on the more lightly.”

“Another thing that has caused many people to mislike religious has been the great extremity that has been many times witnessed at the elections of abbots, priors, and such other spiritual sovereigns. And this is a general ground, for when religious men perceive that people mislike them, they in their hearts withdraw their favour and devotion again from them. And in this way charity has waxed cold between them.”

“And verily, I suppose, that it were better that there should be no abbot or prior hereafter allowed to continue over a certain number of years, and that these should be appointed by the authority of the rulers, rather than have such extremities at elections, as in many places has been used in times past.

“And verily, it seems to me, one thing would do great good concerning religious Orders and all religious persons, and that is this: that the Rules and Constitutions of religious bodies should be examined and well considered, whether their rigour and straightness can be borne now in these days as they were at the beginning of the religious Orders. For people be nowadays weaker, as to the majority of men, than they were then. And if it is thought that they (i.e. the Rules) cannot now be kept, that then such relaxations and interpretations of their rules be made, as shall be thought expedient by the rulers. Better it is to have an easy rule well kept, than a strict rule broken without correction. For, thereof followeth a boldness to offend, a quiet heart in an evil conscience: a custom in sin, with many an ill example to the people. By this many have found fault at all religious life, where they should rather have found fault at divers abuses against the true religion. Certain it is that religious life was first ordained by the holy fathers by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, keep it who so may.”[136]

Much of this criticism on the state of the religious orders on the eve of the Reformation is obviously only very general, and would apply to all states of society, composed, as such bodies are, of human members. With much that Saint-German suggests, it is impossible not to agree in principle, however difficult the attainment of the ideal may be in practice. Sir Thomas More, whilst admitting that there were undoubtedly things requiring correction in the religious life of the period, maintains most strongly that in practical working it was far better than any one would gather from the assertions and suggestions of Saint-German, and that in reality, with all their carping at laxity and worldliness, none of the critics of the monks would be willing to change places with them. “As wealthy,” he writes, “and as easy and as glorious as some tell ‘the pacifier’ religious life is, yet if some other would say to them: ‘Lo sirs, those folks who are in religion shall out, come you into religion in their steads; live there better than they do, and you shall have heaven,’ they would answer, I fear me, that they are not weary of the world. And even if they were invited into religion another way, and it was said to them, ‘Sir, we will not bid you live so straight in religion as these men should have done; come on enter, and do just as they did, and then you will have a good, easy, and wealthy life, and much worldly praise for it,’—I ween for all that, a man would not get them to go into it. But as easy as we call it, and as wealthy too—and now peradventure when our wives are angry we wish ourselves therein—were it offered … I ween that for all our words, if that easy and wealthy life that is in religion were offered to us, even as weary as we are of wedding, we would rather bear all our pain abroad than take a religious man’s life of ease in the cloister.”[137]

With some of the accusations of Saint-German, or rather with some of his explanations of the supposed “grudge” borne by the laity to the clergy, More has hardly the patience to deal. They, the clergy, and above all religious, should, the former says, “give alms and wear hair (shirts), and fast and pray that this division may cease.” “Pray, wear hair, fast, and give alms,” says the latter; “why, what else do they do as a rule? Some may not; but then there were some negligent in those matters for the past thousand years, and so the present negligence of a few can’t be the cause of the dissension now.” “But this ‘pacifier,’ perceiving that what one man does in secret another cannot see, is therefore bold to say they do not do all those things he would have them do; that is to say, fast, pray, wear hair (shirts), and give alms. For he says ‘that they do all these things it appears not.’”

Now, “as to praying, it appears indeed that they do this; and that so much that they daily pray, as some of us lay men think it a pain (to do) once a week; to rise so soon from sleep and to wait so long fasting, as on a Sunday to come and hear out their matins. And yet the matins in every parish is neither begun so early nor so long in the saying as it is in the Charter house you know well; and yet at the sloth and gluttony of us, who are lay people, he can wink and fan himself asleep. But as soon as the lips of the clergy stop moving he quickly spies out that they are not praying.”

And “now as touching on alms: Is there none given, does he think, by the spirituality? If he say, as he does, that it does not appear that they do give alms, I might answer again that they but follow in this the counsel of Christ which says: ‘Let not the left hand see what thy right hand doeth.’… But as God, for all that counsel, was content that men should both pray and give to the needy and do other works both of penance and of charity openly and abroad, where there is no desire of vain glory, but that the people by the sight thereof might have occasion therefore to give laud and praise to God, so I dare say boldly that they, both secretly and openly too, … give no little alms in the year, whatsoever this ‘pacifier’ do say. And I somewhat marvel, since he goes so busily abroad that there is no ‘some say,’ almost in the whole realm, which he does not hear and repeat it; I marvel, I say, not a little that he neither sees nor hears from any ‘some say’ that there is almsgiving in the spirituality; I do not much myself go very far abroad, and yet I hear ‘some say’ that there is; and I myself see sometimes so many poor folk at Westminster at the doles, of whom, as far as I have ever heard, the monks are not wont to send many away unserved, that I have myself for the press of them been fain to ride another way.”

“But to this, some one once answered me and said; ‘that it was no thanks to them, for it (came from) lands that good princes have given them.’ But, as I then told him, it was then much less thanks to them that would now give good princes evil counsel to take it from them. And also if we are to call it not giving of alms by them, because other good men have given them the lands from which they give it, from what will you have them give alms? They have no other.…”

Further replying to the insinuation of Saint-German that the religious keep retainers and servants out of pride and for “proud worldly countenance,” Sir Thomas More says: “If men were as ready in regard to a deed of their own, by nature indifferent, to construe the mind and intent of the doer to the better part, as they are, of their own inward goodness, to construe and report it to the worst, then might I say, that the very thing which they call ‘the proud worldly countenance’ they might and should call charitable alms. That is to say, (when they furnish) the right honest keep and good bringing up of so many temporal men in their service, who though not beggars yet perhaps the greater part of them might have to beg if they did not support them but sent them out to look for some service for themselves,” (they are giving charitable alms).

“And just as if you would give a poor man some money because he was in need and yet would make him go and work for it in your garden, lest by your alms he should live idle and become a loiterer, the labour he does, does not take away the nature nor merit of alms: so neither is the keeping of servants no alms, though they may wait on the finder and serve him in his house. And of all alms the chief is, to see people well brought up and well and honestly guided. In which point, though neither part do fully their duty, yet I believe in good faith that in this matter, which is no small alms, the spirituality is rather somewhat before us than in any way drags behind.”[138]

With regard to the charge brought against the clergy of great laxity in fasting and mortification, More thinks this is really a point on which he justly can make merry. Fasting, he says, must be regulated according to custom and the circumstances of time and place. If there were to be a cast-iron rule for fasting, then, when compared with primitive times, people in his day, since they dined at noon, could not be held to fast at all. And yet “the Church to condescend to our infirmity” has allowed men “to say their evensong in Lent before noon,” in order that they might not break their fast before the vesper hour. The fact is that, in More’s opinion, a great deal of the outcry about the unmortified lives of the religious and clergy had “been made in Germany” by those who desired to throw off all such regulations for themselves. As a Teuton had said to him in “Almaine” colloquial English—“when I blamed him,” More says, “for not fasting on a 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.’”[139]

“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.”[140]

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.”[141]

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 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.”[142]

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 beside fares the better for their holy living and their devout prayer.”[143]

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.”

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.”

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 disportes 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.”[144]

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 corpse, and some claim to have all the tapers. Some also claim to have one of the torches that is about the hearse, and others to have all the torches. And if the body be brought in a charette or with coat armour or such other (ornaments), then they claim all the horses and charette and the apparel or part thereof.”[145] Now, in his other book, Saint-German thinks that though these things “are annulled already by statute,” there is rising up “a thing concerning mortuaries,” that “if it be allowed to continue” will cause great difficulties in the near future. It is this: “Many curates not regarding the king’s statute in that behalf, persuade their parishioners when they are sick to believe that they cannot be saved unless they restore them as much as the old mortuary would have amounted to.” All those who act in such a way are, he thinks, “bound in conscience to restitution, since they have obtained money under false information.”[146]

After arguing that Parliament has a right to legislate in all matters concerning goods and property, our author says: “It is certain that all such mortuaries were temporal goods, though they were claimed by spiritual men; and the cause why they were taken away was, because there were few things within this realm which caused more variance among the people than they did, when they were allowed. They were taken so far against the king’s laws and against justice and right, as shall hereafter appear. First they were taken not only after the husband’s death, but also after the death of the wife, who by the law of the realm had no goods, but what were the husband’s. They were taken also from servants and children, as well infants as others; and if a man died on a journey and had a household, he should pay mortuaries in both places.” Whilst in some places both the parson and the vicar claimed the mortuary; “and sometime even the curate (i.e. parish priest) would prohibit poor men to sell their goods, as were likely to come to them as mortuaries, for they would say it was done in order to defraud the Church.” And the mortuaries had to be handed over at once, or they would not bury the body. All these things led to the great growth of mortuaries “by the prescription of the spiritual law, and had they not been put an end to by Parliament they would have grown more and more.

“And in many places they were taken in such a way that it made the people think that their curates loved their mortuaries better than their lives. For this reason there rose in many places great division and grudge between them, which caused a breach of the peace, love, and charity that ought to be between the curate and his parishioners, to the great unquietness of many of the king’s subjects, as well spiritual as temporal, and to the great danger and peril of their souls. For these causes the said mortuaries be annulled by Parliament, as well in conscience as in law, and yet it is said that some curates use great extremities concerning the said mortuaries another way; and that is this: If at the first request the executor pay not the money that is appointed by the statute, they will anon have a citation against him, and in this he shall be so handled that, as it is said, it would have been generally much better for him to have paid the old mortuary, than the costs and expenses he will then have to pay.”[147]

Another fertile cause of complaint against the clergy at this time was, in Saint-German’s opinion, the way in which tithes were exacted; in many cases without much consideration for justice and reason. “In some places, the curates all exact their tenth of everything within the parish that is subject to tithe, although their predecessors from time immemorial have been contented to do without 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.”[148]

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.’”[149] 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 may be taken for granted, even without the admissions of More, but that as a body the clergy, secular or religious, were 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.”[150]

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.”[151]

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 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.”[152]

“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.”[153] 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. The existence of such corruption is not justified by authentic documents or by any impartial and broad estimate of the character and conduct of the nation before the Reformation. If these complaints of preachers and moralists are to be accepted as authoritative on this head, there would be no difficulty in producing abundant evidence from the Reformers themselves that the abuses and enormities of their own age, under Edward VI. and Elizabeth, were far greater than in the ages preceding.”[154]

It is too often assumed that in the choice and education of the clergy little care and discretion was exercised by the bishops and other responsible officials, and that thus those unfit for the sacred ministry by education and character often found their way into the priesthood. In the last Convocation held on the eve of the Reformation a serious attempt was evidently made to correct whatever abuses existed in this matter, when it was enacted that no bishop might ordain any subject not born in his diocese or beneficed in it, or without a domicile in it for three months, even with dimissorial letters. Further, that no secular clerk should be ordained without testimonial letters as to character from the parish priest of the place where he was born or had lived for three years, sealed by the archdeacon of the district, or in the case of a university, by the seal of the vice-chancellor. No one whatsoever was to be admitted to the subdiaconate “who was not so versed in the Epistles and Gospels, at least those contained in the Missal, as to be able at once to explain their grammatical meaning to the examiner.” He must also show that he understands and knows whatever pertains to his office.[155]

The most important book of this period dealing with the life and education of the clergy is a tract printed by Wynkyn de Worde about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was written by William de Melton, Chancellor of York, and at the end is the declaration of Colet, that he has read it and highly approves of its contents.[156] The author states that he desires to instruct the “many young men” who every Ember time come up to York for ordination in their duties. No person, he says, ought to present himself to receive the priesthood who is not prepared to lead a life in all things worthy of the sacred ministry. He should remember that he is really to be accounted one of the twelve who sat with our Lord at His last supper. He must be sufficiently versed in the learning of the world not to dishonour the priestly calling, and above all be taught in His school “who has said, ‘Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart.’”

“And since I am now on the question of those only partly well learned,” continues the author, “I wish all coming for ordination to understand that always and everywhere those who have not yet attained to at least a fair knowledge of good letters are to be rejected as candidates for Holy Orders. They can in no way be considered to have a fair knowledge of letters who, though skilful in grammar, do not possess the science well enough to read promptly and easily Latin books, and above all, the sacred Scriptures, and expound their meaning and the literal signification of the words as they stand in the books; and this not haltingly, but readily and easily, so as to show that they know the language not merely slightly and slenderly, but that they possess a full and radical knowledge of it and its construction. Therefore, those who read the sacred Scriptures or other Latin work with difficulty, or, whilst reading, often mistake the proper connection of the words, or read them with such pauses as to seem not to be used to the Latin language, are to be refused Sacred Orders until, by diligent study, they have become more skilled in their letters.”

In the same way the tract goes on to declare that those who are unable to explain or understand the spiritual signification of Scripture are to be refused ordination to the sacred ministry until they show themselves at least fairly well able to do so. “To be reckoned among even the fairly proficient, we require,” says the author, “such a thorough and sure foundation of grammatical knowledge that there may be hopes that alone and without other teachers they may, from books and diligent study, endeavour day by day to improve themselves by reading and study.” Then addressing the candidates the author begs them, if they feel they have not this necessary foundation, “not through mere presumption to offer themselves to the examiners.” “Seek not a position in the Church of God in which neither now nor during your whole life will you be able to show yourself a fitting minister. For those who before taking Holy Orders have not fitted themselves fairly well in learning rarely if ever are seen to make progress in literature. On the contrary, they ever remain, even to old age, dunces and stupid, and, furthermore, such priests known to the common people for such manifest ignorance are a great scandal which involves the whole sacred ministry.”

Great damage is done to the whole Church of God through the ignorance of the clergy. Both in towns and country places there are priests who occupy themselves, some in mean and servile work, some who give themselves to tavern drinking; the former can hardly help mixing themselves up with women, the latter employ their time in games of dice, &c., and some of them pass it in the vanities of hunting and hawking. Thus do they spend their whole lives to extreme old age in idleness and non-religious occupations. Nor could they do otherwise, for as they are quite ignorant of good letters, how can they be expected to work at and take a pleasure in reading and study; rather throwing away these despised and neglected books, they turn to that kind of miserable and unpriestly life described above, hoping to kill time and cure their dulness by such things.

He then goes on to exhort the young to implant in their hearts a strong desire to study deeply in the books of God’s Law rather than to be tainted thus by the stains and vanities of the world which they were supposed to have left. “It is,” he continues, “impossible that such a holy desire should possess you, unless you have made progress in such studies before taking Holy Orders, and are so advanced in your literary studies that the reading of many books is both easy and pleasant to you, and the construction of the meaning of a passage no longer difficult, but whilst reading you may quickly and easily follow at least the literal sense of the sentence.”

This interesting tract then goes on to warn subdeacons not to take upon themselves the perpetual obligations of Sacred Orders unless they are conscious to themselves of no reason or objection, however secret and hidden, which may stand in the way of their faithfully keeping their promises. They must feel that they enter the ranks of the clergy only from the motive of serving God. Then, after warning the clergy against the vices which specially detract from the sacred character of the priesthood, the author continues, “Let us therefore turn to study, reading, and meditation of the Holy Scriptures as the best remedy against unworthy sloth and foolish desires. Let us not consume the time given us uselessly and fruitlessly.” A priest should say his Hours and Mass daily. He should spend the morning till mid-day in choir and other works, and even then not think he has fulfilled the whole duty of the priesthood. A priest is bound to serious studies and meditation. “Constant reading and meditation of the books of God’s law and the writings of the holy Fathers and Doctors are the best remedy for slothful habits,” and these have been put at the disposition of all through the printing-press. Just as a workman has besides his shop a workroom where he has to spend hours preparing the wares that he offers for sale, so the priest, who in the church on Sunday offers his people the things necessary for salvation, should spend days and nights in holy reading and study in order to make them his own before he hands them on to others. “Wherefore, my dearest brethren, let us think ourselves proper priests only when we find our delight and joy in the constant study of Holy Scripture.”

So much for the important advice given to priests or those intending to be priests as to the necessity of acquiring previous habits of study. Not infrequently the fact that in 1532 Parliament did actually transfer the power of ecclesiastical legislation hitherto possessed by Convocation to the Crown, is adduced as proof that to the nation at large the powers of the clergy, for a long time resented, had at length become a yoke not to be borne. Yet it is clear that the policy of the king to crush the clergy in this way was by no means heartily supported by the Commons. There can be no doubt whatever that the petition of the Commons against the spirituality really emanated from the Court, and that the Lower House was compelled by direct royal influence to take the course indicated by royal will. Four drafts of the petition existing among the State papers in the Record Office put this beyond doubt, as they are all corrected in the well-known hand of Henry’s adviser at this time, Thomas Cromwell. The substance of the petition states that on account of the diffusion of heretical books, and the action of the bishops in spiritual courts, “much discord had arisen between the clergy and the laity at large.” The answer of the bishops denies all knowledge of this discord, at least on their parts. The ordinaries, they said, exercised spiritual jurisdiction, and no one might interfere in that, as their right to make laws in this sphere was from God, and could be proved by Scripture. The two jurisdictions could not clash as they were derived from the same source, namely, the authority given by God. Finally, they practically refused to consider the possibility of any just royal interference in matters of the purely ecclesiastical domain. Their resistance was, of course, as we know, of no avail; but the incident shows that up to the very eve of the changes the clergy had no notion of any surrender of their spiritual prerogatives, and that it was the Crown and not the Commons that was hostile to them.[157]