CLERGY AND LAITY
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]