f his animosity are the Roman
Catholic clergy and the high nobles. "The clergy call themselves
shepherds and are murderers under a show of saintliness: when I look
upon their dress I remember Isengrin (the wolf in the romance of
Reynard, the Fox) who wished one day to break into the sheep-fold: but
for fear of the dogs he dressed himself in a sheepskin and then devoured
as many as he would. Kings and emperors, dukes, counts and knights used
to rule the world; now the priests have the power which they have gained
by robbery and treachery, by hypocrisy, force and preaching." "Eagles
and vultures smell not the carrion so readily as priests and preachers
smell out the rich: a rich man is their friend and should a sickness
strike him down, he must make them presents to the loss of his
relations. Frenchmen and priests are reputed bad and rightly so: usurers [86]
and traitors possess the whole world, for with deceit have they so
confounded the world that there is no class to whom their doctrine is
unknown." Peire inveighs against the disgraces of particular orders; the
Preaching Friars or Jacobin monks who discuss the relative merits of
special wines after their feasts, whose lives are spent in disputes and
who declare all who differ from them to be Vaudois heretics, who worm
men's private affairs out of them, that they may make themselves feared:
some of his charges against the monastic orders are quite unprintable.

No less vigorous are his invectives against the rich and the social
evils of his time. The tone of regret that underlies Guiraut de
Bornelh's satires in this theme is replaced in Peire Cardenal's
_sirventes_ by a burning sense of injustice. Covetousness, the love of
pleasure, injustice to the poor, treachery and deceit and moral laxity
are among his favourite themes. "He who abhors truth and hates the
right, careers to hell and directs his course to the abyss: for many a
man builds walls and palaces with the goods of others and yet the
witless world says that he is on the right path, because he is clever
and prosperous. As silver is refined in the fire, so the patient poor
are purified under grievous oppression: and with what splendour the
shameless rich man may feed and clothe himself, his riches bring him
nought but pain, grief and vexation of spirit. But that affrights him [87]
not: capons and game, good wine and the dainties of the earth console
him and cheer his heart. Then he prays to God and says 'I am