ourse, the worthy who filled the office of "Summoner"
to the court of the archdeacon in question, had a keen eye for the
profitable improprieties subject to its penalties, and was aided in his
efforts by the professional abettors of vice whom he kept "ready to his
hand." Nor is it strange that the undisguised worldliness of many
members of the clerical profession should have reproduced itself in
other lay subordinates, even in the parish clerks, at all times apt to
copy their betters, though we would fain hope such was not the case
with the parish clerk, in "the jolly Absalom" of the "Miller's Tale."
The love of gold had corrupted the acknowledged chief guardians of
incorruptible treasures, even though few may have avowed this love as
openly as the "idle" "Canon," whose "Yeoman" had so strange a tale to
tell to the Canterbury pilgrims concerning his master's absorbing
devotion to the problem of the multiplication of gold. To what a point
the popular discontent with the vices of the higher secular clergy had
advanced in the last decennium of the century, may be seen from the
poem called the "Complaint of the Ploughman"--a production pretending
to be by the same hand which in the "Vision" had dwelt on the
sufferings of the people and on the sinfulness of the ruling classes.
Justly or unjustly, the indictment was brought against the priests of
being the agents of every evil influence among the people, the soldiers
of an army of which the true head was not God, but Belial.

In earlier days the Church had known how to compensate the people for
the secular clergy's neglect, or imperfect performance, of its duties.
But in no respect had the ecclesiastical world more changed than in
this. The older monastic Orders had long since lost themselves in
unconcealed worldliness; how, for instance, had the Benedictines
changed their character since the remote times when their Order had
been the principal agent in revivifying the religion of the land! Now,
they were taunted with their very name, as having been bestowed upon
them "by antiphrasis," i.e. by contraries. From many of their
monasteries, and from the inmates who dwelt in these comfortable halls,
had vanished even all pretence of disguise. Chaucer's "Monk" paid no
attention to the rule of St. Benedict, and of his disciple St. Maur,

Because that it was old and somewhat strait;

and preferred to fall in with the notions of later times. He was an
"outrider, that loved v