theft is not so great an offence that it ought to be punished
with death, nor doth that refrain them, since they cannot live but by
thieving. There be many servitors of idle gentlemen, who, when their
master is dead, and they be thrust forth, have no craft whereby to earn
their bread, nor can find other service, who must either starve for
hunger or manfully play the thieves.

"'Moreover, look how your sheep do consume and devour whole fields,
houses, and cities. For noblemen and gentlemen, yea, and certain abbots,
holy men, God wot, where groweth the finest wool, do enclose all in
pastures, pluck down towns, and leave nought standing but only the
church, to make it a sheep-house. Whereby the husbandmen are thrust out
of their own! and then what can they do else but steal, and then justly,
God wot, be hanged? Furthermore, victuals and other matters are dearer,
seeing rich men buy up all, and with their monopoly keep the market as
it please them. Unless you find a remedy for these enormities, you shall
in vain vaunt yourselves of executing justice upon felons.

"'Beside, it is a pernicious thing that a thief and a murderer should
suffer the like punishment, seeing that thereby the thief is rather
provoked to kill. But among the polylerytes in Persia there is a custom
that they which be convict of felony are condemned to be common
labourers, yet not harshly entreated, but condemned to death if they
seek to run away. For they are also apparelled all alike, and to aid
them is servitude for a free man.'

"Now the cardinal pronounced that this were a good order to take with
vagabonds. But a certain parasite sayeth in jest that this were then an
excellent order to take with the friars, seeing that they were the
veriest vagabonds that be; a friar thereupon took the jest in very ill
part, and could not refrain himself from calling the fellow ribald,
villain, and the son of perdition; whereat the jester became a scoffer
indeed, for he could play a part in that play, no man better, making the
friar more foolishly wrath than before.

"Now, none of them would have harkened to my counsel until the cardinal
did approve it. So that if I were sitting in counsel with the French
king, whose counsellors were all urging him to war; and should I counsel
him not to meddle with Italy, but rather to tarry still at home; and
should propose to him the decrees of the Achoricus which dwell over
against the Island of Utopia, who having by war conq