spended over him [o].
[FN [m] Ibid. [n] Ibid. [o] M. Paris, p. 157. Trivet, p. 152. Ann.
Waverl. p. 170. M. West. p. 268.]

The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of
one person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and
eternal welfare. The execution of it was calculated to strike the
senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force
on the superstitious minds of the people. The nation was of a sudden
deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were
despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the
statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and, as if the air
itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the
priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and
veneration. The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches: the
bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the
ground with the other sacred utensils. Mass was celebrated with shut
doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy
institution. The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism
to new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not
interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or
buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with
prayers or any hallowed ceremony. Marriage was celebrated in the
church-yard [p]; and that every action in life might bear the marks of
this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat,
as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all
pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even to salute each
other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent
attention to their person and apparel. Every circumstance carried
symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate
apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.
[FN [p] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]

The king, that he might oppose HIS temporal to THEIR spiritual
terrors, immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates
of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict [q]; banished the prelates,
confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small
allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with
food and ra