"The Pope
has no part in secular matters," had been the reply of London to the
interdict of Innocent. And within the English Church itself there was much
to call for reform. Its attitude in the strife for the Charter as well as
the after work of the Primate had made it more popular than ever; but its
spiritual energy was less than its political. The disuse of preaching, the
decline of the monastic orders into rich landowners, the non-residence and
ignorance of the parish priests, lowered the religious influence of the
clergy. The abuses of the time foiled even the energy of such men as Bishop
Grosseteste of Lincoln. His constitutions forbid the clergy to haunt
taverns, to gamble, to share in drinking bouts, to mix in the riot and
debauchery of the life of the baronage. But such prohibitions witness to
the prevalence of the evils they denounce. Bishops and deans were still
withdrawn from their ecclesiastical duties to act as ministers, judges, or
ambassadors. Benefices were heaped in hundreds at a time on royal
favourites like John Mansel. Abbeys absorbed the tithes of parishes and
then served them by half-starved vicars, while exemptions purchased from
Rome shielded the scandalous lives of canons and monks from all episcopal
discipline. And behind all this was a group of secular statesmen and
scholars, the successors of such critics as Walter Map, waging indeed no
open warfare with the Church, but noting with bitter sarcasm its abuses and
its faults.

[Sidenote: The Friars]

To bring the world back again within the pale of the Church was the aim of
two religious orders which sprang suddenly to life at the opening of the
thirteenth century. The zeal of the Spaniard Dominic was roused at the
sight of the lordly prelates who sought by fire and sword to win the
Albigensian heretics to the faith. "Zeal," he cried, "must be met by zeal,
lowliness by lowliness, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching lies by
preaching truth." His fiery ardour and rigid orthodoxy were seconded by the
mystical piety, the imaginative enthusiasm of Francis of Assisi. The life
of Francis falls like a stream of tender light across the darkness of the
time. In the frescoes of Giotto or the verse of Dante we see him take
Poverty for his bride. He strips himself of all, he flings his very clothes
at his father's feet, that he may be one with Nature and God. His
passionate verse claims the moon for his sister and the sun for his
brother, he calls