prove at least that efforts were made to repress them. The bishops must
have the benefit of the plea, and the two following instances will show how
far it will avail their cause. In the Records of the London Court I find a
certain Thomas Wyseman, priest, summoned for fornication and incontinency.
He was enjoined for penance, that on the succeeding Sunday, while high mass
was singing, he should offer at each of the altars in the Church of St.
Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five
_Paternosters_, five _Ave Marys_, and five _Credos_. On the following
Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix,
standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace. This
penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for
absolution, paying six shillings and eightpence.[203]

An exposure too common to attract notice, and a fine of six and eightpence
was held sufficient penalty for a mortal sin.

Even this, however, was a severe sentence compared with the sentence passed
upon another priest who confessed to incest with the prioress of Kilbourn.
The offender was condemned to bear a cross in a procession in his parish
church, and was excused his remaining guilt for three shillings and
fourpence.[204]

I might multiply such instances indefinitely; but there is no occasion for
me to stain my pages with them.[205]

An inactive imagination may readily picture to itself the indignation
likely to have been felt by a high-minded people, when they were forced to
submit their lives, their habits, their most intimate conversations and
opinions to a censorship conducted by clergy of such a character; when the
offences of these clergy themselves were passed over with such indifferent
carelessness. Men began to ask themselves who and what these persons were
who retained the privileges of saints,[206] and were incapable of the most
ordinary duties; and for many years before the burst of the Reformation the
coming storm was gathering. Priests were hooted, or "knocked down into the
kennel,"[207] as they walked along the streets--women refused to receive
the holy bread from hands which they thought polluted,[208] and the
appearance of an apparitor of the courts to serve a process or a citation
in a private house was a signal for instant explosion. Violent words were
the least which these officials had to fear, and they were fortunate if
they escaped so lightly. A strange