should turn to the prejudice of—'clerical privilege'! Again, at a later time, in the primacy of Kemp, he tells us[1] that 'every act of legislation in the Church tends to show the low condition of morals among the clergy, and their neglect of duty.' They are charged, besides, with constant quarrelling and litigation with one another, with frequenting taverns, shows, cells of suspected women, and unlawful games. And in general terms he says, speaking of the middle of the fifteenth century, 'It is admitted by all persons and by all parties that the Church from this time and a century before till the age of the Reformation was in point of morals and legislation in a very degraded state.'[2]
Professor Creighton[3] also quotes from Von der Hardt a frightful account of the licentiousness of the clergy, and adds: 'Denunciations to the same effect might be quoted from writers of almost every land. … Lamentations over the corruptions of the clergy were not confined to a few enthusiasts: men of high ecclesiastical position and undoubted orthodoxy spoke openly of the abuses which everywhere prevailed.'
Finally, Bishop Stubbs[4], in a passage to which I will only refer my readers in this place, gives similar evidence.
The same authority has also an interesting passage concerning the effect of the clergy in keeping alive through the darkest period some sparks of learning and education. He says: 'Some forms of intellectual culture were spread everywhere, and although perhaps it would still be as easy to find a clerk who could not read as a layman who could, it is a mistake to regard even so dark a period as the fifteenth century as an age of dense
