else. In this case the patron was a monastic body. Very soon afterwards we find Grosseteste refusing a number of presentations. Amongst these was a minor, a boy who hardly knew his letters, and Grosseteste remarked that he would as soon allow a paralytic to take the helm in a storm as to institute such a one to a cure of souls. At the same time, he expressed his willingness to make the boy an annual payment of ten marks to enable him to continue his studies until such time as he would be more fit for the office. To another patron, Grosseteste sent the answers made at his examination, by the man whom he had presented, in proof of his entire unfitness for the post.
Grosseteste also attempted to remedy another abuse, that of a beneficed priest letting out his benefice to a monastic body to be farmed by them. The farming out of livings was very convenient to foreigners. They let their lands to a monastery at a fixed rent, and the monastery made what profit they could out of the bargain. We find Grosseteste refusing the request of the papal Nuncio to allow a certain man to put his living out to farm, on the ground that it would not be for the advantage of the living or the benefit of the place; moreover, he said, religious bodies ought to preach contempt of the world in all that they did, but by their farming of lands they preached the exact contrary, to the great danger of religion and the loss of souls. The Nuncio answered by threatening him, and telling him that everybody would be astonished by such conduct, which was quite unprecedented. Grosseteste replied that he could not act contrary to the dictates of his conscience.
