"The houses of these villagers were mean and dirty. Brickmaking was a lost art, stone was found only in a few places. The wood fire was on a hob of clay. Chimneys were unknown, except in castles and manor houses, and the smoke escaped through the door or whatever other aperture it could, reach. The floor of the homestead was filthy enough, but the surroundings were filthier still. Close by the door stood the mixen, a collection of every abomination streams from which, in rainy weather, fertilized the lower meadows, generally the lord's pasture, and polluted the stream. The house of the peasant cottager was poorer still. Most of them were probably built of posts wattled and plastered with clay or mud, with an upper storey of poles reached by a ladder."
"What the lord took he held by right of force; what the Church had it held by force of cunning. And as, in the long run, the cunning of the Church was more powerful than the force of the robber-lord, the priesthood grew in riches until its wealth became a threat to the whole of .the community. In England, in the thirteenth century, the clergy numbered one in fifty-two of the population, and the possessions of the Church included a third of the land of England. No opportunity was lost by the Church to drain money from the people whether they were rich or poor. The trade done in candles, and sales of indulgences brought in large sums of money, and there were continuous disputes between the clergy and the king and the Pope as to the divisions of the spoil. The picture of the Church watching over the poor, sheltering them from wrong, tending them in sickness, and relieving them in their poverty will not do. It is totally without historic foundation. When the poor revolted, and apart from the great revolts, there were many small and local outbreaks, the anger of the poor was directed as much against the Church as it was
