the following few statements, all of them from the works of authors themselves clergymen, and none of them disposed to be over-severe judges of the order to which they belong.
Dean Hook says[1] 'the celibacy imposed upon the monks, whether in holy orders or not, had a more demoralising influence upon them than it had upon the secular clergy. The secular clergy took to themselves wives, though in so doing they felt themselves to be lowered in the estimation of their neighbours; but the monks, being in community, could not evade the law in this manner, and the licentiousness of their conduct became proverbial.' Again, he says 'the condemnation of the clergy, regular and secular, is most emphatically proclaimed by the institution of the mendicant orders. The mendicant orders came into existence because in the task of evangelising the people the clergy were unwilling or incompetent to do what the circumstances required. The superior clergy were, as we have seen, absorbed in the world of politics. The inferior clergy were employed in prosecuting rather than instructing their flocks; while those among them who endeavoured conscientiously to discharge the duties of a pastor were involved in a routine of ceremonial observances. The monks were living as country gentlemen, not always of high repute.' Further on in his Life of Archbishop Islip is a noticeable passage.[2] Complaint being made of the abuse of 'benefit of clergy,' and of the inadequacy of the punishment inflicted upon the delinquencies of clerks, the Archbishop says that he and his suffragans are fearful that the abuses (which they, in fact, admit)
