resorted to new and unheard-of methods for extorting it from the people. He asked more and more for confirmation to a bishopric, and usurped the right to make appointments that had formerly been exercised by the local authorities. Finally, benefices were sold to the highest bidder, or given away for services done to his Holiness. Boniface of Rome started the practice of giving away benefices, even before they were vacated. His example was followed by the bishops, until simony became the general custom, and the Church was full of men totally unfit for a clerical profession.
Another great evil in the Church was the enormous number of endowments. The idea of vicarious devotion had become so general that the court, the nobility, and even the wealthy citizens, had their family chapel or altar in some church where a special priest was appointed to serve mass and say prayers for the souls of his patrons. The number of clerics thus officiating increased to such an extent that one church in Prague had three hundred priests connected with it. The common parish churches usually had from ten to twenty. Most of these were supported by the endowments; besides this, they obtained considerable money upon various pretexts, and so were able to live in luxury and ease.
The high-handed treatment that Archbishop Jenstein received at the hands of King Václav, and the immunity of the latter from punishment, did much to weaken the power of the clergy in Bohemia. Jenstein’s successor, Archbishop Olbram, was so subservient to the wishes of the king that nothing is heard of him for the whole time he was in office. These facts explain why it was that the preachers who denounced
