Heresy and the Friars 377 In sooth, they live full twice as well, we know, As e'er they did at home, despite their vow, And all their mock parade of abstinences. No jollier life than theirs can be, indeed ; And specially the begging friars exceed, Whose frock grants license as abroad they wander. These motives 't is which to the Orders lead So many worthless men, in sorest need Of pelf, which on their vices they may squander, And then, the frock protects them in their plunder. II. AN UNIMPEACHABLE REPORT OF THE HABITS OF THE CLERGY OF NORMANDY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY It is not unnatural to suspect that the troubadours and popular writers exceeded the bounds of truth in their pungent satires, and were guilty at times of exag- geration in their denunciations; but the cold daily record which the conscientious archbishop of Rouen, Eudes Rigaud, kept of his pastoral visits in the middle of the thirteenth century is open to no such objection. There is no reason to suppose that he did not tell the exact truth ; and had we such reports as his for the condition of the clergy in the other archbishoprics of western Europe, it would be easy to determine how far the preachers, reformers, and the troubadours were justified in the dark picture which they give of the lives of the clergy. It must be conceded that, so far as Normandy is concerned, the evidence of the archbishop would show that, in many of the parishes, monasteries, and nun- neries matters could hardly have been worse, although occasionally he found dutiful priests, and monks and nuns who observed the rule under which they lived.
