work was committed to an underpaid vicar or representative, who was
obliged often to resort to all kinds of devices to secure sufficient
means of support. Again though plurality of benefices was prohibited
by several decrees, yet during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
nothing was more common than to find one individual holding, by virtue
of a papal dispensation, two, three, six, ten, and possibly more
benefices to most of which the care of souls was attached. Such a
state of affairs was regarded as an intolerable scandal by right
minded Christians, whether lay or cleric, and was condemned by decrees
of Popes and councils; but as exceptions were made in favour of
cardinals or princes, and as even outside these cases dispensations
were given frequently, the evils of plurality continued unabated.

Again, the frequent applications for and concessions of dispensations
in canonical irregularities by the Roman congregations were likely to
make a bad impression, and to arouse the suspicion that wholesome
regulations were being abandoned for the sake of the dispensation fees
paid to the officials. Similarly, too, complaints were made about the
dispensations given in the marriage impediments, and the abuses
alleged against preachers to whose charge the duty of preaching
indulgences was committed. Furthermore, the custom of accepting
appeals in the Roman Courts, even when the matters in dispute were of
the most trivial kind, was prejudicial to the local authorities, while
the undue prolongation of such suits left the Roman lawyers exposed to
the charge of making fees rather than justice the motive of their
exertions.

The disturbances produced by the schism, and the interference of the
state in episcopal elections helped to secure the appointment of many
unworthy bishops. Even in the worst days of the fifteenth and