The excessive fees charged in the episcopal courts for the probate of
wills, the gifts known as mortuaries claimed on occasions of death,
the absence of the bishops and the clergy from their dioceses and
parishes to the consequent neglect of their duties to the people, the
bestowal of benefices oftentimes on poorly qualified clerics to the
exclusion of learned and zealous priests, the appointment of clerics
to positions that should have been filled by laymen on the lands of
the bishops and monasteries, and the interference of some of the
clergy both secular and regular in purely secular pursuits were the
principal grievances brought forward in 1529 by the House of Commons
against the spirituality. But in determining the value of such a
document it should be remembered that it was inspired by the king, and
in fact drafted by Thomas Cromwell, at a time when both king and
minister were determined to crush the power of the Church, and that,
therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that it is exaggerated and
unfair. According to the express statement of Sir Thomas More, Lord
Chancellor of England, who was in a position to know and appreciate
the relations between clergy and people, the division was neither so
acute nor so serious as it was painted by those who wished to favour
religious innovations or to ingratiate themselves with the king and
his advisers.[11]

But, even though there existed some differences of opinion about
matters concerned with the temporalities of the Church or the
privileges of the clergy, there is no indication during the thirty
years preceding the revolt of any marked hostility to the doctrines
and practices of the Church. In an earlier age the Lollards, as the
followers of Wycliff were called, put forward doctrines closely akin
to those advocated by the early Reformers, notably in regard to the