had corrupted the acknowledged chief guardians of incorruptible treasures,
even though few may have avowed this love as openly as the "idle" "Canon,"
whose "Yeoman" had so strange a tale to tell to the Canterbury pilgrims
concerning his master's absorbing devotion to the problem of the
multiplication of gold. To what a point the popular discontent with the
vices of the higher secular clergy had advanced in the last decennium of
the century, may be seen from the poem called the "Complaint of the
Ploughman"--a production pretending to be by the same hand which in the
"Vision" had dwelt on the sufferings of the people and on the sinfulness
of the ruling classes. Justly or unjustly, the indictment was brought
against the priests of being the agents of every evil influence among the
people, the soldiers of an army of which the true head was not God, but
Belial.

In earlier days the Church had known how to compensate the people for the
secular clergy's neglect, or imperfect performance, of its duties. But in
no respect had the ecclesiastical world more changed than in this. The
older monastic Orders had long since lost themselves in unconcealed
worldliness; how, for instance, had the Benedictines changed their
character since the remote times when their Order had been the principal
agent in revivifying the religion of the land! Now, they were taunted
with their very name, as having been bestowed upon them "by antiphrasis,"
i.e. by contraries. From many of their monasteries, and from the inmates
who dwelt in these comfortable halls, had vanished even all pretence of
disguise. Chaucer's "Monk" paid no attention to the rule of St. Benedict,
and of his disciple St. Maur,

Because that it was old and somewhat strait;

and preferred to fall in with the notions of later times. He was an