Institutions for making money, for pillaging the poor of their hard-
earned pittance, trafficked in by greedy ministers and needy courtiers
with a shamelessness which had long ceased to blush at vices however
gross, at venality however mean.

Venality was in truth the prominent characteristic of the Spanish polity
at this epoch. Everything political or ecclesiastical, from highest to
lowest, was matter of merchandize.

It was the autocrat, governing king and kingdom, who disposed of
episcopal mitres, cardinals' hats, commanders' crosses, the offices of
regidores or municipal magistrates in all the cities, farmings of
revenues, collectorships of taxes, at prices fixed by himself.

It was never known that the pope refused to confirm the ecclesiastical
nominations which were made by the Spanish court.

The nuncius had the privilege of dispensing the small cures from thirty
dollars a year downwards, of which the number was enormous. Many of
these were capable, in careful hands, of becoming ten times as valuable
as their nominal estimate, and the business in them became in consequence
very extensive and lucrative. They were often disposed of for the
benefit of servants and the hangers-on of noble families, to laymen, to
women, children, to babes unborn.

When such was the most thriving industry in the land, was it wonderful
that the poor of high and low degree were anxious in ever-increasing
swarms to effect their entrance into convent, monastery, and church, and
that trade, agriculture, and manufactures languished?