convent, invested with a sacrosanct character which was at least in part
respected, found therein the opportunity for prayer, meditation and study
which was denied them elsewhere. They could maintain a standard of piety,
and keep a rudimentary education from altogether dying out. For centuries
they were the only source of alms and succour to which the afflicted and
needy could turn; and so long as the rules of the Orders were observed in
the spirit and in the letter, they were a genuine help towards a life of
self-devotion, of self-abnegation whereof the ultimate motive was not
always a subtle form of self-seeking. But as time passed, the monasteries
became the recipients of the bounty of pious benefactors. Their
inhabitants, in spite of ascetic regulations, found that life was none so
hard--at least in comparison with that of serfdom or villeinage; luxuries
were not less available than to the laity. The privileges of the sacred
office gave increasing opportunities for vicious indulgence when once
corruption had entered a Religious house. Promotion became the prize of
intrigue instead of the recognition of piety; till it came to be no scandal
when a political priest was rewarded for his services by presentation to
the rule of a wealthy abbey, with which he was connected only as the chief
recipient of its revenues, as when Wolsey had St. Albans bestowed on him in
return for his diplomatic labours. Apart from the diatribes of zealots and
the evidence of interested informers, apart also from the inclination to
generalise from well authenticated but extreme examples, it is evident
that, in the absence of a positive religious enthusiasm, the system was
peculiarly liable to grave degeneration; and it was long since there had
been any active spiritual revival to counteract that tendency.

[Sidenote: The proofs]

To these general considerations we have also to add the direct positive
evidence in connexion with Cardinal Morton's visitations of the Monasteries