474 ANTIQUITIES 



and indulgence, and spent in gratifications highly unbe- 

 coming the purposes for which they were given. A total 

 disregard to their respective rules and discipline drew on 

 the monks and canons a heavy load of popular odium. Some 

 good men there were who endeavoured to oppose the general 

 delinquency; but their efforts were too feeble to stem the 

 torrent of monastic luxury. As far back as the year 1381 

 Wickliffo's principles and doctrines had made some pro- 

 gress, were well received by men who wished for a reforma- 

 tion, and were defended and maintained by them as long as 

 they dared ; till the bishops and clergy began to be so 

 greatly alarmed, that they procured an act to be passed by 

 which the secular arm was empowered to support the 

 corrupt doctrines of the church ; but the first lollard was 

 not burnt till the year 1401. 



The wits also of those times did not spare the gross 

 morals of the clergy, but boldly ridiculed their ignorance 

 and profligacy. The most remarkable of these were 

 Chaucer, and his contemporary, Robert Langelande, better 

 known by the name of Piers Plowman. The laughable 

 tales of the former are familiar to almost every reader ; 

 while the visions of the latter are but in few hands. With 

 a quotation from the Passus Decimus of this writer I shall 

 conclude my letter ; not only on account of the remarkable 

 prediction therein contained, which carries with it somewhat 

 of the air of a prophecy ; but also as it seems to have been 

 a striking picture of monastic insolence and dissipation: 

 and a specimen of one of the keenest pieces of satire now 

 perhaps subsisting in any language, ancient or modern. 



" Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ; 

 A leader of leve-days, and a loud begger ; 

 A pricker on a palfry from maner to maner, 

 A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were. 

 And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring, 

 He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie. 

 Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs, 

 To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars. 

 In many places ther they persons be, by hemself at ease ; 

 Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie ; 

 And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad. 



