3i6 THE ANTIQUITIES 



laity saw with indignation the wealth and possessions of 

 their pious ancestors perverted to the service of sensuality 

 and indulgence ; and spent in gratifications highly un- 

 becoming 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 Wickliffe's principles and doctrines had 

 made some progress, were well received by men who 

 wished for a reformation, and were defended and main- 

 tained 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 em- 

 powered to support the corrupt doctrines of the church ; 

 but the first loUard was not burned tQl 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 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 remark- 

 able 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 dis- 

 sipation ; 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 love-days, and a loud begger ; 

 A pricker on a palfrey 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 curtesle. 



