Henry M. Baird · 66 of 379

CHAPTER I · The clergy before the concordat.

It was the fashion among those who passed for philosophers to ascribe the universal dissolution of morals among French ecclesiastics to the operation of the concordat between Francis the First and Pope Leo the Tenth, which, said they, by bringing so many bishops and other high dignitaries to the court in quest of preferment, had corrupted the characters of the prelates, while exposing their flocks to all the evils which neglect is wont to breed. Unfortunately, the portraits of the period preceding the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction that have come down to us dispel the Arcadian simplicity of manners which seems only to have existed in the imagination of a few warm admirers of everything ancient. If the prelates of France were dissolute after the introduction of the concordat, we are assured by a writer by no means partial to the "new doctrines," that the state of affairs was no better at an earlier period. In their abbeys or bishoprics they were as debauched as those who followed arms for their profession. The bishops bought their places with money, or with promises which were to be fulfilled after preferment. "And when they had attained these high dignities," he adds, "God knows what lives they led. Assuredly they were far more devoted to their dioceses than they have since been; for they never left them. But it was to lead a most dissolute life with their dogs and birds, with their feasts, banquets, marriage entertainments and courtezans, of whom they gathered seraglios.... All this was permitted, and none dared to remonstrate or utter censure. Even more could be related, which is passed over in silence through fear of creating scandal. Our present bishops, if not better men, are at least more discreet hypocrites, and more skilfully conceal their black vices." Nor were the morals of the monastic orders depicted in brighter colors. "Generally the monks elected the most jovial companion, him who was the most fond of women, dogs, and birds, the deepest drinker—in short, the most dissipated; and this in order that, when they had made him abbot or prior, they might be permitted to indulge in similar debauch and pleasure. Indeed, they bound him beforehand by strong oaths, to which he was forced to conform either voluntarily or by constraint. The worst was that, when they failed to agree in their elections, they usually came to blows with fist and sword, and inflicted wounds and even death. In a word, there was more tumult, more faction and intrigue, than there is at the election of the Rector of the University of Paris." It was not strange, therefore, that Francis, unable otherwise to recompense his deserving nobles, should prefer to bestow upon them rich abbeys and priories, rather than leave these to the monks in their cloisters—monks who, as the monarch used to say, "were good for nothing but to eat and drink, to frequent taverns and gamble, to twist cords for the cross-bow, set traps for ferrets and rabbits, and train linnets to whistle"—men whose idleness and other vices were so notorious that the expressions, "He is as idle as a priest or monk," and "Avaricious and lewd as a priest or monk," passed into proverbs.