Henry M. Baird · 73 of 379

CHAPTER I · Abortive efforts at reform.

It does not enter into the province of this history to discuss in detail the causes of the deplorable vices that characterized the priesthood on the eve of the great religious movement of the sixteenth century; nor can we pause to make that analysis of the doctrinal errors then prevalent, which belongs rather to the office of the historian of the Reformation. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we glance hastily at some of the partial and abortive efforts directed toward the reform of doctrine and manners of which mediæval France was the theatre.