limited experience, a just estimate of the morality of the times in which they live; and if the complaints of preachers and moralists are to be accepted as authoritative on this head, there would be no difficulty in producing abundant evidence from the Reformers themselves that the abuses and enormities of their own age, under Edward VI and Elizabeth, were far greater than in the ages preceding."1

In close connection with this subject of the laxity of morals at this period, is the question of the instructions, if any, given by the priests to their people. It has been assumed, too hastily as I think, that for all practical purposes systematic religious and moral teaching had ceased. That such instruction was ordered by the laws of the Church and that the clergy were reminded of this obligation by the provisions of many English Synods, does not admit of doubt; whilst the publication of various manuals to assist the clergy in the performance of this plain duty, in the sixteenth century, would seem to show that it was not neglected. Set sermons and ornate discourses were probably rare, but more important for the conveyance of religious and moral instruction than these were the homely talks of the parish priest with his people. There is no evidence that these were neglected to any great extent; and the fact that the English people, even in those days, were fond of listening to the voice of a preacher, would point at least to the improbability of such neglect. Moreover, one piece of evidence in the shape of the Examinations of Conscience which exist, is decisive. These are specially valuable indications of matters regarded as absolute obligations, the neglect of which was considered grave

enough to make it a subject of confession. It would consequently be not at all likely that we should find set down things not regarded as obligations, or which, in the event of priests not fulfilling their part, could not be set down as against the conscience of the lay people. Yet this is what we find: "Also I have been slow in God's service and negligent to pray and for to go to the church in due time. . . loathe to hear the Word of God and the preacher of the Word of God. Neither have I imprinted it in my heart and bare it away and wrought thereafter." Again: "I have been setting nought by preaching and teaching of God's word, by thinking it an idle thing," and, to take one more example: "If you are a priest be a true lantern to the people both in speaking and in living and faithfully doing truly all things which belong to a priest. And seek wisely the ground of truth and the true office of the priesthood and be not ruled blindly by the lewd customs of the world. Read God's law and the expositions of the holy doctors and study and learn and keep it. And when thou know'st it, preach and teach it to those that are unlearned,"

2

We come now to the question of the general feeling of the people, in the period preceding the religious change, towards the ecclesiastical system which prevailed. Was it popular, or were Englishmen, on the contrary, restless and discontented and looking for emancipation? Without doubt here in England, as elsewhere in the Church throughout the world, many earnest men saw things that needed change, but so far as there is evidence at all on the matter, their wish was to improve, not to destroy, the system. Even to the very eve of 2 MS. 115, f. 51.

1 Harl. MS. 172, f. 126.

the change there is no sign of any desire to alter the basis of the ancient system; and even those who attacked what they considered abuses were actuated by the wish to make the edifice of the Church in Catholic England more solid, more like Christ's ideal. So far as the people were concerned the change, when it came, was, to use a familiar phrase, “like a bolt from the blue." On this point the testimony of Mr. Brewer is again conclusive. "There is no reason to suppose," he writes, "that the nation as a body was discontented with the old religion. Facts point to the opposite conclusion. Had it been so, Mary, whose attachment to the Faith of her mother was well known, would never have been permitted to mount the throne, or have found the task comparatively easy, seeing that the Reformers under Edward VI had been suffered to have their own way unchecked, and to displace from honour and influence all who opposed their religious principles. Long down into the reign of Elizabeth, according to the testimony of a modern historian, the old Faith still numbered a majority of adherents in England. . . . This rooted attachment to the old Faith, and the difficulty everywhere experienced by the government and the bishops in weaning the clergy and their flocks from their ancient tendencies, is a sufficient proof that it was not unpopular." 1

The influence of the Church in regard to clerical education was exercised in a way which could hardly fail to render it generally popular in Catholic England. The ecclesiastical body was largely recruited from those in the lower ranks of society whom either directly or indirectly the authorities had assisted to their first footVI, p. 470.

hold on the ladder by which they might rise to the highest ecclesiastical preferment in the land. This was the case not only in regard to the early education which they received in the cathedral and monastic schools, and in regard to the assistance bestowed by individual churchmen, but even more so in regard to university endowments. There can be no question that a large proportion of the old college revenues at Oxford and Cambridge were intended by the original donors to help poor students to receive a higher education. "The Church," says a writer by no means favourable to the system which existed before the great religious change, "The Church, as all know, was the one body in which equality of conditions was the rule from the start. There at least men of ability could rise. . . . Sixtus V was picked up out of the gutter; our Englishman, Nicholas Breakspeare, Adrian IV, was a poor labourer's son, and these are but two instances out of thousands of distinguished ecclesiastics of humble birth." Then, after speaking of the way the influence of the ecclesiastical system which prevailed in mediaeval England was ever exerted "for the people," he continues: "All this was trifling compared with the work done in the way of general education. The conventual establishments and the parish priests did far more than is commonly supposed in the direction of elementary teaching. But the higher education at the universities? Where would Oxford be to-day but for the splendid munificence of bishops, monks, and nuns? Fourteen of the finest colleges were founded by these celibate ecclesiastics and recluses for the benefit, above all, of the children of the people."

A few examples taken at haphazard may be given of

this ecclesiastical patronage of education. Richard Pace, the well-known Greek professor at Cambridge, was a poor boy in a school which Thomas Langton, Bishop of Winchester, had established in his own house. The boy was fond of music, and the Bishop, attracted by this sign of ability, sent him to Italy, paying for him whilst studying at Padua and Ferrara. Canterbury College, Oxford, the monastic establishment at the University connected with Christchurch, Canterbury, affords, at the period of the revival of studies in the fifteenth century and later, many examples of the help extended to youths in the prosecution of their studies. At this college there were not only the monastic students, but also some clerics and even laymen who had been sent thither by the Archbishop or the convent of Christchurch to receive free quarters at the University. In all probability Linacre, after receiving his early education at Canterbury from Sellyng the monk, was lodged at the Canterbury Oxford College; certainly the university career of the celebrated Sir Thomas More was passed there, and that he to the last retained his affection for the brethren of Canterbury is evidenced by the fact that in the height of his fame he became a "confrater" of that house, as his father, Sir John, had been before him.

In the Christchurch letter-books there are to be seen many instances of the care taken by the Prior and community to provide at the University for their protégés. Prior Sellyng, for instance, in the midst of all his business, writes about the clothes and money set aside for a lay student who had been sent there. We have elsewhere examples of boys educated in the Canterbury free school, being elected by the monks into the number of their community, and being thus provided with the means of a