"Then as for all the priests and minor clerks, There are, God knows, too many of them whose works And daily life belie their daily preaching. Scarce better are they than so many Turks, Though they, no doubt, may be well taught--it irks Me not to own the fulness of their teaching-- For, learned or ignorant, they're ever bent To make a traffic of each sacrament, The Mass's holy sacrifice included; And when they shrive an honest penitent, Who will not bribe, his penance they augment, For honesty should never be obtruded-- But this, by sinners fair, is easily eluded. "Tis true the monks and friars make ample show Of rules austere which they all undergo, But this the vainest is of all pretences. In sooth, they live full twice as well, we know, As e'er they did at home, despite their vow, And all their mock parade of abstinences. No jollier life than theirs can be, indeed; And specially the begging friars exceed, Whose frock grants license as abroad they wander. These motives 'tis which to the Orders lead So many worthless men, in sorest need Of pelf, which on their vices they may squander, And then, the frock protects them in their plunder."[45] It was inevitable that such a religion should breed dissidence and such a priesthood provoke revolt. CHAPTER II. HERESY. The Church, which we have seen so far removed from its ideal and so derelict in its duties, found itself, somewhat unexpectedly, confronted by new dangers and threatened in the very citadel of its power. Just as its triumph over king and kaiser was complete a new enemy arose in the awakened consciousness of man. The dense ignorance of the tenth century, which followed the evanescent Carlovingian civilization, had begun in the eleventh to yield to the first faint pulsations of intellectual movement. Early in the twelfth century that movement already shows in its gathering force the promise of the development which was to render Europe the home of art and science, of learning, culture, and civilization. The stagnation of the human mind could not be thus broken without leading to inquiry and to doubt. When men began to reason and to ask questions, to criticise and to speculate on forbidden topics, it was not possible for them to avoid seeing how woful was the contrast between the teaching and the practice of the Church, and how little correspondence existed between religion and ritual, between the lives of monk and priest and the profession of their vows. Even the blind reverence which for generations had been felt for the utterances of the Church began to be shaken. Such a book as Abelard's "Sic et Non," in which the contradictions of tradition and decretal were pitilessly set forth, was not only an indication of mental disquiet ripening to rebellion, but a fruitful source of future trouble in sowing the seeds of further investigation and irreverence.