He was a typical Neapolitan--dark-eyed, keen-witted, of very robust frame and very frail moral instincts--and the Pope needed such men. During the first seven years of his Pontificate Boniface was kept in check by the older cardinals, but, as they died, he sought money by fair or foul means for the recovery of Italy. France and Spain sent their gifts to Avignon, and England and Germany were not generous. Benefices, from the highest to the lowest, were sold daily, and the "first fruits" were demanded in advance. As the system developed, spies were employed over Italy and Germany to report on the health of aged beneficiaries, and there was a sordid traffic in "expectations." Baldassare Cossa, the chief instrument of this gross simony, had various scales of payment, and the purchaser of the "expectation" of a benefice might find it sold over him to a higher bidder for a "preference." A Jubilee had been announced for the year 1390, and Boniface got the fruits of it, but this did not deter him from reaping another golden harvest from a Jubilee in 1400. As, moreover, many pilgrims, especially in Germany and Scandinavia, were deterred from coming to Rome by the bands of robbers and ravishers who infested the Papal estates, Boniface generously enacted that Germans might obtain the same pardon by visiting certain shrines nearer home and paying to Papal agents the cost of a journey to Rome. These simoniacal practices are established and admitted, quite apart from the testimony of Dietrich. We must, indeed, admit the evidence of Dietrich when he tells us that he saw these Papal agents spread their silk curtains and unfold their Papal banners in the churches of Germany, and heard them declare to the ignorant people that St. Peter himself had not greater power than they. We may also easily believe his assurance that many of the German clergy denounced this traffic in indulgences[266] and that it brought enormous sums to the Papacy. But the precise sums, and the romantic stories, which Dietrich gives on hearsay, especially in regard to Cossa, must be regarded with reserve. He says that Cossa, when Legate at Bologna, arrested one of these monk-agents returning to Rome with his bags of gold and relieved him; and that the monk hanged himself in despair. These are fragments of foolish rumour. We cannot deal so summarily with his statement that the Chamberlain had his percentage of the profits and let it grow in the hands of the usurers; and that he extorted money from prelates by mendaciously representing that Boniface was angry with them and offering to mediate. All that we can say with confidence is that Cossa was the chief instrument of the Pope's nefarious system, and that, although he had no private means, he amassed an enormous fortune. The Council of Constance established this charge against him, as we shall see.