purpose of forging charters in their own favour, which might easily impose upon an ignorant age, since it has required a peculiar science to detect them in modern times."[6] But though there be evidence enough of monkish worldliness, avarice, and rapacity, in a multitude of instances, it must not be supposed that these societies, powerful as they were, had it all their own way. It is common for persons to think of the monks as having all lived in the midst of abundance, enjoying their possessions in perfect security, their spiritual authority encircling their domains as with a wall of fire. But this is a mistake. Many and sad are the lamentations poured out by monkish chroniclers over the spoliation of their property. Princes and barons were very far from always standing in awe of prelates and abbots: convents were often plundered without mercy, and if the church had spoiled the laity, the laity retaliated with vengeance. "The poverty and distress of the convents, and their want of the necessaries of life, was another feature of ancient society which we little expect. To find Anselm writing to archbishop Lanfranc, and telling him, that oatmeal and beans had been so dear, for a long time, that the great monastery of Bee was in the depths of difficulty, and that, dreadful as the last year's sufferings had been, the next would be worse; to find the archbishop assisting them with twenty pounds, and to hear moving complaints of the distress occasioned to the monks by the town toll, which was rigorously exacted, even on the pot-herbs which composed their scanty _cuisine_, would certainly be quite new matter to most readers."[7] Yet there can be no doubt that these instances were the exceptions, and not the illustrations of the rule; proofs of the wealth of monasteries in general being abundant, and seasons of calamity and depression, of which we find complaints, being only temporary, and owing to accidental circumstances. [1] Rome under the Popes, vol. ii. 245. [2] Man. Bibl. tom, xii. 6 [3] Maitland's Dark Ages, 178. [4] Max. Bibl. pat. xxii. p. 841. [5] Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. vii. [6] Ibid. "A monk of the Abbey of St. Medard, being on his death-bed, confessed, with great contrition and repentance, that he had forged numerous bills of exemption, in favour of various monasteries."--_Palgrave's Proofs and Illustrations_, etc., ccxi. [7] Quarterly Review, vol. lviii. p. 424. SECTION III. MONKISH EMPLOYMENTS.