The vast ecclesiastical system, whose ramifications extended to the most insignificant hamlets of every country in Europe and whose jurisdiction was paramount in the domains of the most powerful monarchs, carried with it the abuses and vices of the central and irresponsible authority. The spiritual courts of provincial metropolitans and bishops presented on a diminished scale the greed and sensuality of the Vatican. The same organized simony regulated the presentation and promotion of clerk and prelate. The same iniquitous expedients were adopted for the augmentation of ecclesiastical revenues. Priests and bishops lived in avowed and unblushing concubinage. The seraglio of the Abbot of San Pelayo de Antealtaria contained seventy concubines. Henry III., Bishop of Liege, acknowledged the paternity of sixty-five illegitimate children. In Spain, the metropolitans, as well as their subordinates, maintained harems guarded by eunuchs. In Germany, sacerdotal dignitaries of the highest rank endeavored to overturn the empire by the aid of idolaters, and enlisted bands of robbers who plundered cities and extorted enormous ransoms from wealthy merchants and defenceless travellers. In France, the clergy of Verdun regularly furnished Jewish traders with Christian children who had been emasculated for the slave-markets of Cordova and Seville. In Italy, the sale of young and beautiful maidens to the Moors of Sicily and Mauritania, which had invoked the indignant protest of Charlemagne, was for many years one of the most lucrative perquisites of the priesthood.