The inmates of the religious houses entertained far closer relations with the great body of the population than did the secular clergy. The original simplicity of their lives, the apparent fervor of their devotion, acquired for them a peculiar sanctity which their subsequent irregularities could never entirely abrogate. Unlike the secular priesthood, whose traditions were of an aristocratic tendency, their necessities and their ministrations brought them in intimate contact with the lower orders of the people, who repaid their services with fulsome idolatry. Of the two divisions of the regular clergy, the friars, who only differed from the monks in that they subsisted on alms, enjoyed the greater consideration. Their blessing was earnestly solicited by the traveller on the highway. Ladies wore their rope girdles in Lent, partly by way of penance, partly as amulets of sovereign virtue against the machinations of evil spirits. The spurious relics which they hawked about were supposed to be endowed with more miraculous qualities than those retailed by the bishop in the cathedral. Their eloquence carried with its pathetic appeals and homely illustrations a conviction denied to the labored efforts of the most accomplished and popular preacher. It was not within the power of human nature to long withstand the allurements which such opportunities for luxurious indulgence afforded. Within less than half a century from their foundation, the mendicant friars of St. Francis could boast of wealth equal to that of any of the monastic orders. Their common appellation Cordelier, derived from their hempen girdle, became a synonym of lubricity and drunkenness. Both monks and friars enticed wives from their husbands, and not infrequently reduced the latter to beggary. They administered narcotics and aphrodisiacs to nuns, and pointed to their contortions and incoherent ravings as the effects of divine inspiration. It was an ordinary occurrence for young girls to don male attire and take up their abode in a monastery; and a memorial of the time of Henry VII. of England is extant in which the royal protection is solicited by the farmers and gentry of Carnarvonshire against the dissolute practices of the regular clergy. The profanity of the monks during the celebration of the mass, and their offensive language in the confessional, sometimes resulted in temporary suspension from those sacerdotal functions. Gaming was a common amusement in which even abbesses had been known to indulge. Whenever an abbot died the treasury was plundered, and its contents distributed among the brethren fortunate enough to be present.