The authority of the ecclesiastical tribunals was openly defied, their proceedings derided, their judges insulted, their subordinate officers maltreated. In London, towards the close of the fifteenth century, it was a serious matter to attempt to serve a process of the Consistorial Court. The power for evil of this once formidable engine of persecution, which had exercised an offensive censorship over every community, had become hopelessly impaired. Of such a character were the religious instructors of the people of Western Christendom for five hundred years. The original austerity of the monastic orders had disappeared. In no instance had it actually survived the first century dating from the institution of any ecclesiastical fraternity. With it had departed by far the greater portion of its capacity for usefulness. The daily lives of the secular priesthood presented disgusting examples of human depravity. Among the laity, the rich, at least, were secure from damnation; for by a judicious and liberal offering and the deposit of a schedule of their sins under the altar-cloth of a compassionate saint, in a few hours the sheet was found to be blank and the generous penitent, by the immediate intercession of his patron, was absolved from the consequences of his transgressions without the delay or the exposure of confession. The foundation of a religious house was often derived from the fears or the repentance of a wealthy and superstitious sinner. An immense tract of unimproved land was conveyed to a colony of monks. In the most sequestered spot, far removed from the turmoil, the vanities, and the temptations of the world, an unpretending structure, composed of wattled boughs and thatched with straw or rushes, was constructed. The surrounding forest was stocked with game. A neighboring lake or streamlet furnished a supply of fish. In many fraternities, however, such food was forbidden, for the austerity of discipline sometimes permitted nothing but a meagre diet of herbs and pulse washed down with water. The obligations of their profession as well as the necessity of sustenance required that a portion of their time should be spent in the cultivation of the soil. A number of the brethren labored in the fields while the others attended to the domestic and sacred duties enjoined by their monastic vows. In some monkish abodes the voice of praise was never silent. Relays of choristers occupied the chapel without intermission day or night. The summons to devotion were frequent. To preserve decorum, spies were appointed to report irregularities of conduct within the monastery. No monk was permitted to leave its precincts without a companion, that each might restrain the other from the indulgence in sinful thoughts and carnal recreations. In the cloister the recluse was constantly reminded of the requirements and obligations of his profession by the fervent exhortations of his superior and the enforced observance of silence, meditation, and prayer.