All the possessions of the clergy were exempt from taxation. Tithes, at first limited to a tenth of the products of the soil, were, by ecclesiastical artifice and Papal rapacity, extended and made to include the entire yield of every crop, the increase of every herb, the labor of every artisan. Without taking into account the territorial area in the hands of the See of Rome at the period of the Reformation, the monastic guilds and corporations had absorbed half of the livings of Great Britain. The revenues of some religious foundations in that country were not less than fifty thousand pounds sterling, reckoning voluntary donations alone. In the thirteenth century the English clergy bore to the laity the ratio of one to four hundred in number, while their lands amounted to thirty-three per cent. of the entire real property of the kingdom. In Spain during the same period the proportion of ecclesiastics was one to seven, and fifty per cent. of the landed possessions under Christian control belonged to them. The pressing necessities of grasping and irreverent princes, who did not scruple to appropriate under various pretexts the riches of the ecclesiastical order, alone prevented the eventual exclusion of the laity of Europe from all ownership of or jurisdiction over the soil. No religious service could be more solemn, no spectacle more awe-inspiring, than the celebration of a Church festival in one of the grand old abbey chapels in mediæval times. The edifice itself was the ideal of architectural beauty. Through the elegant designs of painted windows, the light, in iridescent hues, shone in tempered radiance over the richly sculptured tombs of prelate and crusader and the checkered pavement brilliant with its graceful patterns of tile and marble mosaic. The walls of nave and transept were hung with tapestry, embroidered sometimes with representations of scriptural events, sometimes with the figures of departed abbots or the portraits of a line of famous kings. The altar, before whose holy presence constantly burned rows of waxen tapers, glittered with ornaments bestowed by the hand of opulent piety and massive reliquaries set with priceless gems. The resounding notes of the Gregorian chant filled the air; the officiating monks in splendid vestments, the pomp of crucifix and incense, added to the impressiveness of the ceremonial and imparted to the scene a striking representation of divine worship which could hardly be paralleled in Rome itself. Truly, in its palmy days the monastery was an important adjunct to Papal power and grandeur!