While awaiting the arrival of the Wittenberg doctors, Christian, a prince at once civilized and savage, a murderer and a lover of literature, a despot, a tyrant, and nevertheless the author of laws really liberal, published a code which did him great credit. He felt the necessity of reforming the clergy; he wished to imbue the ecclesiastics with patriarchal morality, and to suppress the feudal and often corrupt morality which characterized them. A third part of the land belonged to them, and they were incessantly trying to add to their possessions. All the bishops had strong castles and a body of guards in attendance on their persons. The archbishop of Lund was usually accompanied by a hundred and thirty knights, and the other prelates had almost as many. The king forbade that more than twenty mounted guards should escort the archbishop, and that the bishops should not have more than twelve or fourteen domestics.[233] Then, coming to moral order, Christian said—‘No prelate or priest may acquire any lands unless he follow the doctrine of St. Paul (1 Tim. iii.), unless he take a wife and live like his ancestors in the holy state of marriage.’ By suppressing celibacy, the king not only put an end to great licentiousness, but he gave the death-blow to the Romish hierarchy. This law is the more remarkable because it preceded by four years the declaration of Luther against celibacy. Another ordinance displayed the wisdom, and we might almost say the humanity of the king. The bishops had appropriated the right of wreck, so that whenever a ship foundered, their men took possession of all articles which the sea cast up on the shore, and sometimes put the shipwrecked men to death, lest they should reclaim their property. The king withdrew this right from them. The bishops complained. ‘I will allow nothing,’ said the king, ‘which is contrary to the law of God as it is written in the Holy Scriptures.’ ‘They contain no law about waifs and wrecks,’ said a bishop sharply. ‘What then,’ replied Christian, ‘is the meaning of the sixth and eighth commandments—“Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal”?‘[234] [Sidenote: Carlstadt In Denmark.] At this crisis, Carlstadt arrived in Denmark. He was not the man that was wanted. A lover of innovation, and rash in his proceedings, he had by no means the moderation essential for reformers. He was honorably received, and a grand banquet was given him. At table, he was thrown off his guard, he talked a good deal and got excited, and when heated with the feast he violently attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation.[235] This outburst against the fundamental doctrine of Roman Catholicism gave offence even to some of the friends of reform. The bishops took advantage of it. ‘The master,’ they said, ‘is no better than the disciple (Reinhard).’ The imprudent colleague of Luther was politely sent back to Wittenberg.