The priests were the first to yield to the corrupting influence. In wishing to raise, they had lowered themselves. They had tried to steal from God a ray of his glory, that they might place it in their own bosom; but, instead of this, had only placed in it some of the leaven of corruption, stolen from the Evil one. The annals of the period teem with scandalous stories. In many places people were pleased to see their priest keeping a mistress, in the hope that it might secure their wives from seduction.[27] How humbling the scene which the house of such a priest must have presented! The unhappy man maintained the woman and the children she might have borne him, out of tithes and alms.[28] His conscience upbraided him. He blushed before his people, his servants, and his God. The woman fearing, that, in the event of the priest's death, she might become destitute, sometimes made provision beforehand, and played the thief in her own house. Her honour was gone, and her children were a living accusation against her. Objects of universal contempt, both parties rushed into quarrelling and dissipation. Such was the home of a priest!... In these fearful scenes, the people read a lesson of which they were not slow to avail themselves.[29] [27] Nicol de Clemangis, De Præsulibus Simoniacis. [28] Words of Seb. Stor., Pastor of Leichstall in 1524. [29] Füsslin Beytræge, ii, 224. The rural districts became the theatre of numerous excesses. The places where priests resided were often the abodes of dissoluteness. Corneille Adrian at Bruges,[30] and Abbot Trinkler at Cappel,[31] imitated the manners of the East, and had their harems. Priests associating with low company, frequented taverns and played at dice, crowning their orgies with quarrels and blasphemy.[32] The Council of Schaffhausen issued an order forbidding priests to dance in public except at marriages, or to carry more than one kind of weapon. They, moreover, ordered that such priests as were found in houses of bad fame should be stript of their cassocks.[33] In the archbishopric of Mayence, they leapt the walls at night, and then shouted and revelled in all sorts of debauchery within taverns and inns. Doors and locks were not secure from their attacks.[34] In several places, each priest was liable to the bishop in a certain tax for the female he kept, and for every child she bore him. One day, a German bishop, who was attending a great festival, openly declared that in a single year, the number of priests who had been brought before him for this purpose amounted to eleven thousand. This account is given by Erasmus.[35] [30] Metern. Nederl. Hist. viii. [31] Hottinger, Hist. Eccles. ix, 305. [32] Order of 3rd March, 1517, by Hugo, Bishop of Constance. [33] Müller's Reliq. iii, 251. [34] Steubing. Gesch. der Nass. Oran Lande.