But the thing was intolerable to Grosseteste. He had studied in Paris, he welcomed Dominican and Franciscan friars from the continent as no other prelate did, and had no objection to foreigners _per se_. But the pope claimed the revenues of church livings for boys and presented illiterates to benefices--to the obvious degradation of the Church in England. Grosseteste was always willing enough to raise what money he could for the holy see, but appoint unworthy and incompetent clerks to livings in his diocese, that he would not do--not for any pope. The country groaned under the biting avarice of the Roman see, as it bled under the vampire politics of Peter des Roches and his needy, greedy crew of Bretons and Poitevins. What it all meant to England Matthew Paris has told us in his description of things in 1237: “Now was simony practised without shame and usurers on various pleas openly extorted money from the common people and lesser folk; charity expired, the liberty of the Church withered away, religion was trampled to the dust. Daily did illiterate persons of the lowest class, armed with bulls from Rome, burst forth into threats; and, in spite of the privileges handed down to us from good men of old, they feared not to plunder the revenues consecrated by our holy forefathers for the service of religion, the support of the poor, and the nourishment of strangers, but thundering out their excommunications they quickly and violently carried off what they demanded. And if those who were wronged and robbed sought refuge by appealing or pleading their privileges, they were at once suspended and excommunicated by a papal writ. Thus mourning and lamentation were heard on all sides, and many exclaimed with heart-rending sobs, ‘It were better to die than to behold the sufferings of our country and its saints. Woe to England, once the chief of provinces, the mistress of nations, the mirror of the Church, the exemplar of religion, and now brought under tribute,--trampled on by worthless men, and the prey of men of low degree.’” The arrival of Otho, in 1237, a papal legate (on the request of Henry), far from remedying, increased the contemporary distress. For though Otho was a discreet man, he was more eager to get money for Rome than to deal with the oppression that plagued England, and when he did give advice it was spurned by those who saw his grasping hands. Archbishop Edmund was particularly vexed at having a papal legate set over him, and what with one disappointment and another finally gave up in despair the task of guiding the English Church, and in 1240 went to die at Pontigny, where his predecessors Anselm and Thomas had lived in exile. Grosseteste stuck to his post, and the Franciscans and Dominicans, whom he aided, poured in oil and wine on the wounds of the Church folk, and revived religion in the country.