It is not my desire to bring railing accusations against the morals of the clergy. It is, however, quite certain that if a large body of men without much learning or love of learning, to whom is assigned work which occupies them for a very small portion of the day, are forbidden to marry, and if they live for the most part among the lower classes in the City, drinking freely, and as much as they can afford, the result will be, must be, the prevalence of immorality among them. There are plenty of examples and proofs of this condition of things. There is the case in 1385 of Elizabeth Moring, who received girls nominally as apprentices, but really to live a lewd life, and “to consort with friars, chaplains, and other such men.” In 1406 we read of one William Langford, chaplain, taken in adultery with Margaret, wife of Richard Dod. In 1255 a certain Chaplain and Parish Priest took Sanctuary in St. Paul’s and confessed to having stolen sixteen silver dishes. In 1320 a Chaplain is taken up for being a Night Walker and carrying arms against the peace. In 1416 William Cratford, a priest, is reported as a common and notorious thief and hawker on the roads. In 1408 Riley reports that the Letter Book about this time (Henry IV.-Henry VI.) contains “some dozens of similar charges,” viz. of fornication and adultery. The way they tried to check the vice and punish the offender was by forbidding any one to pay or engage the incriminated clerk. This was done in 1413, when two priests of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, were taken in adultery at the same time with two women in the Church. How far can William of Langland be trusted in setting forth the truth without exaggeration? One knows not. In _Piers Plowman_, however, the figure of Sloth is a priest. He confesses (Skeat’s Edition, B. Passus v. p. 168):— “I have be prest and parsoun passynge thretti wynter, Gete can I neither solfe [Sol-Fa] ne synge ne seyntes lyues rede, But I can fynde in a felde or in a fourlonge [furrow] an hare, Better than in _beatus vir_ or in _beati omnes_ Construe oon clause wel and kenne it to my parochienes. I can holde lovedays and here a reve’s rekenynge, Ac in canoun ne in decretales I can nought rede a line.” Many other things point to the scandalous lives of the religious. Thus, the Bishop of Lincoln—not London,—in the reign of Henry III., visiting the religious houses in his diocese, searched the bedrooms and the beds of the monks and friars, and caused examination of the closest possible kind to be made in the nunneries. This would hardly be done without grave suspicions and reports. Another crying scandal in the Church was the appointment of foreigners to high offices and benefices.