At the same time, there were always scandals. Who could expect in a monastery that all the younger monks should retain their purity? And when there was nothing else to think about, who could expect men not to think about their food? In the time of Henry the Second, Giraldus Cambrensis relates that the monks of Canterbury had sixteen covers, or more, with an abundance of wine, “particularly claret, mulberry wine, mead, and other strong drinks.” And it is related by the same authority that the monks of St. Swithin’s complained to Henry the Second that the Bishop had reduced their dishes to ten. Upon which the King swore that the Bishop should reduce the number to what suited himself, namely, three. The monastic life expected of those who followed it, not a mere obedience to the Rule, but a total absorption in the spirit of the Rule, so that the Brethren should not look constantly for possible relaxation and for indulgences, but should desire more and more all the austerity possible under the Rule. And because there was everywhere a falling-off from the austerity of the Rule, new branches were continually founded, and new Orders continually sprang up, in order to return to the ancient Rule with new austerities. When the Brethren fell to relaxing any portion of the Rule, the downfall of the House began. Then the spirit went out of the services, the meaning went out of the offices, the sense went out of the Rules; the Brethren became either like Rabelais, weary to death with the daily iteration of services, or they became careless and sensual, evading and breaking vows as well as the Rule; or they became dry sticklers for order and jealous for minor customs, though the essentials had long been lost. This was already the case in the fourteenth century. Decay was active in most of the Monastic Houses; things were whispered; but still the bequests poured in upon them from citizens rich and poor; people were loth to part with the belief in the godly monks. And that there were still saintly hearts in the cloister, still pious women in the nunnery, even in the worst times of any, there can be no doubt. But, further, there can be no doubt, also, that there was never any considerable or notable body of scholars in the English Monasteries from the time of their foundation to their Dissolution, and that no Monastic Rule ever devised was calculated to create a love of learning or a school of students, theologians, or philosophers.