[Illustration: Fig. 261.--St. Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan Friar, anxious to demonstrate to a heretic, who asked him to perform a miracle, the truth of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, commands a mule to adore the Eucharist. The mule, though ravenously hungry, refuses the oats that his master is sifting, and kneels down at the bidding of the saint.--Miniature from the “Heures” of Anne of Brittany (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century), National Library, Paris.] The disorder prevalent in that century extended unfortunately to the Church; the priests--notably the monks and the regular canons--gradually laid on one side the spirit of holy meditation, the habits of prayer, seclusion, and pious works. Young men were admitted into the abbeys without having gone through the period of novitiate; the monks were not compelled to be resident, and many members of a chapter or of a congregation were never or rarely present at the services. An increase of the penalties for breach of discipline failed to suppress these abuses, and in some churches and communities, those monks who attended the services were provided with counters, each of which, when given up in the chapel, entitled the holder to a small sum of money. Leave of absence was also granted quarterly and half-yearly, on condition that the rest of the year should be passed in residence. Different abbeys formed mutual communities for prayer and good works, which bound them closely together; while, at the end of the thirteenth century, several diocesan chapters had drawn up new constitutional codes, which were to be read each year, and adopted for guidance; but the external troubles were always reacting upon the internal quiet of the religious houses. The abuses which had crept into many of them, in reference to the distribution of the property belonging to the monks in each monastery, also added fresh elements of discord; for the laymen often retained possession of these portions and diminished by so much the resources of the community, which none the less continued to shelter the needy, to feed the hungry, and to bestow alms.