"Now was ther of that churche a parish clerk, The which that was ycleped Absolon. Crulle was his here,[273] and as the gold it shon, And strouted as a fanne large and brode; Ful streight and even lay his jolly shode. His rode[274] was red, his eyen grey as goos, With Poules windowes carven on his shoos, In hosen red he went ful fetisly,[275] Yclad he was ful smal and proprely, All in a kirtle of a light waget,[276] Ful faire and thicke ben the pointes set. An' therupon he had a gay surplise, As white as is the blossome upon the rise.[277] A mery child he was, so God me save, Wel coud he leten blod, and clippe, and shave, And make a chartre of lond and a quitance; In twenty manere could he trip and dance, (After the scole of Oxenforde tho) And playen songes on a smal ribible.[278] Therto he song, sometime a loud quinible.[278] And as wel could he play on a giterne. In all the toun n'as brewhouse ne taverne That he ne visited with his solas, Ther as that any galliard tapstere was. This Absolon, that joly was and gay, Goth with a censor on the holy day, Censing the wives of the parish faste,[279] And many a lovely loke he on hem caste. * * * * * Sometime to shew his lightnesse and maistrie, He plaieth Herode on a skaffold hie." CHAPTER III. THE PARISH PRIEST. We shall obtain further help to a comprehension of the character, and position, and popular estimation of the mediæval seculars--the parish priests--if we compare them first with the regulars--the monks and friars--and then with their modern representatives the parochial clergy. One great point of difference between the regulars and the seculars was that the monks and friars affected asceticism, and the parish priests did not. The monks and friars had taken the three vows of absolute poverty, voluntary celibacy, and implicit obedience to the superior of the convent. The parish priests, on the contrary, had their benefices and their private property; they long resisted the obligations of celibacy, which popes and councils tried to lay upon them; they were themselves spiritual rulers in their own parishes, subject only to the constitutional rule of the bishop. The monks professed to shut themselves up from the world, and to mortify their bodily appetites in order the better, as they considered, to work out their own salvation. The friars professed to be the schools of the prophets, to have the spirit of Nazariteship, to be followers of Elijah and John Baptist, to wear sackcloth, and live hardly, and go about as preachers of repentance. The secular clergy had no desire and felt no need to shut themselves up from the world like monks; they did not feel called upon, with the friars, to imitate John Baptist, "neither eating nor drinking," seeing that a greater than he came "eating and drinking" and living the common life of men. They rather looked upon Christian priests