"I am Wrath, quod he, I was sum tyme a frere, And the convent's gardyner for to graff impes[280] On limitoures and listers lesyngs I imped Till they bere leaves of low speech lordes to please And sithen thier blossomed abrode in bower to hear shriftes. And now is fallen therof a fruite, that folk have well liever Shewen her shriftes to hem than shryve hem to ther parsones. And now, parsons have perceyved that freres part with hem, These possessioners preache and deprave freres, And freres find hem in default, as folk beareth witness."--v. 143. And again on the same grievance of the friars gaining the confidence of the people away from their parish priests-- "And well is this y-holde: in parisches of Engelonde, For persones and parish prestes: that shulde the peple shryve, Ben curatoures called: to know and to hele. Alle that ben her parishens: penaunce to enjoine, And shulden be ashamed in her shrifte: an shame maketh hem wende, And fleen to the freres: as fals folke to Westmynstere, That borwith and bereth it thider."[281] When we compare the mediæval seculars with the modern clergy, we find that the modern clergy form a much more homogeneous body. In the mediæval seculars the bishop was often one who had been a monk or friar; the cathedral clergy in many dioceses were regulars. Then, besides the parsons and parochial chaplains, who answer to our incumbents and curates, there were the chantry and gild priests, and priests who "lived at rovers on trentals;" the great number of domestic chaplains must have considerably affected the relations of the parochial clergy to the gentry. Of the inferior ecclesiastical people, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes, readers, exorcists, and ostiaries it is probable that in an ordinary parish there would be only a parish clerk and a boy-acolyte; in larger churches an ostiary besides, answering to our verger, and in cathedrals a larger staff of minor officials; but it is doubtful whether there was any real working staff of sub-deacons, readers, exorcists, any more than we in these days have a working order of deacons; men passed through those orders on their way upwards to the priesthood, but made no stay in them. But a still greater difference between the mediæval secular clergy and the modern parochial clergy is in their relative position with respect to society generally. The homogeneous body of "the bishops and clergy" are the only representatives of a clergy in the eyes of modern English society; the relative position of the secular clergy in the eyes of the mediæval world was less exclusive and far inferior. The seculars were only one order of the clergy, sharing the title with monks and friars, and they were commonly held as inferior to the one in wealth and learning, and to the other in holiness and zeal.