lawfully take possession of the church of the minister, he could erect his ambulatory pulpit at any cross, in any parish, and rail (as he generally did) at the supineness and ignorance of the resident pastor. If he chanced to be received under the parsonage roof (as he seldom was,) he was felt to be a snake in the grass ready to betray his host in return for his hospitality; and, if he saw a fowl or a flask on his table, to denounce him, in his next day’s harangue, as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber.[79] He could confess whosoever might come to him. It was to no purpose that a parish priest refused absolution to any black sheep of his flock; away he went to a Franciscan, and absolution was given him at once; the more readily, indeed, as an opportunity was thus afforded the friar of expressing his contempt of every ecclesiastical body but his own. Nor did he enter into the labours of the parochial minister only; he had nobler game in another class of seculars--the cathedral clergy. These he reduced to poverty, and the venerable edifices to which they belonged to decay. The cathedrals were erected and maintained by the proceeds of lands--endowments for the most part received from kings, as the parish churches were generally endowed by _lords of manors_; and dioceses, even in this day, would be found, we suspect, on a careful examination, to have a more than imaginary reference in their dimensions to the limits of the several Saxon kingdoms into which the island was divided, as parishes certainly have a reference to the estates of individuals. They were further supported by _pentecostals_, which was an annual composition paid by every household at Pentecost; as an acknowledgement of attachment to the mother church; and, lastly, by _benefactions_, _oblations_, and _obits_, the free-will offerings of the multitude. For a long time these two latter sources of revenue were very considerable. The people had a pride and pleasure in contributing to the erection, the repairs, and the maintenance of these beautiful structures, which were at once the goodly ornaments of the districts in which they stood; the temples of God, to whose service the pious felt themselves thus giving back a part of what he had freely conferred on them; and the tombs of their fathers; for it was the desire of those simple days to be buried near the grave of some man of God, whose memory was fragrant among them, and to lay their bones beside his bones. But the friars poisoned the minds of the people, and shook this allegiance. St. Francis was above all the saints, not to say above the Saviour himself. To die in the weeds of a Franciscan, was to die the death of the righteous: and to repose after death in a Franciscan monastery, was to have angels for the guardians of your sepulchre. Accordingly, about the fourteenth century, the pentecostals began to be evaded; recovery was to be made of them by force of law; and free-will offerings to the cathedrals ceased altogether.