[Sidenote: Efforts to raise their character.] The spiritual jurisdiction for which churchmen contended so jealously had altogether failed to preserve discipline. The secularization of the clergy rendered this failure specially disastrous; for a clerk, who had laid aside everything clerical except the tonsure, and had perhaps concealed that, if accused of any crime, however grave, was immediately claimed by his order, and was only amenable to a law that was powerless to inflict an adequate punishment for the worst offences. Nor were clerical offenders rare, for the number of those in orders of one kind or another was very large. Many of them had little to do, their duties merely consisting in the performance of anniversary services, and so, being idle, they were prone to self-indulgence and mischief. Several of the archbishops of Canterbury endeavoured, as we have seen, to restore discipline, but the spiritual courts were corrupt, and their efforts were of little avail. Yet, while the laity saw discipline utterly broken down, they found the spiritual courts strong enough to oppress them with heavy fees, especially in testamentary cases, and in various other ways, and the cost and vexation entailed by ecclesiastical processes were a constant source of irritation. At the same time, high as the pretensions of the clergy were, there can be no doubt that the clerical standard was lowered by the pestilence. Many benefices were suddenly vacated, and there were few to fill them. The ranks of the clergy must have been recruited with men of inferior education, and it was by them that the vacant cures were supplied. Some efforts were made to remedy the ignorance of those who should have been the teachers of the people. Islip's foundation at Oxford has already been noticed; it was soon to be followed by the more magnificent foundations of William of Wykeham. Meanwhile, in the north, the most backward part of the kingdom, Archbishop Thoresby, a prelate of noble character, laboured to bring about a better state of things. He constantly visited different parts of his diocese, teaching, and correcting abuses, and in order that his people might know the elements of Christianity, he published a kind of catechism in two versions, one in Latin for the clergy, whose ignorance and carelessness he severely reprehended, and the other in English verse for the laity. [Sidenote: Attack on the clerical ministers and the wealthy clergy, 1371.]