The indebtedness of the Church must have shocked Edward’s sympathies as a Christian, just as much as the indebtedness of the lay landholders thwarted his schemes as a statesman. For the condition of ecclesiastical estates was indeed deplorable. They had begun to fall into debt in the twelfth century, no doubt in consequence of the expense that was necessary for the erection of great buildings, and their debts had gone on growing, partly in consequence of bad management, partly through the necessity of fulfilling the duties of hospitality by keeping open house continually, partly through the exactions of the Pope and the King. The Bishop of Lincoln pledged the plate of his cathedral, the Abbot of Peterborough the bones of the patron-saint of his Abbey; at Bury St. Edmunds each obedientiary had his own seal, which he could apply to bonds which involved the whole house; and loans were freely contracted which accumulated at 50 per cent.[59] Hence in the thirteenth century Matthew Paris wrote that “there was scarcely anyone in England, especially a bishop, who was not caught in the meshes of the usurers.”[60] “Wise men knew that the land was corrupted by them.”[61] The literary documents of the latter half of the century fully confirm these accounts. The See of Canterbury was weighed down with an ever-growing load of debt when John of Peckham first went to it.[62] The buildings of the cathedral were becoming dilapidated for want of money to repair them.[63] Those of the neighbouring Priory of Christ Church were in an equally bad state, and its revenue was equally encumbered.[64] The bishop of Norwich was so poor that in spite of the extortions regularly practised by his officials, he had to borrow six hundred marks from the Archbishop of Canterbury.[65] The Bishop of Hereford had been compelled to seek the intervention of Henry III., in order to obtain respite of his debts to the Jews.[66] The Abbey of Glastonbury was weighed down by “immeasurable debts,” and, in order to save it from further calamities, the Archbishop had to order a reorganisation of expenditure so thorough as to include regulations concerning the number of dishes with which the abbot might be served in his private room.[67] The Prior of Lewes asked permission to turn one of his churches from its right use, and to let it for five years to any one who would hire it, in order that he might thus get together some money to help to pay off what the priory owed.[68] The Church of Newnton could not afford clergymen.[69] Even the great Monastery of St. Swithin’s, Winchester, in spite of the revenue that its monks drew from the sale of wine and fur and spiceries, and from the tolls paid by the traders who attended its great annual fair, was always in debt, sometimes to the amount of several thousand pounds.[70] Except in the cutting down of timber and the granting of life annuities in return for the payment of a lump sum, the religious houses had no resources except the money-lenders.[71]