He was thoroughly familiar with the facts that modern research has brought to light in regard to the methods of securing signatures to the various petitions presented to the King, and knew how much less they represented than they purported to.[169] Very real abuses in the Church, which were undoubtedly largely responsible for the low spiritual state of the people at large, were those of pluralities, non-residence, and lack of properly qualified preachers, although the number of clergy holding more than one living has been exaggerated. To a very great extent, the reason for the practice, as well as the cause of the great number of inferior, and even immoral, men, who were to be found in the Church, was economic. As we noted in an earlier chapter, the period had been one of an unexampled rise in prices, and in both the cost and scale of living. The tithes, which supported the clergymen, had originally been paid in kind, but had gradually been commuted into money payments at a time when prices were low, and the general manner of living far inferior to that of the later Elizabethan period. In 1585, over one half of all the clergy received salaries of less than £10 each;[170] of these, approximately three thousand received less than £5, and one thousand but £2 annually, or less.[171] Footnote 169: Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, pp. 45, 291, 294, 412. On the unreliability of Puritan petitions in other cases also, _cf._ Tatham, _Puritans in Power_, pp. 59 _ff._ Footnote 170: J. Strype, _Life and Acts of Archbishop Whitgift_ (Oxford, 1822), vol. I, p. 371. Footnote 171: Usher, _Reconstruction_, vol. I, p. 219.