The way in which the Pope and his council, called the Curia, had been governing, or misgoverning, the Church, had given great offence for many years. The monasteries and the convents, that is to say, the {42} establishments of the monks and the nuns, had done much useful work in acquiring learning and in educating the people throughout Christendom in religious and other knowledge. Many of them were doing good work still. But the condition of most of them appears to have become very bad, both monks and nuns being lazy, gluttonous, and worse--setting the worst possible example to the common people. They were careful perhaps about the performance of the religious ceremonies in the churches, but their religion had little or no influence on the conduct of their lives. Against Rome itself the complaint of Christendom was not only that it did not exercise its authority to amend these ill practices, and that the very same practices were followed in Rome itself, but also that the Pope and his council exacted money, from the people generally and even from the clergy themselves, and did not apply the money to the purposes for which it had been demanded. For the demand was made on the plea that the money was needed to equip armies to fight the Turk, and those armies were never summoned or put in movement. The money was diverted to increase the private wealth and pomp of Pope and Cardinals and high church dignitaries at Rome. So there was sufficient cause of offence, both at the centre and in every part of the world over which the Pope claimed authority. We saw in the last volume how our own Wycliffe, and how Huss, in Bohemia, had raised furious protests against these evils in the Church. The fire of those fierce protests was still smouldering. The people understood the protests better. The knowledge of the Bible was not so entirely the possession of the clerics as it had been. The printing press had made many copies. Moreover, the Greeks and the knowledge of the Greek language, {43} in which the New Testament was written, had been widely dispersed when the Turks took Constantinople--the headquarters of the Greek Church. Luther's first act of protest against the action of Rome was directed against the sale of "Indulgences," as they were called. These "indulgences" were written pardons for sin. They were even credited with power to bring out of Purgatory a soul that was there already. And they--that is to say, the parchments or papers with the pardon written on them--could be bought. They could be bought from people called "pardoners" who sold them on behalf of Rome, and the Pope's explanation was that the money was needed for the building at Rome of the Cathedral of St. Peter. [Sidenote: The burning of the "Bull"]