But worst of all appear to have been the “clerics” or hired lay writers, who hung about the convents, and were chiefly engaged in copying or multiplying manuscripts. They are described as very low, profligate, disorderly people. The kind of esteem in which they were held is shown by the following lines from a mediæval ballad:— “But if thou begin for drink to call or crave, Thou for thy calling such good reward shalt have, That none shall call thee malapert or dronke, Or an abbey lowne _or limner of a monke_.”[260] With this extract we must bid adieu to the drinking practices of “Merrie England in the olden time.” So far we have witnessed the state of affairs whilst the Roman Catholic Church held sway over the land, and in our next chapter we shall see whether there was any improvement under Protestant rule, and bring our inquiry down to the present day. CHAPTER XI. ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY. Before entering upon the consideration of the drinking habits of the English in Protestant times, it will only be fair and impartial to state the plea which has been urged in favour of the mediæval taverns; and we have the less hesitation in so doing, inasmuch as the justification for their existence on the grounds advanced no longer holds good in the present day. The village tavern, it is said, was not what it is to-day—a resort for the idle and dissolute; it was the “public-house,” where men of all ranks met together and enjoyed each other’s society—where, indeed, distinctions between the hall, castle, and the cottage were for the time obliterated. By some writers it is thought that the clergy themselves did not absolutely discountenance taverns for the laity, especially after the “ales” and similar meetings had been removed to the places called “church-houses” from within the precincts of the churches themselves. “When, therefore, the bishops ordered the clergy to expend less time in alehouses,” says one author, “it is not to be inferred that the bishops regarded these places as necessarily vicious and scandalous; the fair inference from the episcopal injunction being that the chiefs of the Church wished to impress upon the subordinate priests that the obligations of the clerical office required them to exercise forbearance with respect to social enjoyments.”[261] That this statement is in the main accurate was shown in our last chapter, and it is confirmed by a reference to the canons and injunctions of the Church. For example: “Canon 30.—A priest should not drink in taverns _like laymen_.”[262] Again, “But we do not comprise in this prohibition strangers who are travelling, and those who come together in fairs or markets, although they meet in taverns.”[263] And, “They (priests) are forbidden to enter taverns for drinking, unless they are on a journey, or to take part in drinking assemblies,” &c.[264]