Erasmus, More and Colet were the men of letters conspicuous in ability and influence during Tindale's boyhood. The three men were in intimate sympathy with one another; and each in his own fashion, exponents of the new learning, gave the country whole-hearted service. All were men of outstanding talent, and labored unceasingly for the ends they had in view. Colet was the preacher of renown. His University lectures on St. Paul's Epistles were scarcely less notable than his sermons in London. Sir Thomas More was witty, intense, versatile, broad-minded, gifted with imagination and courage; but when he encountered the violence of Luther suddenly changed to the recusancy of the bigots and the bishops. Erasmus, the greatest of the three, never altered his plans. He held on his way alike in all weathers undeterred, enlightening his time with the treasures he had found in the New Testament. It was in the year 1516 he issued his Greek Testament, with a Latin version alongside, correcting errors in the Vulgate; and that issue was a landmark in the history of the whole of Europe. These three men incensed the conservatism of the Church. They refused to shut their eyes to the prevalent ignorance and unworthiness of the priesthood. They laid bare the open sores in the body ecclesiastic. Their irony and satire played about abbots, bishops and curés; but in all the castigation inflicted, there was no sign given by the priesthood of change or desire for reformation; only rancour and rage. As the truth got utterance given to it, the people took sides slowly, and the tides of feeling rose and spread. Listen to one voice from the multitude: Men hurt their souls, Alas! for Goddes will; Why sit ye Prelates still And suffer all this ill? Ye Bishops of estates Should open broad the gates Of your spiritual charge And come forth at large Like lanterns of light In the peoples' sight In pulpits awtentike For the weal publyke Of priesthood in this case. —John Skelton. Gloucestershire was a stronghold of the Church. The proverb "As sure as God is in Gloucester" gave point to it. Only a few of the clergy understood the Latin services they read or sang. None of them knew the contents of the Bible; and many were outspoken in their disparagement of it. When argument arose and some rare voice made reference to the Bible, they thought to silence him by saying the Pope, or this or that, was above the Bible. It was in the course of conversation and debate that a certain man ejaculated to Tindale "We were better be without God's laws than the Pope's". The attitude is the more to be remarked because as a consequence of the new learning there had been a wide diffusion of the Bible in the Latin language (the Vulgate) since the invention of printing. No fewer than eighty editions, although one cannot ascertain what was the size of the editions, had been issued between 1462 and 1500.