In those Anglo-Saxon times, in which romancers have discovered a wealth of simple virtue, clerical chastity had many chinks in its armour. A Saxon chronicler of the eleventh century attributes the ruin of the kingdom to the vices of the clergy having drawn upon it the wrath of God. It was a common practice for priests to put away their wives, and live in open adultery with other women. A century later no improvement was perceptible, many of the clergy having two wives, and changing them at pleasure. An instance is recorded of the Abbess of Avesbury, whose recklessness in having three children procured her a life-pension, but was surpassed by the laxity of her nuns, who were dismissed from their “abode of love.” Giraldus Cambrensis relates that nearly all parish priests in England and Wales had companions who were indifferently regarded as wives or concubines. In Ireland matters were equally bad, the chief blame being naturally visited on the less guilty women. The condition of Scotland may be imagined from a single instance in the sixteenth century. A certain Prior--afterwards Bishop of Moray--once had a pleasant conversation with his gentlemen regarding the number of their mistresses, and chuckled in glee over the fact that, though the youngest man present, he had outdone them all. He rejoiced in twelve mistresses, of whom seven were the wives of other men. His achievement paled before that of Cardinal Pier-Leone, who used to make his visitations as Papal Legate accompanied by a concubine and by his children--who were also his sister’s.