Even greater social evils resulted from the immunities from secular law which the clergy succeeded in gaining. The first of these was that worthless men were attracted to the Church, and did as they pleased under the shelter of its privileges. Malefactors habitually pleaded clerical rights; the Church, in a spirit of comradeship worthy of a better cause, as regularly took up their defence. Crime flourished, and the community suffered. Innocent III reinstated a Bishop of exceptionally bad character who had been imprisoned for rebellion against the King of Denmark, and decided that priests could not be arrested by laymen and brought before the episcopal court even when detected in gross crime. Under these conditions it was almost impossible for laymen to obtain justice, whether in regard to offences against person or offences against property. And, the clergy being the only educated class, their opportunities for exploiting the popular ignorance were abundant and fully utilized. Monasteries were the fruit of good intentions, but, in spite of occasional examples to the contrary, soon became degraded to an extraordinary degree. Rome could easily be bribed to grant exemption from the jurisdiction of the Bishops, and the liberty of monks and nuns degenerated into the foulest licence. The abodes of religion were feudal castles, in which the monks lived as riotously as the barons, and waged private war with equal ferocity. As for the nunneries, many of them were notoriously no better than brothels. With these varied attractions, it is not surprising that the lawless found in the monastic life a congenial refuge; and many a robber baron and many a criminal temporarily weary of crime discovered a safe and easy way of gratifying his untamed passions. So little were the obligations of honesty observed that within the monasteries themselves the inmates had to take special precautions against theft by their fellows, each monk having to keep a wary eye on his own spoons, dishes, and bedclothes. The holy tramps who wandered about selling false relics and working false miracles became so great a nuisance that they were sometimes killed without mercy when detected in their frequent crimes.