LIFE oo, 
a wi X 
wi RIO MAS nem 
not bishops do? Was ever crime more atrocious than that 
which was lately committed in ihe church at Coventry ?} 
When did pagan ever deal with Christian as the bishop did 
with the monks? T, Nigellus, saw with my own eyes, after 
the monks were ejected, harlots openly introduccd into the 
cloister and chapter-honse to lie all night there, as in a 
brothel, with their‘ paramours.? Such are the works of 
bishops in these days ofours, "This is what they do, or per- 
mit to be done; and so cheap has grown the dignity of the 
ecclesiastical order that you will easier find ® cowherd well 
educated than 2 presbyter, and an industrious duck than a 
literate parson.8 
So far Nigellus, We are not to suppose that the 
state of the Church had changed unfavourably in the 
twenty years which followed Becket’s martyrdom, or 
we should have to conclude that the spiritual en- 
thusiasm which the martyrdom undoubtedly excited 
had injured, and not improved, public morality. 
The prelates and clergy with whom Henry the 
immo ut fere omnibus episcopis 
Moris est, ministerium confirma- 
tionis equo insidendo peragere,scd 
ob sacramenti venerationeım cquo 
desilire et stando pueris manum 
inmponere.' — Materials for the 
History of Thomas Becket, vol. 
Ü pP 164. 
* In the year 119%, Hugh, 
Bishop of Coventry, violently 
Ixpelled the monks from the 
Sathedral there, and instituted 
Canons in their Dlaces. 
2 <Testis mihi Deus est quod 
dolens et tristis admodum refero 
quod in oecelesi@t Coventrensi 
seulis proprlis aspexi, In claustro 
st capitulo vidi ego et alli non- 
gulli ejectis monachis meretrices 
publice introductas et totä nocte 
sum lenonibus decubare sieut in 
lupanarl.” 
u ilgen 
Yus 
V» 
3,