Yet nothing has surprised me more than the
exceeding rareness of evidence damaging to the reputation of the new
men. That these men were less educated than their predecessors we
know; but that they were mere worthless hypocrites there is nothing
to show, and much to disprove. Nay! the strong impression which has
been left upon my mind, and which gathers strength as I study the
subject, is that the parochial clergy of the fourteenth century,
before _and after_ the plague, were decidedly a better set than
the clergy of the thirteenth. The friars had done some of their best
work in "provoking to jealousy" the country clergy and stimulating
them to increased faithfulness; they had, in fact, made them more
_respectable_; just as the Wesleyan revival acted upon the
country parsons and others four centuries later. Until the episcopal
_visitations_ of the monasteries during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries are made public--they exist in far larger numbers
than is usually supposed--it will be impossible to estimate the
effect of the plague upon the religious houses; but I am inclined to
think that the monasteries suffered very greatly indeed from the
terrible visitation, and that the violent disturbance of the old
traditions and the utter breakdown in the old observances acted as
disastrously upon these institutions as the first stroke of paralysis
does upon men who have passed their prime--they never were again what
they had been.
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