The old monasteries had benefited to some extent from this
disendowment of the secular clergy, the Augustinian canons, during
the twelfth century, being the chief gainers by the pillage. When the
rage for founding colleges came in, and the awful ravages of the
Black Death had depopulated whole districts, the fashion of
alienating the revenues of the country parsons and diverting them
into the new channel grew to be quite a rage. The colleges of secular
priests living together in common, or what it is now the fashion to
call a clergy house, might be and were strictly _religious_
foundations; and could the colleges of scholars, of teachers and
learners who presumably were all priests, or intended for the
priesthood, be regarded as less _religious_ than the others? So
it came to pass that the tithes of parish after parish were diverted
into a new channel, and these very colleges at Cambridge which were
professedly meant to raise the standard of education among the
seculars were endowed at the expense of those same secular clergy. In
order that the country parsons might be better educated, it was
arranged that the country parsons should be impoverished!
* * * * * * *
Seven new colleges opened in less than thirty years at Cambridge
alone! Think what this must have meant.
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