“Nevertheless, I doubt not that there are many right good and virtuous religious persons. God forbid that it should be otherwise. But it is said that there are many evil, and that in such a multitude that those who are good cannot, or will not, see them reformed. And one great cause that hinders reform is this: if the most dissolute person in all the community, and the one who lives most openly against the rules of religion, can use this policy, namely, to extol his (form of) religious life above all others, pointing them out as not being so perfect as that to which he belongs, anon he shall be called a good fervent brother, and one that supports his Order, and for this reason his offences shall be looked on the more lightly.”
“Another thing that has caused many people to mislike religious has been the great extremity that has been many times witnessed at the elections of abbots, priors, and such other spiritual sovereigns. And this is a general ground, for when religious men perceive that people mislike them, they in their hearts withdraw their favour and devotion again from them. And in this way charity has waxed cold between them.”
“And verily, I suppose, that it were better that there should be no abbot or prior hereafter allowed to continue over a certain number of years, and that these should be appointed by the authority of the rulers, rather than have such extremities at elections, as in many places has been used in times past.
“And verily, it seems to me, one thing would do great good concerning religious Orders and all religious persons, and that is this: that the Rules and Constitutions of religious bodies should be examined and well considered, whether their rigour and straightness can be borne now in these days as they were at the beginning of the religious Orders. For people be nowadays weaker, as to the majority of men, than they were then. And if it is thought that they (i.e. the Rules) cannot now be kept, that then such relaxations and interpretations of their rules be made, as shall be thought expedient by the rulers. Better it is to have an easy rule well kept, than a strict rule broken without correction. For, thereof followeth a boldness to offend, a quiet heart in an evil conscience: a custom in sin, with many an ill example to the people. By this many have found fault at all religious life, where they should rather have found fault at divers abuses against the true religion. Certain it is that religious life was first ordained by the holy fathers by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, keep it who so may.”[136]
Much of this criticism on the state of the religious orders on the eve of the Reformation is obviously only very general, and would apply to all states of society, composed, as such bodies are, of human members. With much that Saint-German suggests, it is impossible not to agree in principle, however difficult the attainment of the ideal may be in practice. Sir Thomas More, whilst admitting that there were undoubtedly things requiring correction in the religious life of the period, maintains most strongly that in practical working it was far better than any one would gather from the assertions and suggestions of Saint-German, and that in reality, with all their carping at laxity and worldliness, none of the critics of the monks would be willing to change places with them. “As wealthy,” he writes, “and as easy and as glorious as some tell ‘the pacifier’ religious life is, yet if some other would say to them: ‘Lo sirs, those folks who are in religion shall out, come you into religion in their steads; live there better than they do, and you shall have heaven,’ they would answer, I fear me, that they are not weary of the world. And even if they were invited into religion another way, and it was said to them, ‘Sir, we will not bid you live so straight in religion as these men should have done; come on enter, and do just as they did, and then you will have a good, easy, and wealthy life, and much worldly praise for it,’—I ween for all that, a man would not get them to go into it. But as easy as we call it, and as wealthy too—and now peradventure when our wives are angry we wish ourselves therein—were it offered … I ween that for all our words, if that easy and wealthy life that is in religion were offered to us, even as weary as we are of wedding, we would rather bear all our pain abroad than take a religious man’s life of ease in the cloister.”[137]
With some of the accusations of Saint-German, or rather with some of his explanations of the supposed “grudge” borne by the laity to the clergy, More has hardly the patience to deal. They, the clergy, and above all religious, should, the former says, “give alms and wear hair (shirts), and fast and pray that this division may cease.” “Pray, wear hair, fast, and give alms,” says the latter; “why, what else do they do as a rule? Some may not; but then there were some negligent in those matters for the past thousand years, and so the present negligence of a few can’t be the cause of the dissension now.” “But this ‘pacifier,’ perceiving that what one man does in secret another cannot see, is therefore bold to say they do not do all those things he would have them do; that is to say, fast, pray, wear hair (shirts), and give alms. For he says ‘that they do all these things it appears not.’”
Now, “as to praying, it appears indeed that they do this; and that so much that they daily pray, as some of us lay men think it a pain (to do) once a week; to rise so soon from sleep and to wait so long fasting, as on a Sunday to come and hear out their matins. And yet the matins in every parish is neither begun so early nor so long in the saying as it is in the Charter house you know well; and yet at the sloth and gluttony of us, who are lay people, he can wink and fan himself asleep. But as soon as the lips of the clergy stop moving he quickly spies out that they are not praying.”
And “now as touching on alms: Is there none given, does he think, by the spirituality? If he say, as he does, that it does not appear that they do give alms, I might answer again that they but follow in this the counsel of Christ which says: ‘Let not the left hand see what thy right hand doeth.’… But as God, for all that counsel, was content that men should both pray and give to the needy and do other works both of penance and of charity openly and abroad, where there is no desire of vain glory, but that the people by the sight thereof might have occasion therefore to give laud and praise to God, so I dare say boldly that they, both secretly and openly too, … give no little alms in the year, whatsoever this ‘pacifier’ do say. And I somewhat marvel, since he goes so busily abroad that there is no ‘some say,’ almost in the whole realm, which he does not hear and repeat it; I marvel, I say, not a little that he neither sees nor hears from any ‘some say’ that there is almsgiving in the spirituality; I do not much myself go very far abroad, and yet I hear ‘some say’ that there is; and I myself see sometimes so many poor folk at Westminster at the doles, of whom, as far as I have ever heard, the monks are not wont to send many away unserved, that I have myself for the press of them been fain to ride another way.”