He will not repeat all his “ribald railing upon all the clergy of Christendom who will not be heretics” when he calls “them bulls, apes, asses and abominable harlots and devils.” … “No good man doubts, although among the clergy there are many full bad (as, indeed, it were hard to have it otherwise among so great a multitude, whilst Christ’s own twelve were not without a traitor), that there are again among them many right virtuous folk, and such that the whole world beside fares the better for their holy living and their devout prayer.”[143]
Beyond the above supposed causes for the growth of the dislike of the clergy which Sir Thomas More weighs and considers in the above extracts, Saint-German gives others which are instructive as to the actual status of the clergy; but with which, as they do not reflect upon their moral character, Sir Thomas More was not immediately concerned in his reply. One occasion of the present difficulties and division, writes Saint-German, “has partly arisen by temporal men who have desired much the familiarity of priests in their games and sports, and who were wont to make much more of those who were companionable than of those that were not so, and have called them good fellows and good companions. And many also would have chaplains which they would not only suffer, but also command, to go hunting, hawking, and such other vain disports; and some would let them lie among other lay servants, where they could neither use prayer nor contemplation.”
Some even go so far as to insist on their chaplains wearing “liveries,” which “are not convenient in colour for a priest to wear.” Others give them worldly businesses to attend to in the way of stewardships, &c., “so that in this way their inward devotion of heart has become as cold and as weak, in a manner, as it is in lay men.” Nevertheless, in spite of the evil effect to be feared from this training, they do not hesitate to put them into the first benefice they have to dispose of; “and when they have done so, they will anon speak evil of priests, and report great lightness in them, and lightly compare the faults of one priest with another.” This they do “even when they themselves have been partly the occasion of their offences.”
Moreover, “where by the law all priests ought to be at the (parish) church on Sundays and holidays, and help the service of God in the choir, and also, when there, to be under the orders of the curate (or parish priest of the place), yet nevertheless many men who have chaplains will not allow them to come to the parish church; and when they are there, will not suffer them to receive their orders from the curate, but only from themselves; nor will they tolerate seeing them in the choir;” and what is the case with “chaplains and serving priests is also (true) of chantry priests and brotherhood priests in many places.”
To remedy these evils, Saint-German thinks, as indeed every one would be disposed to agree with him, that priests should be prohibited from hunting and all such games as are unsuitable to the priestly character, “though perchance he may, as for recreation, use honest disportes for a time.” Moreover, he should not “frequent the ale house or tavern,” and, if in his recreations the people are offended, he should be warned by “an abbot and a justice of the peace of the shire.” If, after this, he does not change, he ought to be suspended. Further than this, no one should be permitted to have a chaplain who has not “a standing house,” where the priest is able to have his private chamber with a lock and key, so that “he may use himself therein conveniently in reading, prayer, or contemplation, or such other labours and business as it is convenient for a priest to use.”[144]
Both in his work on the Division and in his previous tract, A Dyalogue between a Student of Law and a Doctor of Divinity, Saint-German lays great stress upon the question of mortuaries, as one that gave great offence to lay people at the period when he wrote. As he explained in the Dyalogue, the State had already interfered to regulate the exactions made by custom at funerals, but nevertheless “in some places the Church claims to have the taper that stands in the middle of the hearse over the heart of the corpse, and some claim to have all the tapers. Some also claim to have one of the torches that is about the hearse, and others to have all the torches. And if the body be brought in a charette or with coat armour or such other (ornaments), then they claim all the horses and charette and the apparel or part thereof.”[145] Now, in his other book, Saint-German thinks that though these things “are annulled already by statute,” there is rising up “a thing concerning mortuaries,” that “if it be allowed to continue” will cause great difficulties in the near future. It is this: “Many curates not regarding the king’s statute in that behalf, persuade their parishioners when they are sick to believe that they cannot be saved unless they restore them as much as the old mortuary would have amounted to.” All those who act in such a way are, he thinks, “bound in conscience to restitution, since they have obtained money under false information.”[146]
After arguing that Parliament has a right to legislate in all matters concerning goods and property, our author says: “It is certain that all such mortuaries were temporal goods, though they were claimed by spiritual men; and the cause why they were taken away was, because there were few things within this realm which caused more variance among the people than they did, when they were allowed. They were taken so far against the king’s laws and against justice and right, as shall hereafter appear. First they were taken not only after the husband’s death, but also after the death of the wife, who by the law of the realm had no goods, but what were the husband’s. They were taken also from servants and children, as well infants as others; and if a man died on a journey and had a household, he should pay mortuaries in both places.” Whilst in some places both the parson and the vicar claimed the mortuary; “and sometime even the curate (i.e. parish priest) would prohibit poor men to sell their goods, as were likely to come to them as mortuaries, for they would say it was done in order to defraud the Church.” And the mortuaries had to be handed over at once, or they would not bury the body. All these things led to the great growth of mortuaries “by the prescription of the spiritual law, and had they not been put an end to by Parliament they would have grown more and more.
“And in many places they were taken in such a way that it made the people think that their curates loved their mortuaries better than their lives. For this reason there rose in many places great division and grudge between them, which caused a breach of the peace, love, and charity that ought to be between the curate and his parishioners, to the great unquietness of many of the king’s subjects, as well spiritual as temporal, and to the great danger and peril of their souls. For these causes the said mortuaries be annulled by Parliament, as well in conscience as in law, and yet it is said that some curates use great extremities concerning the said mortuaries another way; and that is this: If at the first request the executor pay not the money that is appointed by the statute, they will anon have a citation against him, and in this he shall be so handled that, as it is said, it would have been generally much better for him to have paid the old mortuary, than the costs and expenses he will then have to pay.”[147]
Another fertile cause of complaint against the clergy at this time was, in Saint-German’s opinion, the way in which tithes were exacted; in many cases without much consideration for justice and reason. “In some places, the curates all exact their tenth of everything within the parish that is subject to tithe, although their predecessors from time immemorial have been contented to do without it: and this even though there is sufficient besides for the curates to live upon, and though perchance in old time something else has been assigned in place of it. In some places there has been asked, it is said, tithe of both chickens and eggs; in some places of milk and cheese; and in some others tithe of the ground and also of all that falleth to the ground. In other places tithes of servants’ wages is claimed without any deduction; and indeed it is in but few places that any servant shall go quite without some payment of tithe, though he may have spent all in sickness, or upon his father and mother, or such necessary expenses.”