[694] Matt. Paris ann. 1208.
Perhaps it is to John’s experience in this matter that may be attributed the fact that when, in 1214, he entered into a league with his knight-errant nephew, the Emperor Otho IV., against Philip Augustus, they also declared war against Innocent III., and proposed to carry out a gigantic scheme of spoliation by enriching, from ecclesiastical property, all who might rally to their standard. They proclaimed their intention of humbling the church, reducing the numbers of the clergy, stripping those who were left of all their temporalities, and leaving them only moderate stipends. Both John and Otho had been under excommunication, and could speak feelingly of the overweening power and abuses of the church, whose members they characterize as “genus hoc pigrum et fruges consumere natum, quod otia ducit, quodque sub tecto marcet et umbra, qui frustra vivunt, quorum omnis labor in hoc est, ut Baccho Venerique vacent, quibus crapula obesis poris colla inflat, ventresque abdomine onerat.” (Lünig. Cod. Diplom. Italiæ I. 34). A few weeks later the Bridge of Bouvines put a sudden end to this prosperous plan of reformation.
[695] Du Méril, Poésies Pop. Latines, p. 179.
[696] Mapes’s Poems, p. 10.
[697] Du Méril, op. cit. p. 171.
[698] Filius autem, more sacerdotum parochialium Angliæ fere cunctorum, damnabili quidem et detestabili, publicam secum habebat comitem individuam, et in foco focariam et in cubiculo concubinam.—Girald. Cambrens. Specul. Eccles. Dist. iii. c. 8. (Girald. Opp. III. 129.) However Giraldus and the severer churchmen might stigmatize these companions as concubines, they were evidently united in the bonds of matrimony. He says himself, respecting Wales, “Nosse te novi ... canonicos Menevenses fere cunctos, maxime vero Walensicos, publicos fornicarios et concubinarios esse, sub alis ecclesiæ cathedralis et tanquam in ipso ejusdem gremio focarias suas cum obstetricibus et nutricibus atque cunabulis in laribus et penetralibus exhibentes.... Adeo quidem ut sicut patres eorum ipsos ibi genuerunt et promoverunt, sic et ipsi more consimili prolem ibidem suscitant, tam in vitiis sibi quam beneficiis succedaneam. Filiis namque suis statim cum adulti fuerint et plene pubertatis annos excesserint, concanonicorum suorum filias, ut sic firmiori fœdere sanguinis scilicet et affinitatis jure jungantur, quasi maritali copula dari procurant. Postmodum autem ... canonicas suas filiis suis conferri per cessionem non inefficaciter elaborant.” (De Jure et Statu Menev. Eccles. Dist. i.) That this condition of affairs was not confined to the canons of cathedral churches is evident from his general remarks in the Gemm. Eccles. Dist. II. cap. xxiii.
His treatise De Statu Menevens. Eccles. was written after 1215, and therefore subsequent to the death of Innocent III.
[699] Innocent. PP. III. Regest. V. 66; VIII. 147.
[700] De presbytero et logico. Mapes’s Poems, p. 256.
[701] Hali Meidenhad, p. 7. (Early English Text Society, 1866.)