[996] “Si vous saviez tout ce que je sais! des choses dégoûtantes! des choses horribles! vous en frémiriez! Quand je pense à tout cela, à la vie que mènent les prêtres, je ne puis retenir mes larmes.” And again, “Ma peggio ancora. Quello che sta la notte con la concubina, quell’ altro con il garzone, e poi la mattina va a dire messa, pensa tu come la va. Che vuoi tu fare di quella messa?”—Jérome Savonarole d’après les Documents Originaux, par F. T. Perrens, pp. 71-2. Paris, 1856.
[997] Ap. Chavard, Le Célibat, des Prêtres, p. 400.
[998] Masselin, Journal des États de Tours, pp. 197-99.
What were the teachings and the influence on the people of such a priesthood may be guessed from a remark in one of the sermons of Oliver Maillard, a celebrated Franciscan preacher of the period. “Sunt ne ibi mulieres et sacerdotes qui dicunt quod mulieres comedentes venenum ad expellendum materiam de matrice sua, ne fœtus veniat ad partum, antequam anima rationalis introducatur, non peccant mortaliter?”—Ap. H. Estienne, Apol. pour Herodote Liv. I. chap. vi.
[999] 1 Henr. VII. 4.
[1000] Wilkins III. 630-33.
Yet in the letter of Archbishop Morton to the abbot reciting all these enormities, he is not even threatened with deposition, but only invited to mend his ways.
[1001] Froude’s History of England, Ch. III.
Or gef hym self had done a synne