Dumque pudicitiam, dum vota monastica laudat,
Stuprat, sacra notans fœdera conjugii.”
(Ibid. Chap. 25.)
[1226] The vast growth of the sheep-farms had long been a subject of complaint. Even as early as 1516, Sir Thomas More describes with indignant energy the misery caused by the ejectment of the agricultural population in order to form enormous sheep-walks, which were found more profitable to the landlords than ordinary farming. He declares that the sheep “tam edaces atque indomitæ esse cœperunt, ut homines devorent ipsos, agros, domos, oppida vastent ac depopulentur.”—Utopia, Lib. I.
[1227] Burnet II. 117-9.
[1228] Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, II. 420.
[1229] Burnet II. Collect. 217. In the Latin version, “ Episcopis, presbyteris et diaconis non est mandatum ut cœlibatum voveant; neque, jure divino coguntur matrimonio abstinere” (Wilkins IV. 76).
[1230] Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, II. 355.
[1231] Ibid. p. 445.—“Our curate is naught, an Assehead, a Dodipot, a Lack-Latine, and can do nothing.”
[1232] 5-6 Edw. VI. c. 12 (Parl. Hist. I. 594).—Burnet II. 192.