[98] Cénac Moncaut, Histoire des Pyrénées (Paris, 1854), iv. 342, referring primarily to southern France.
[99] Since the end of the thirteenth century the bishop had been accustomed to delegate the contentious jurisdiction of his diocese to an ecclesiastical judge, taking the name of vicar, or more commonly official ("vicarius generalis officialis"). The court itself became known as the officialité. Trials for heresy, breach of promise of marriage, etc., came before it. See the Dictionnaire de la conversation (1857), s. v. Official.
[100] Michel Surriano (1561), Rel. des Amb. Vén., Tommaseo, i. 502. The other half went to princes, barons, and other possessors of lands, etc.
[101] How they behaved there, the abbé of Mériot elsewhere tells us: "Et si le plus souvent à telles noyseay estoient les premiers les prebstres, l'espée au poing, car ilz estoient des premiers aux danses, jeux de quilles, d'escrime, et ès tavernes où ilz ribloient et par les rues toute nuict aultant que les plus meschans du pays." Mém de Claude Haton, 18.
[102] Mémoires de Claude Haton, i. 89, 90.
[103] Giovanni Soranzo returned from France in 1558, or a year before the close of the reign of Henry II.
[104] Relazioni Venete, Albèri, ii. 409. Brantôme is a familiar instance of a favorite thus rewarded from the estates of the church. His amusing vindication of the anomaly is worthy of a perusal. See Digression contre les Eslections des Benefices, Œuvres, tom. vii. On one occasion an enemy of the loquacious courtier caused the assassination of his titular abbot, apparently in the hope of depriving Brantôme of his chief source of revenue! Ibid., vii. 294.
[105] "Solo col ponderar loro la vita che tenevano." Relazione di G. Correro, 1569, Tommaseo, ii. 150.
[106] "Je n'ay point ouy dire, ny leu qu'auparavant ils fussent plus gens-de-bien, et mieux vivants; car en leurs Eveschez et Abbayes, ils estoient autant desbauchez que Gens-d'armes; car comme j'ay dit cydevant, qu'à la cour s'ils faisoient l'amour, c'estoit discrètement et sans scandale," etc. Brantôme, ubi supra, vii. 312.
[107] "Au moins plus sages hypocrites, qui cachent mieux leurs vices noirs." Brantôme, ubi supra, vii. 287-289.