The clergy in those days possessed the bulk of knowledge, and had matters so continued the vacant pew would have less of a hold on people than it has to-day; but in some way knowledge escaped from the cloister and percolated through the other professions, so that to-day in England, out of a good-sized family, the pulpit generally has to take what is left after the army, navy, politics, law, and golf have had the pick.  It was a fatal error to permit the escape of knowledge in that way; and when southern Europe, now priest-ridden and pauperized, learns to read and write, the sleek blood-suckers will eat plainer food and the poor will not go entirely destitute.

The Normans ate two meals a day, and introduced better cooking among the Saxons, who had been accustomed to eat very little except while under the influence of stimulants, and who therefore did not realize what they ate.  The Normans went in more for meat victuals, and thus the names of meat, such as veal, beef, pork, and mutton, are of Norman origin, while the names of the animals in a live state are calf, ox, pig, and sheep, all Saxon names.

The Authors’ Club of England at this time consisted of Geoffrey of Monmouth and another man.  They wrote their books with quill pens, and if the authorities did not like what was said, the author could be made to suppress the entire edition for a week’s board, or for a bumper of Rhenish wine with a touch of pepper-sauce in it he would change the objectionable part by means of an eraser.

[Illustration:  THE AUTHORS’ CLUB AT THIS TIME.]

It was under these circumstances that the Plantagenets became leaders in society, and added their valuable real estate in France to the English dominions.  In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe, and by wedding his son Geoffrey to the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, soon scooped in that valuable property also.

He broke up the custom of issuing pickpocket and felony licenses to his nobles, seized the royal stone-piles and other nests for common sneak thieves, and resolved to give the people a chance to pay taxes and die natural deaths.  The disorderly nobles were reduced to the ranks or sent away to institutions for inebriates, and people began to permit their daughters to go about the place unarmed.

Foreign mercenaries who had so long infested the country were ordered to leave it under penalty of having their personal possessions confiscated, and their own carcasses dissected and fed to the wild boars.

[Illustration:  FOREIGN MERCENARIES LEAVE ENGLAND.]

Henry next gave his attention to the ecclesiastic power.  He chose Thomas a Becket to the vacant portfolio as Archbishop of Canterbury, hoping thus to secure him as an ally; but a Becket, though accustomed to ride after a four-in-hand and assume a style equal to the king himself, suddenly became extremely devout, and austerity characterized this child of fortune, insomuch that each day on bended knees he bathed the chapped and soiled feet of thirteen beggars.  Why thirteen beggars should come around every morning to the archbishop’s study to have their feet manicured, or how that could possibly mollify an outraged God, the historian does not claim to state, and, in fact, is not able to throw any light upon it at the price agreed upon for this book.