The people might have endured better to submit to so enormous a tyranny, if the conduct of the clergy themselves had given them a title to respect, or if equal justice had been distributed to lay and spiritual offenders.  “Benefit of clergy,” unhappily, as at this time interpreted, was little else than a privilege to commit sins with impunity.  The grossest moral profligacy in a priest was passed over with indifference; and so far from exacting obedience in her ministers to a higher standard than she required of ordinary persons, the church extended her limits under fictitious pretexts as a sanctuary for lettered villany.  Every person who could read was claimed by prescriptive usage as a clerk, and shielded under her protecting mantle; nor was any clerk amenable for the worst crimes to the secular jurisdiction, until he had been first tried and degraded by the ecclesiastical judges.  So far was this preposterous exemption carried, that previous to the passing of the first of the 23rd of Henry the Eighth,[197] those who were within the degrees might commit murder with impunity, the forms which it was necessary to observe in degrading a priest or deacon being so complicated as to amount to absolute protection.[198]

Among the clergy, properly so called, however, the prevailing offence was not crime, but licentiousness.  A doubt has recently crept in among our historians as to the credibility of the extreme language in which the contemporary writers spoke upon this painful topic.  It will scarcely be supposed that the picture has been overdrawn in the act books of the Consistory courts; and as we see it there it is almost too deplorable for belief, as well in its own intrinsic hideousness as in the unconscious connivance of the authorities.  Brothels were kept in London for the especial use of priests;[199] the “confessional” was abused in the most open and abominable manner.[200] Cases occurred of the same frightful profanity in the service of the mass, which at Rome startled Luther into Protestantism;[201] and acts of incest between nuns and monks were too frequently exposed to allow us to regard the detected instances as exceptions.[202] It may be said that the proceedings upon these charges prove at least that efforts were made to repress them.  The bishops must have the benefit of the plea, and the two following instances will show how far it will avail their cause.  In the Records of the London Court I find a certain Thomas Wyseman, priest, summoned for fornication and incontinency.  He was enjoined for penance, that on the succeeding Sunday, while high mass was singing, he should offer at each of the altars in the Church of St. Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five Paternosters, five Ave Marys, and five Credos.  On the following Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix, standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace.  This penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for absolution, paying six shillings and eightpence.[203]