according to the sacristan's actions. Presto! it was done; and the
monk, his ardor cooled by the ducking, went back to his abbey and
confessed to the abbot. A popular proverb makes the story survive: "Sir
monk, step lightly, and take good care when you cross the plank." Not
only in the Church, but in the world, immorality was too common and too
easily pardoned. It is significant that illegitimacy was the rule rather
than the exception among the Norman dukes, and that William the
Conqueror, himself illegitimate, was conspicuous in his age for marital
fidelity.

The moral theory of the Church was correct enough, however it failed in
practice. Every precaution was taken--indeed, too many were taken--to
prevent hasty and ill-assorted marriages. The banns had to be read three
times in the church; the contracting parties must be of proper age; they
must have the consent of parent or guardian; they must not be related
within the degrees prohibited by the Church; they must not be bound by
any previous vow of chastity or be guilty of any mortal sin.

These provisions would seem to be in the main wise enough, and yet out
of one of them grew a considerable moral evil. Divorce had been
recognized by the Salic law: "Seeing that discord troubles their union,
and that charity reigns not in it, N. and M., husband and wife, have
agreed to separate and to leave each other free either to retire to a
monastery or to remarry," without question or opposition from either
party. So ran one of the formulas; and as a sign of the divorce the keys
of the house were taken from the wife, or a piece of linen was torn
before her. The Church, however, opposed divorce, and declared it
contrary to the spirit of Christianity. Yet, if one were wealthy or
powerful, it was easy to have a marriage annulled, on one pretext or
another. The most frequent was the plea for divorce for reasons of
conscience, since the contracting parties, being within the prohibited
degrees of relationship,--a fact which they had not known at the time of
the marriage,--were guilty of incest in the eyes of the Church, and
prayed to be relieved from the danger of perilling their immortal souls
by deadly sin. Other pleas were resorted to, but this seems to have been
a favorite one. By a subtile division of a hair "'twixt south and
southwest side," this might be considered as not divorce, but the mere
annulment of a contract which had been illegal and unsanctified from the
start; and