nto ditches, or buried in common fields; and their obsequies
were not attended with prayers or any hallowed ceremony Marriage was
celebrated in the churchyards;[**] and that every action in life might
bear the marks of this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited
the use of meat, as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were
debarred from all pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even
to salute each other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any
decent attention to their person and apparel. Every circumstance carried
symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate apprehension
of divine vengeance and indignation.

The king, that he might oppose the temporal to their spiritual terrors,
immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates of all the
clergy who obeyed the interdict;[***] banished the prelates, confined
the monks in their convents, and gave them only such a small allowance
from their own estates, as would suffice to provide them with food and
raiment.

[* M. Paris, p. 157. Trivet, p. 152. Ann. Waverl.
p. 170. M. West. p. 268.]

[** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]

[*** Ann. Waverl. p. 170]

He treated with the utmost rigor all Langton's adherents, and every one
that showed any disposition to obey the commands of Rome: and in order
to distress the clergy in the tenderest point, and at the same time
expose them to reproach and ridicule, he threw into prison all their
concubines, and required high fines as the price of their liberty.[*]

After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by
the zealous endeavors of Archbishop Anselrn, more rigorously executed in
England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally and avowedly, into
the use of concubinage and the court of Rome, which had no interest in
prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to it. The custom
was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of Switzerland, before
the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but, to avoid scandal,
enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy;[**] and it was
usual every where for priests to apply to the ordinary, and obtain from
him a formal liberty for this indulgence. The bishop commonly took
care to prevent the practice from degenerating into licentiousness: he
confined the priest to the use of one woman, required him to be constant
to her bed, obliged him to provide for her subsistence and that o