ary, it is rather mended
than ended. Thirdly, many of the acts that seem corrupt to us, gave
little offence to contemporaries, for they were universal. If the church
sold offices and justice, so did the civil governments. If the clergy
lived impure lives, so did the laity. Probably the standard of the {21}
church (save in special circumstances) was no worse than that of civil
life, and in some respects it was rather more decent. Finally, there is
some reason to suspect of exaggeration the charges preferred by the
innovators. Like all reformers they made the most of their enemy's
faults. Invective like theirs is common to every generation and to all
spheres of life. It is true that the denunciation of the priesthood
comes not only from Protestants and satirists, but from popes and
councils and canonized saints, and that it bulks large in medieval
literature. Nevertheless, it is both _a priori_ probable and to some
extent historically verifiable that the evil was more noisy, not more
potent, than the good. But though the corruptions of the church were not
a main cause of the Protestant secession, they furnished good excuses for
attack; the Reformers were scandalized by the divergence of the practice
and the pretensions of the official representatives of Christianity, and
their attack was envenomed and the break made easier thereby. It is
therefore necessary to say a few words about those abuses at which public
opinion then took most offence.

[Sidenote: Abuses: Financial]

Many of these were connected with money. The common man's conscience was
wounded by the smart in his purse. The wealth of the church was
enormous, though exaggerated by those contemporaries who estimated it at
one-third of the total real estate of Western Europe. In addition to
revenues from her own land the church collected tithes and taxes,
including "Peter's pence" in England, Scandinavia and Poland. The clergy
paid dues to the curia, among them the _servitia_ charged on the bishops
and the annates levied on the income of the first year for each appointee
to high ecclesiastical office, and the price for the archbishop's pall.
The priests recouped themselves by charging high fees for their
ministrations. At a time {22} when the Christian ideal was one of
"apostolic poverty" the riches of the clergy were often felt as a scandal
to the pious.

[Sidenote: Simony]

Though the normal method of appointment to civil office was sale, it wa