than any speculative
truths whatsoever,--that even that church, which is not startled at
the most monstrous contradictions and absurdities, has been obliged to
abandon them to the critics. But in the dark period of the thirteenth
century, they parsed for undisputed and authentic; and men, entangled
in the mazes of this false literature, joined to the philosophy, equally
false, of the times, had nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but
some small remains of common sense, which passed for profaneness and
impiety, and the indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the
sole motive in the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in
some degree, to protect the laity against them.

* Trivet, p. 191.

Another expedient, devised by the church of Rome, in this period, for
securing her power, was the institution of new religious orders, chiefly
the Dominicans and Franciscans, who proceeded with all the zeal and
success that attend novelties; were better qualified to gain the
populace than the old orders, now become rich and indolent; maintained
a perpetual rivalship with each other in promoting their gainful
superstitions; and acquired a great dominion over the minds, and
consequently over the purses, of men, by pretending a desire of poverty
and a contempt for riches. The quarrels which arose between these
orders, lying still under the control of the sovereign pontiff, never
disturbed the peace of the church, and served only as a spur to their
industry in promoting the common cause; and though the Dominicans lost
some popularity by their denial of the immaculate conception,--a
point in which they unwarily engaged too far to be able to recede with
honor,--they counterbalanced this disadvantage by acquiring more solid
establishments, by gaining the confidence of kings and princes, and
by exercising the jurisdiction assigned them of ultimate judges and
punishers of heresy. Thus the several orders of monks became a kind
of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish church; and though the
temporal interests of society, still more the cause of true piety, were
hurt, by their various devices to captivate the populace, they proved
the chief supports of that mighty fabric of superstition, and, till the
revival of true learning, secured it from any dangerous invasion.

The trial by ordeal was abolished in this reign by order of council; a
faint mark of improvement in the age.[*]

Henry granted a charter to