Summary: were required to close with the question, ‘“ Dost thou promise to render unto the abbot true canonical obedience, thou must answer, ‘I promise.’”* As might be expected from such laws, the greatest care is taken to discover the slightest symptoms of insubordination, which are watched with the greatest jealousy by the chief authorities; and it is possible for the apparent inattention of a monk, or the exhibition of a frown or a sigh, to call down the most severe animadversion, if not the most cruel punishment, from the stern rule of obedience. The perfection of submission is guarded by every precaution that priestly heart can devise. to keep the body in subjection; and in these punishments the deviltry and the depravity of their heart are abundantly exhi- bited. The option of partaking of other monasteries is taken away, and the erring brother is often left to consider himself an outcast and a friendless wretch. ‘‘The monks of Wittenberg,” says Father Paul, “were the greatest scourge to the poor Savonarola. The excommunication clause was inserted with such intricacies and in such phraseology that no man could tell what it meant; at the same time, for effective purposes, but one true meaning was insisted upon, according to the wickedness of the accusers.”f The code of the monasteries was laid down with the most unsparing severity. The most trifling incidents are carefully noted, and indulgence is common that should happen only most rarely. Punishments were inflicted for mere shadows of offence. Firedogs were found in the governor~ general’s office at Rome with tollable penalties attached to them, and the Pope had indulgence for a monk who was able to regulate the going of a flagellum. In the mass, the presence of a shadow indicated a shiver of remorse. The sight of a confiteor raised himlsWhen, just at the very moment, he could be free. The dying monk of the forest, with bated breath and full of grim resolution at this unforeseen responsibility, had a total income of 270l. At an earlier period we find that at St. Mary’s Abbey, of Combe, monks were appointed to offices to which they were unsuited for want of skill in stating accounts, and that the mill-house at Reading was so indifferently managed that it required the appointment of laymen to put it in proper work- ing order. The statements made my Ian To Norton at the time accuse him of penitence, on August 1st, 1498, for loss of income at Worcester, alluding to the



* Raumer’s Geschichte d. Hohenstsaufer; ∞ Monkish Orthodoxy and its Failure in as: iii. 111.
* Secret History of the Jesuits.