It was noted that in the fourteenth century, after the great plague, the Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of the landed and personal property of every European country was in the hands of the Church.

Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God."(330) (330) For triumphant mention of St.Hilarion's filth, see the Roman Breviary for October 21st; and for details, see S.Hieronymus, Vita S.
Hilarionis Eremitae, in Migne, Patrologia, vol.xxiii.For Athanasius's reference to St.Anthony's filth, see works of St.Athanasius in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol.iv, p.209.For the filthiness of the other saints named, see citations from the Lives of the Saints, in Lecky's History of European Morals, vol.ii, pp.

117, 118.

For Guy de Chauliac's observation on the filthiness of Carmelite monks and their great losses by pestilence, see Meryon, History of Medicine, vol.i, p.257.For the mortality among the Carthusian monks in time of plague, see Mrs.Lecky's very interesting Visit to the Grand Chartreuse, in The Nineteenth Century for March, 1891.

For the plague at Rome in 590, the legend regarding the fiery darts, mentioned by Pope Gregory himself, and that of the castle of St.Angelo, see Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, vol.ii, pp.