On not a single occasion could the various European states form a coalition against their common antagonist.

Whenever a question arose, they were skillfully taken in detail, and commonly mastered.

The ostensible object of papal intrusion was to secure for the different peoples moral well-being; the real object was to obtain large revenues, and give support to vast bodies of ecclesiastics.

The revenues thus abstracted were not infrequently many times greater than those passing into the treasury of the local power.

Thus, on the occasion of Innocent IV.
demanding provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian clergy by the Church of England, and that one of his nephews--a mere boy--should have a stall in Lincoln Cathedral, it was found that the sum already annually abstracted by foreign ecclesiastics from England was thrice that which went into the coffers of the king.
While thus the higher clergy secured every political appointment worth having, and abbots vied with counts in the herds of slaves they possessed--some, it is said, owned not fewer than twenty thousand--begging friars pervaded society in all directions, picking up a share of what still remained to the poor.