There was so flourishing a crop of devotional handbooks that no others could compete with them in popularity.

For those who could not read there were the _Biblia Pauperum_, picture-books with a minimum of text, and there were sermons by popular preachers.

If some of these tracts and homilies were crude and superstitious, others were filled with a spirit of love and honesty.

Whereas the passion for pilgrimages and relics seemed to increase, there were men of clear vision to denounce the attendant evils.

A new feature was the foundation of lay brotherhoods, like that of the Common Life, with the purpose of cultivating a good character in the world, and of rendering social service.