Papal ukases had proved ineffective to stem the current of clerical abuses.

The regular clergy evoked even more indignation than the secular.

"Stinking cowls" was a favourite epithet for the monks.

Begging, cheating, shameless ignorance, drunkenness, and debauchery, are alleged as being their noted characteristics.

One of the princes of the empire addresses a prior of a convent largely patronized by aristocratic ladies as "Thou, our common brother-in-law!" In some of the convents of Friesland, promiscuous intercourse between the sexes was, it is said, quite openly practised, the offspring being reared as monks and nuns.