Page:Henry VIII and the English Monasteries.djvu/12

vi regard to discipline the monasteries of the sixteenth century were all that could be desired. Very possibly abuses, and even grave abuses did exist here and there; but this is not the question to be considered. The point is, were the English monks and nuns generally in the reign of Henry VIII the profligate hypocrites which they were subsequently represented to be by those whose interest it was to defame the religious state or to defend the wholesale destruction of the religious houses. I readily admit that the reports of Henry's visitors were bad enough, although even they do not bear out the charges of wholesale corruption; but there are elements of the greatest suspicion on the face of these documents, which would certainly cause them to be rejected as proof in any other case, whilst if the characters of the accusers are considered, no man of honour would dream of "hanging a dog" upon their word alone.

It has of late been pointed out that other "Visitation Records" contain instances of abuses and scandals, and that this is a strong corroboration of the correctness of the scandalous reports of Henry's visitors. It is hard to see how this can be so; the only evidence afforded by such documents is, what no one would deny, that men did not leave their human faults and failings behind them when they entered the cloister; and that the Church, so far from tolerating any abuses of this kind, sternly repressed them by legislation and punishment. To make this clear I may perhaps be permitted to repeat what I have elsewhere written on the subject of Visitations: That Visitations were not mere formalities, is obvious on the face of the records: they were made at regular intervals; and, con- sidering the distances which had to be covered between the