Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/407

 CHAPTER XVII HERESY AND THE FRIARS I. DENUNCIATIONS OF THE EVIL LIVES OF THE CLERGY The extracts which follow illustrate the outspoken criticism of the conduct and lives of the ecclesiastical officials, from the pope down, which abounds in the popular literary productions of England, France, and Germany in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. The first extracts are from a poem, not improbably composed by a very clever churchman, Walter Mape or Mapes, who was a member of the literary circle which Henry II of England gathered about him. It is but one of a great number of Latin poems originating at the same period, " remarkable chiefly for pungency of satire or sprightliness of composition." They were the work of university men, and show us that the Church never succeeded in effectively checking, at least among the educated, the most open and scornful strictures upon the clergy. The poet is represented as caught up into heaven, where he sees visions suggested by the Apocalypse of St. John. The translation here given is one made under Elizabeth, or a little later. After a burst of thunder a " goodlie personage " 146. n e appears and bids the poet "Marke well and under- SaTth" stand": BiS8hoppe ' 37'