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although curtailed in their original jurisdiction by the early Plantagenet kings were in full suing in the days of Chaucer, and long afterwards, and claiming as they did to ad judicate on matters of conscience (Iccsa fides), were able to interfere with the inmost life of the people; and when the terrible corruptness of many of their officers is con sidered, it may be easily understood that the evil they produced probably far out weighed the good, and that it was only owing to the inordinate power of the church at this period, that a burden felt throughout the length and breadth of the land was not at this time repudiated, as it was a little later in our history. Chaucer gives us a pretty good idea of what some of the abuses were. In the first place note the description of this officer, in what black colors he paints him. Nothing could be more repulsive than his drunken face : — "A Sompnour was ther with us in that place. That had a fire red cherubynes face, For sawceflen he was with eyghen narwe : As hoot he was and lecherous as a sparwe : With skalled browes blak, and piled herd. Of his visage children were sore aferd."

When in his cups he would ejaculate the few Latin words he knew from his calling : — "And whamme that he wel drokken hadde the wyn, Than wolde he spak no word but Latin."

If any thinking him learned from his lan guage were to test him further they found : — '' Thamme had he spent al his philosophee : Ay ' Questio quid juris,' wolde he cry."

This last phrase being probably another common saying he had got by rote from his duties in the ecclesiastical courts, for the "Questio quid juris" was the battle-ground between the latter and the lay courts, the one administering the canon and the other the common law. With regard to his principle and the way in which he prostituted the duties of his office, Chaucer naively says : — "We wolde suffre for a quart of wyn A good felawe to han his concubyn A twelve moneth, and excuse him atte fulle —"

Questions of morals were peculiarly under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and the venal way in which this was exer cised according to public opinion is seen a little later : — '' He wolde teche him to have non awe In such a caas of the Archdecchnes curs, Hut if a manne's sole were in his purs For in his purs he scholde punyssed be — ' Purs is the Ercedeknes helle," quod he."

A terrible blot on the social system of that day is indicated by the admission of Chaucer that rascals of this character, through the terror of their office, were able to influence, in no small measure, the girlhood of the nation : — "In daunger he hadde at his own assise The yonge gurles of the diocise, And knew here counsel, and was al here red."'

As we read through these tales, and see the way the national church of that day was attending to the social wants of the people; when we find it interfering with the administration of the law, and not infre quently throwing the mantle of its inviola bility over the shoulders of officers little de serving of pity, to protect them from pains and penalties which they had well-merited; when we find it everywhere pandering, with few exceptions, to the lusts and iniquities of those in high places, and everywhere more or less in popular contempt, for of Chaucer's many ecclesiastical personages, with the exception of the parson, the character of each is drawn with more satire and sarcasm than praise; when all this is obvious to the least painstaking reader, it is a matter of satisfac tion to think that the age that produced Chaucer was shortly to bring forth Wickliff, that the latter followed very shortly on the former. Curiously enough, too, Wickliff— the man destined to shake the ecclesiastical power in this country to its foundation — was just one of those poor parsons so strongly eulogized by Chaucer, who is here drawing a true picture of the means whereby this class was creating for itself a mighty power in the minds of the people. In beau