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YORK.
priestly immorality, they inveighed against the holding
of secular offices by the clergy, they characterized
the benediction of water and oil, of altar-stones,
churches, and church-furniture as necromantic acts
rather than religious rites. Prayers for the dead,
offerings and worship before shrines and images,
auricular confession and vows of chastity were alike
obnoxious to them, and the exercise of religious
functions by men whose lives were a reproach to
their holy calling was vehemently condemned. War
was an abomination in their eyes, and against capital
punishments they uttered their protest. The articles
containing these conclusions of the Lollards against the
Church and her ministers, which were presented to parliament
in the nineteenth year of Richard's reign, were
the mutterings of the storm which broke upon that
Church in all its violence in the sixteenth century.
Yet it would be alike unjust and ungenerous to
believe that the Church was as universally corrupt as
these articles would imply. That corruption existed
there can be no doubt. The number of ecclesiastics
of various ranks was enormous, and the wealth of the
Church was great. It could scarcely be that the
highest standard of religion and morals was likely to
be reached by each individual member of that vast
multitude, but we can hardly believe that the holy
lives and careful teaching of men like Grosteste,
Archbishop Thoresby, and others of like character, left
no mark upon their age, no stamp upon the men
whom they ordained. And in many a quiet nook of
England, and under the shadow of many a stately
minster, there were doubtless those whose lives belied