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212 YORK.
to live apart, and to devote themselves to what they
regarded as a higher life, and a more acceptable
service to their God.
Other entries occur, in great abundance, in these
Registers, relating to dispensations for marriage,
which issued, directly or indirectly, from the papal
court. The number applied for in one single diocese
is enough to show that the granting of these dispensations
throughout the whole realm must have been a
very considerable source of revenue to the Apostolic
see. The impediments to marriage, as laid down by
the rules of the pre-Reformation Church, were many,
and must often have been felt to be very vexatious.
If the parties who wished to marry were related in
the third or fourth degree of consanguinity, or if one
had been sponsor to the other, or to a child of the
other, a dispensation must be obtained. And even
if they had married in complete ignorance of the
impediment that existed, the marriage was null and
their children illegitimate. An ex post facto dispensation
was needed in such a case to legalise the nuptial
tie and to legitimise the issue. It is not at all improbable
that the inquisitorial interference with private
life which, in countless instances, must necessarily
have taken place, was one of those minor things
which irritated men's minds, and tended to promote
that antagonistic feeling towards the church which
undoubtedly prevailed to a great extent long before
any overt acts against the papal supremacy had been
effected by the ruling power. The idea, likewise,
that greed was at the bottom of the enforced application
for these dispensations, would not a little tend