DEMORALIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 631 ures of the flesh, feasting and drinking, and polluting all things with their burning lusts. As for the nuns, modesty forbids the description of the nunneries, which are mere brothels, so that to take the veil is equivalent to becoming a public prostitute.'* We might suspect this to be the exaggeration of a soured ascetic if it were not for the unanimous testimony of all who de- scribe the condition of the Church from the thirteenth century on. When St. Bonaventura defended the Mendicants against the charge of assailing, in their sermons, the vices of the secular cler- gy, he denied their doing so for the reason that any such arraign- ment would be superfluous ; and, moreover, that if they were to unveil the full turpitude of the clerical class these would all be ex- pelled, and there would be no hope of seeing their places more worthily filled, for the bishops would not select virtuous men. To do so, moreover, would deprive the people of all faith in the Church, and heresy would become uncontrollable. In another tract he declares that almost all priests were legally incapable of performing their functions, either through the simony attendant on their ordination or through the commission of crimes entailing suspension and deprivation. It was not infrequent, he says, for priests to persuade women that there was no sin in intercourse with a clerk. f In 1305 Frederic of Trinacria, in a confidential letter to his brother, Jayme II. of Aragon, says that he has been led to doubt whether the Gospel was divine revelation or human invention, for three reasons. The first is the character of the secular clergy, especially of the bishops, abbots, and other prelates, who are des- titute of all spiritual life, and are pestiferous in their influence through the public display of their wickedness. The second rea- son is the character of the regular clergy, and especially of the Mendicants, whose morals and lives stupefy all observers; the F ~ are so alienated from God that they justify the seculars and the laity by the comparison ; their wickedness is so notorious that he fears that some day the people will rise against them, for they bring infection into every house which they frequent. The third
- Nic. de Clemangis de Ruina Ecclesise, cap. xix.-xxxvi.
t S. Bonaventurae Libell. Apologet. Quaest i. ; Tractatus quare Fr. Minores prcodicent.
