Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/86

Ixviii INTRODUCTION. iNTRoi). lation of Alfonso the Tenth, the general immunities secured by it to the ecclesiastics operated as a powerful bounty on their increase ; and the men- dicant orders in particular, that spiritual militia of the popes, were multiplied over the country to an alarming extent. Many of their members were not only incompetent to the duties of their profes- sion, being without the least tincture of liberal culture, but fixed a deep stain on it by the careless laxity of their morals. Open concubinage was fa- miliarly practised by the clergy, as well as laity, of the period ; and, so far from being reprobated by the law of the land, seems anciently to have been countenanced by it. '^'^ This moral insensibility may probably be referred to the contagious exam- ple of their Mahometan neighbours ; but, from whatever source derived, the practice was indulged to such a shameless extent, that, as the nation ad- vanced in refinement, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it became the subject of frequent legisla- tive enactments, in which the concubines of the clergy are described as causing general scandal by their lawless effrontery and ostentatious magnifi- cence of apparel.'^ Their rich Notwithstanding this prevalent licentiousness of the Spanish ecclesiastics, their influence became every day more widely extended, while this ascen- dency, for which they were particularly indebted in that rude age to their superior learning and capacity, 77 Marina, Ensayo, ubi supra, by Sempere, in his Historia del and nos. 220 et seq. Luxo, torn. i. pp. 166 et seq. 78 See the original acts quoted poseessioiia