ANCIENT MORTMAIN AND MODERN MONOPOLY That the acquisition of property by the clergy was a settled policy, throughout the Christian world, except in the earliest times, cannot be gainsaid. Blackstone says on that point : "But, though the being the spiritual head of the Church was a thing of great sound, among men of conscience and piety, yet the Court of Rome was fully apprized that (among the bulk of mankind) power cannot be maintained without property; and therefore its attention began very early upon every method that promised pecu niary advantage." Perhaps the most clear description of the machinery by which this prudential design was made effective, is found in Hallam's "Middle Ages." The following is from that work: "Large estates, or, as they were termed, patrimonies, not only within their own dioceses, but sometimes in distant coun tries, sustained the dignity of the principal sees, and especially that of Rome. "But it must be remarked that many of these donations are of lands uncultivated and unappropriated. The monasteries ac quired legitimate riches by the culture of these deserted tracts, and by the prudent management of their revenues, which were less exposed to the ordinary means of dissi pation than those of laity. If the posses sions of ecclesiastical communities had all been as fairly earned, we could find nothing in them to reprehend. But other sources of wealth were less pure, and they derived their wealth from many sources. Those who entered into a monastery, threw fre quently their whole estates into the com mon stock; and even the children of rich parents were expected to make a donation of land on assuming the cowl. "Some gave their property to the Church before entering on military expeditions, gifts were made by many to take effect after their lives, and bequests by many in the terrors of dissolution. Even those legacies to charitable purposes, which the
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clergy could with more decency and speciousness recommend, and of which the administration was generally confined to them, were frequently applied to their own benefit." Continuing, the author next dwells upon that source of wealth which in all ages the sacerdotal power has wielded with mighty results, i.e., the superstitious fear of the hereafter. "They failed not, above all, to inculcate upon the wealthy sinner that no atonement could be so acceptable to Heaven as liberal presents to its earthly delegates. To die without allotting a portion of worldly wealth to pious uses was accounted almost like suicide, ... and hence, intestacy passed for a sort of fraud upon the Church, which she punished by taking the admin istration of the deceased's effects into her own hands." Whatever of truth there may be in the ancient adage, "To be executor is better than to be heir," there is no doubt that a substantial legacy was often interlined in those proceedings. But on the other hand, it must be stated that their management of these vast prop erties when as we have seen "they did enjoy, according to some authorities, nearly one half of England," was not without its advantages to the realm. The same authority tells us that "The devastation of war from the fifth to the eleventh century rendered land the least costly of gifts, though it must ever be the most truly valuable and permanent. "Many of the grants to monasteries which strike us as enormous, were of districts absolutely wasted, which would have prob ably been reclaimed by no other means. We owe the agricultural restoration of a great part of Europe to the monks. They chose, for the sake of retirement, secluded regions which they cultivated with the labor of their hands." W. H. Hutton, in "Social England," says, "Even in 1130 the land lay waste round York for a breadth of
