Note 123 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Of this type is Guiot of Provence, a Black Friar, the author of La Bible Guiot, written between 1187 and 1206. He is a lover of good living, a champion of aristocrats, a foe of popular movements,123 and withal a little of a buffoon. But it is to be counted to him for righteousness that he thought the wealth devoured by the clergy might be more usefully spent on roads, bridges, and hospitals.124 He has also a good word for the old pagans who lived “according to reason”; and as to his own time, he is sharply censorious alike of princes, pope, and prelates. The princes are rascals who “do not believe in God,” and depress their nobility; and the breed of the latter has sadly degenerated. The pope is to be prayed for; but he is ill counselled by his cardinals, who conform to the ancient tendency of Rome to everything evil; many of the archbishops and bishops are no better; and the clergy in general are eaten up by greed and simony.125 This is in fact the common note.126