Note 682 — XVII. NORMAN ENGLAND.
Reading edition
Henric. Huntingd. Lib. VII.—Matt. Paris ann. 1125.—Baronius (ann. 1125, No. 12) endeavors to disprove the story, but is only able to offer general negative allegations, of but little weight when opposed to the testimony of a contemporary like Henry of Huntingdon, who speaks of it as a matter of public notoriety, which covered the cardinal with disgrace and drove him from England.
Such conduct was a favorite theme of objurgation with the ascetics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—
Certe tu qui missam dicis Post amplexum meretricis, Potaberis ab inimicis Liquore sulphuris et picis.
(Du Méril, Poésies Latines, p. 133.)
So also, among the poems which pass under the name of Golias Episcopus is one of fierce invective directed against the priests, in which this is one of the principal accusations—
O sacerdos, hæc responde, Qui frequenter et jocunde Cum uxore dormis, unde Mane surgens, missam dicis, Corpus Christi benedicis, Post amplexus meretricis Minus quam tu peccatricis. Plenus sorde, plenus mendis, Ad autorem manus tendis, Quem contempnis, quem offendis, Meretrici dum ascendis. Quali corde, quali ore Corpus Christi, cum cruore, Tractas, surgens de fœtore, Dignus plagis et tortore.
Mapes’s Poems (Camd. Soc. Ed. pp. 49-50).