Note 854 — XXI. RESULTS.

Gobelinæ Personæ Cosmodrom. Ætat. VI. c. 92, 93.—How utterly monastic discipline was neglected in Germany is shown by the fact that a century earlier, in 1307, a council of Cologne found it necessary to denounce the frequency with which nuns were seduced, left their convents, lived in open and public profligacy, and then returned unblushingly to their establishments, where they seem to have been received as a matter of course.—Concil. Colon. ann. 1307 c. xvii. (Hartzheim IV. 113). That this had little effect is proved by a repetition of the threats of punishment, three years later (Concil. Colon. ann. 1310 c. ix.; Hartzheim IV. 122). In 1347, John van Arckel, Bishop of Utrecht, was obliged to prohibit men from having access to the nunneries of his diocese, in order to put an end to the scandals which were apparently frequent (Hartzheim IV. 350). In 1350, the Emperor Charles IV. felt called upon to address an earnest remonstrance to the Archbishop of Mainz concerning the unclerical habits of his canons and clergy who spent the revenues of the church in jousts and tourneys, and who, in dress, arms, and mode of life, were not to be distinguished from laymen (Ibid. IV. 358). How little was effected by these efforts is manifest when, in 1360, William, Archbishop of Cologne, was obliged to refute the assertions of those monks and nuns who alleged in their defence that custom allowed them to leave their convents and contract marriage (Ibid. IV. 493).