Note 244 — Chapter VI · POWER OF THE POPES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Fleury's Ecclesiastical Hist. 1. 82. n. 28. He relates also, 1. 83, n. 43, the reproaches which Robert Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, a learned and pious prelate, addressed to the Court of Rome, and particularly to Innocent IV. “The pope has not been ashamed to annul the constitutions of his predecessors, with a Non obstante: in which he evinces too great a contempt for them, and gives a precedent for disregarding his own. Although many popes have al-ready afflicted the church, this pope has reduced it to a greater degree of bondage, principally by the usurers he has introduced into England, and who are worse than the Jews. Besides, he has directed the friars preachers and the friars minors, when administering to the dying, to persuade them to bequeath by will their property for the succour of the Holy Land, in order to defraud the heirs of their wealth whether they should live or die. He sells crusaders to the laity as formerly sheep and oxen were sold in the temple, and measures the indulgence by the money which they bestow towards the crusade: furthermore the pope commands the prelates by his letters, to provide such a one with a benèfice, according as he may wish to purchase, although he be a foreigner, illiterate, in every respect unworthy, or ignorant of the language of the country: so that he can neither preach nor hear confessions, neither relieve the poor nor receive the traveller, as he is not a resident.” Fleury adds, that Robert Greathead enlarged on the views of the court of Rome, especially its avarice and dissoluteness. “To swallow up every thing, it drew to itself the wealth of those who died intestate; and in order to pillage with the less restraint, it divided the plunder with the king. The bishop of Lincoln still more laments that the pope employed, in the collection of his extortions, the mendicant friars, learned and virtuous men, thus abusing their obedience by compelling them to mix with that world they had left; he sent them into England with great power as legates in disguise, not being allowed to send there in form and openly unless the king requested it.” Such were, says Fleury, the complaints of the bishop of Lincoln, too sharp indeed, but too well founded, as appears by the writings of the period, even by the epistles of the popes.