Note 25 — BOOK V. CONCERNING BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS.

The holding of a plurality of livings by a single ecclesiastic, an abuse which, in after times, assumed such gigantic proportions under papal rule, especially in England, where, by reason of the hardships it produced, it promoted in no small degree the progress of the Reformation, was scarcely known to the Arian, or Catholic clergy of Spain. The enjoyment of the revenues of one, or a greater number of benefices by a layman, no matter how wealthy or powerful the latter might be—a custom elsewhere so prevalent—was not provided for by the sacerdotal legislature of the Visigoths in their Code of laws; for the reason, no doubt, that such a thing was deemed too improbable for serious consideration.—[Ed.]