Nevertheless the nation regarded the condition of the Church with growing discontent. The papal interference with the rights of patrons, besides grievously wronging the bishops and chapters, irritated the people at large, for they saw ecclesiastical offices and revenues held by foreigners who never set foot in England, and were in many cases their enemies. Of this perhaps enough has been said. Non-residence and plurality, however, were not confined to foreigners. All the great offices of State were, as a rule, held by bishops and other dignified clergy, who neglected their ecclesiastical for their civil duties; and the inferior clergy followed their example, and engaged in secular employments of all kinds. Non-residence was increased by the pestilence. Much land fell out of cultivation, and so ceased to yield tithes, and parsons left their parishes whenever they could obtain some profitable work to do elsewhere. So the poet of Piers Ploughman records how--
Parsons and parisshe preestes That hire parisshes weren povere To have a licence and leve And syngen ther for symonie;
Somme serven the kyng In cheker and in chauncelrie Of wardes and of wardmotes And somme serven as servauntz And in stede of stywardes
Pleyned hem to the bisshope, Sith the pestilence tyme, At London to dwelle, For silver is swete.
And his silver tellen Chalangan his dettes Weyves and streyves. Lordes and ladies, Sitten and demen.
In the absence of the parish priests, or while they were immersed in worldly affairs, the churches fell into decay, and the people were neglected. Wyclif tells us that secular employment was the only road to ecclesiastical preferment. "Lords," he says, "wolen not present a clerk able of kunning of God's law, but a kitchen clerk, or a peny clerk, or wise in building castles or worldly doing, though he kunne not reade wel his sauter." Clergy such as these held a vast number of preferments, for the Pope readily granted dispensations for plurality. William of Wykeham, the king's architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, held at one time, while Keeper of the Privy Seal, the archdeaconry of Lincoln and eleven prebends in various churches.
[Sidenote: Oppression of the spiritual courts.]