Active and educated minds once more began to watch with some sort of independence the social facts before their eyes, to stigmatize vices and to seek for remedies.

The spectacle afforded by their age could not fail to strike them.

Society, after having made some few strides away from physical chaos, seemed in danger of falling into moral chaos; morals had sunk far below the laws, and religion was in deplorable contrast to morals.

It was not laymen only who abandoned themselves with impunity to every excess of violence and licentiousness; scandals were frequent amongst the clergy themselves; bishoprics and other ecclesiastical benefices, publicly sold or left by will, passed down through families from father to son, and from husband to wife, and the possessions of the Church served for dowry to the daughters of bishops.

Absolution was at a low quotation in the market, and redemption for sins of the greatest enormity cost scarcely the price of founding a church or a monastery.