But the blow to the prestige and power of the monasteries did not stem only from their dwindling membership. The enormous number of chantries endowed in parish churches during and immediately after the Black Death inevitably detracted from the significance of the monasteries in the eyes of the people.{507} The high level of employment and new, exciting opportunities won away many of the more ambitious from spiritual pursuits; hitherto in the Middle Ages the Church, in one form or another, had offered to those who were not of noble birth almost the only prospect of economic or social advancement – now other possibilities were beginning to open. Many of the monks had grown accustomed to a way of life which was always comfortable and sometimes luxurious. With tithes unpaid and manorial incomes crippled, the always precarious economics of the worse-run monasteries slipped into deficit.{508} Debts quickly accumulated. More than a hundred abbots succumbed to the plague. Not only did this mean a great loss in financial acumen and expertise but also in revenue, since the Crown took over the monastic income while its leadership was vacant and exacted a heavy fine before the new appointment could be made official.{509} The economic difficulties of the monasteries do not stem entirely from the Black Death; some houses were in trouble already while others managed to survive with their affluence unaffected. But the plague was certainly the most dramatic and probably the most important element in their decline.
To lose wealth and worldly power does not, of course, automatically imply a corresponding loss of spiritual grace. It is, indeed, more commonly argued that riches of the spirit accrue in inverse ratio to riches of the world. But there is little reason to believe that the new poverty of the monks brought with it any significant access of religious fervour – on the contrary, such evidence as there is indicates that the reverse was true. Wadding’s denunciation of his own order, the Franciscans, is well known:
It was because of this misfortune [the Black Death] that the monastic Orders, in particular the mendicants, which up to this date had been flourishing, both in learning and in piety, now began to decline. Discipline became slack and faith weakened, both because of the loss of their most eminent members and the relaxation of rules which ensued as a result of these calamities. It was in vain to look to the young men who had been received without proper selection and training to bring about a reform since they thought more about filling up the empty houses than about restoring the lost sense of authority.{510}
Though the mendicant orders were included in Wadding’s strictures it seems, nevertheless, that they emerged from the plague years with heightened credit. Whether they were really more selfless and courageous than the parish clergy could hardly have been assessed by a contemporary, let alone today. The very fact that they had no territorial responsibility increased their chances of making an impression on the laity. When the parish priest performed his duty he was no more than a familiar figure doing what he had always done. The mendicant friar, descending as from heaven on a beleaguered village, was greeted with an enthusiasm which his better-established colleague rarely knew. But however this may have been, it does seem certain that their way of life precluded the display of materialism and even cupidity which was so marked among the priesthood. It was not only in England but on the mainland of Europe as well that the mendicants gained in authority and wakened the angry jealousy of their rivals.
