§ 11. And, seeing that there are many such large establishments, which, as is commonly said, are of use neither to God nor man, because they neither observe regular monastic life, nor yet supply soldiers or attendants of the secular authorities to defend our shores from barbarians; if any one were, according to the necessities of the times, to erect an episcopal see in such places, he may be shown to incur no blame of prevarication, but rather to be doing an act of virtue. For how can it be accounted a misdeed, that the unjust decrees of former kings should be set right by the correct judgment of princes better than they? or that the lying pen of unrighteous scribes should be destroyed and nullified by the discreet sentence of wiser priests, according to the example of ancient history, which, in describing the times of the kings of Judah, from David and Solomon to Hezekiah, the last of them, shows that some of them were religious, but the greater number reprobate; and that at one time the wicked censured the deeds of the good who went before them, but at another time the good, with the aid of God’s holy spirit, zealously corrected the hurtful deeds of their wicked predecessors, as was their bounden duty, by means of the holy priests and prophets; according to that saying of the holy Prophet Esaias, “To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.” By which example it behoves your Holiness also, in conjunction with our religious king, to cancel the irreligious and unrighteous deeds and writings of those who lived formerly, and to fix your eye on such things as may benefit this province, either according to God, or according to the flesh; lest, in these our times, either religion cease altogether, (together with the love and fear of Him who seeth into the heart,) or the number of our secular soldiers become lessened, and our borders be no longer defended from the inroads of the barbarians. For, disgraceful though it be to say it, so many estates have been received under the name of monasteries by those who know nothing whatever of the monastic life, as you yourselves know better than I, that the sons of the nobles, or of discharged soldiers, can find no place wherein to receive their possessions; and thus, having nothing to do, and not marrying, though past the age of puberty, they are held by no tie of continence; and therefore either go beyond the sea and abandon their country, which they ought to fight for; or, with still greater wickedness and impudence, not being bound to chastity, become addicted to luxury an fornication, and do not abstain even from the very virgins who are dedicated to God.