§ 12. But others, who are laymen, and have no experience of the regular monastic life, nor any love for the same, commit a still greater scandal: — for they give money to the kings, and under pretence of erecting monasteries they acquire possessions, wherein the more freely to indulge their licentiousness; and procuring these by a royal edict to be assigned over to them in inheritance, they get the deed by which these privileges are confirmed, as if it were a matter worthy of God’s notice, authenticated by the signatures of the bishops, abbots, and secular authorities. And thus, having gained possession of farms and villages, they free themselves from every bond, both human and Divine, and in the character of superiors over monks, though they are but laymen, they do nothing therein but gratify their desires. Nay, it is not monks that are there assembled, but all such as they can pick up, outcasts from other monasteries for disobedience, or men whom they can allure away from other monasteries, or, in short, such of their own followers as they can persuade to receive the tonsure, and promise monastic obedience to themselves. With such ill-sorted societies do they fill the cells which they have built, whilst they present a disgraceful spectacle, never before heard of: for at one time they are occupied with their wives and the care of raising children, and at another time they rise from their beds to occupy themselves with the internal concerns of the monastery. Furthermore they display the same folly in procuring land for their wives, as they say, to erect convents, and these, equally foolish, though also laics, suffer themselves to become the superiors over Christ’s handmaidens. Well suited to them is the proverb that wasps, though they can make combs, yet store them with poison instead of honey.