text:  The establishment of huge communities of sanctified idlers monks and nuns by the ten thousand in every province and almost in every town gave a sacred sanction to idleness--gave a means of escaping work to all who preferred the lounging and useless life of the convent to regular labour and even provided the means of living to multitudes of vagabonds who were content to eat their bread and drink their soup daily at the convent gates rather than to make any honest decent effort to maintain themselves