In a letter to Pope Leo X on September 6th, 1520, Martin Luther wrote of the Christianity of his day that the church, "…once the holiest of all, has become the most licentious den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the kingdom of sin, death, and hell. It is so bad...
c. 2 and 19), at least in this world; and a Church which showed such lenity towards gross offenders, as the Roman Church at that time did, according to the corroborating testimony of Hippolytus, he called worse than a "den of thieves," even a "spelunca moechorum et fornicatorum." ...
IV. The laws of King Alfred recognized the right of asylum in England. It was not till the year 1487, in the reign of Henry VII, that by a bull of Pope Innocent VIII it was declared that, if thieves, robbers, and murderers, having taken refuge in sanctuaries, should sally out and ...
They belonged to the refuse of mankind — navvies, sailors, gypsies, infidels, scoffers, drunkards, thieves, dog-fanciers, pigeonkeepers; men, women, and children, the roughest, wildest, most ignorant and degraded met together, and on them the full power of the gospel was manifested in ...