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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: Yet so loose were the ideas of the times respecting
the conduct of the clergy, whether secular or
regular, that the Prior Aymer maintained a fair
character in the neighbourhood of his abbey. His
free and jovial temper, and the readiness with which
he granted absolution from all ordinary delinquencies,
rendered him a favourite among the nobility
and principal gentry, to several of whom he was allied
by birth, being of a distinguished Norman family.
The ladies, in particular, were not disposed
to scan too nicely the morals of a man who was a
 Ivanhoe |