Archbishop Wolf's Sermon to the English

A thousand years ago, the Archbishop of York chastised the English people for their sins.  (Full text)

You can read this marveling at how different they were then, or how much the same.  Both are true. 

But what I say is true: there is need for that remedy because God’s dues have dimin­ished too long in this land in every district, and laws of the people have deteriorated entirely too greatly, since Edgar died. And sanc­tuaries are too widely violated, and God’s houses are entirely stripped of all dues and are stripped within of everything fitting. And widows are widely forced to marry in unjust ways and too many are impoverished and fully humiliated; and poor men are sorely betrayed and cruelly defrauded, and sold widely out of this land into the power of foreigners, though innocent; and infants are enslaved by means of cruel injustices, on account of petty theft everywhere in this nation.

And the rights of freemen are taken away and the rights of slaves are restricted and charitable obligations are curtailed. Free men may not keep their independence, nor go where they wish, nor deal with their property just as they desire; nor may slaves have that property which, on their own time, they have obtained by means of difficult labor, or that which good men, in Gods favor, have granted them, and given to them in charity for the love of God.

But every man decreases or with­holds every charitable obligation that should by rights be paid eagerly in Gods favor, for in­justice is too widely common among men and lawlessness is too widely dear to them.