'A Supplication for the Beggars' was published as a pamphlet by the 16th-century Protestant rebel and English propagandist Simon Fish. The 16-page pamphlet accused the Roman Catholic Church of everything from avarice to murder to treason. Fish argues that the clergy and the Roman Catholic Church hold a disproportionate share of England's resources, alleging that they hold half of England's wealth while only representing 1/100 of the male population and only 1/400 of the total population. The monasteries, he claims, further compound the Church's corruption by heaping taxes on the poor instead of helping them.