Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England

by Edward Lewes Cutts

In 1102, a national synod, held at Westminster, under Anselm of Canterbury and Gerard of York, sought to draw the line more strictly. It enacted that no canon, and no one above the order of sub-deacon, might marry; required those who were married to put away their wives; forbade a married priest to say mass, and the people to hear him. It added another edict, to which we shall have to refer hereafter—that sons of priests were not to succeed to their fathers’ benefices.

It was soon found that it was not possible to enforce these decrees, and the Pope was appealed to on the question. He was so convinced of the difficulty, that he dispensed with the canons, and in a letter (1107) to Anselm gave reasons for so doing, which contain valuable evidence of the condition of things. He founded the dispensation on the particular circumstances of the English Church, where, he observes, the greater and more valuable part of the clergy were the sons of priests, and therefore he gives Anselm a commission to promote such persons in the Church. He likewise empowers him to dispense with the canons in other cases where the untractableness of the English and the interest of religion should make it necessary. Anselm’s canons were repeated by William of Canterbury and Thurstan of York in 1126 and 1127, but were met with a stubborn resistance.[252]

After a short time bishops and great dignitaries ceased to be married men, and sought to enforce the canons on celibacy which they helped to make. Cathedral dignitaries also generally paid outward respect to the canons, but some of them had unacknowledged wives.[253]

In 1128, at a national synod held in London, the synod resigned the dealing with the recalcitrant clergy into the king’s hands. The king (Henry I.) disappointed the archbishops by abstaining from any attempt to enforce celibacy on the clergy, but he ingeniously took advantage of the opportunity to raise a revenue out of them by permitting the clergy to retain their wives on payment of a fee for the licence to do so. The king was said to have raised a great sum of money by this device, which implies that a great number of the clergy were married and retained their wives. King John, on the publication of the Interdict, seized the wives of the clergy, and only released them on payment of heavy ransom.

Synod after synod continued to legislate against them.[254]

In 1222, a synod held at Oxford, under Archbishop Stephen Langton, enacted that if beneficed men or men in sacred orders should presume to retain their partners publicly in their dwelling-houses (hospitiis), or should elsewhere have public access to them to the public scandal, they should be coerced by the withdrawal of their benefice; and that the clergy might not leave such partners (i.e. wives) anything in their wills. It also attacked the poor wives, enacting that if they did not leave their partners they should be excluded from the church and the sacraments; if that did not suffice, they should be stricken with the sword of excommunication; and, lastly, the secular arm should be invoked against them.[255]

Archbishop Richard of Wethershead, in 1229 or 1230 repeated the decree that men of the order of sub-deacon and upwards who had married should put away their wives, though they were unwilling and refused to consent,[256] and if they persisted in having publicly a female partner, should, after a first, second, and third warning, be deprived of every benefice and office.

St. Edmund the Canonized Archbishop, in 1234 or 1235, enacted that if any clerics who had been suspended for incontinency should presume to continue to exercise their office they should be deprived of their benefices, and for their double fault perpetuo damnentur. He tries to make the rectors inform against the clerics in their parishes, threatening that if a case comes to his knowledge by common report before the rector has given in his accusation against his brother, the rector shall be taken to have known of it, and shall be punished as a partaker in the sin. Lastly, he decrees that prelates (archdeacons, officials, and rural deans) who presume to support such persons in their iniquity, especially for the offer of money or of any other temporal advantage, shall be subject to the same penalty.

In 1237, Cardinal Otho came from Rome at the request of the king (Henry III.), unknown to the nobles, and summoned a national council at St. Paul’s. It was understood that he was going to make strong decrees against the abuses of the clergy, and especially against the pluralists and the illegitimates, and feeling ran so high among the clergy that the legate obtained from the king an attendance of some nobles, and a guard of some armed knights and about two hundred soldiers, who were placed in ambush for his protection. The decree against the pluralists was so vehemently opposed that the cardinal postponed this question till the Pope could be appealed to.

The canon against the married clergy declared that unless clerks, especially those in holy orders, who publicly keep concubines in their houses, or in those of others’, dismiss them therefrom within a month, they shall be suspended from every office and benefice, and if they persist, shall be deprived. And “we strictly order that archbishops and bishops shall make diligent inquiries throughout all their deaneries, and that what we have decreed shall be observed.”