[336] Constit. Otton. ann. 940, c. 12.
[337] Quod si sacerdotes incontinenter propter ipsam continentiam primam quam sortitus est, separati a consortio cellæ, teneat uxorem; si vere aliam duxerit, excommunicetur.—Concil. Spalatens. ann. 925 c. 15.
The passage is evidently corrupt, but its intention is manifest. The reading suggested by Batthyani may be reasonably accepted. “Quod si sacerdotes incontinentes propter ipsam continentiam quam quis primam sortitus est, separati a consortio cellæ, teneant uxorem, tolerantur; si vero aliam duxerint, excommunicentur.” (Batthyani Legg. Eccles. Hungar. I. 333-4.)
[338] Richeri Hist. Lib. II. c. 81. The canons of the council, however, as they have reached us, are silent on the subject.
[339] Concil. Augustan. ann. 952 c. 1, 4, 11.
[340] Cod. Bamberg. Lib. II. Epist. 10.
St. Ulric is noteworthy as the first subject of papal canonization, having been enrolled in the calendar by the council of Rome in 993. That priestly marriage should be advocated by so pious and venerable a father was of course not agreeable to the sacerdotal party, and his evidence against celibacy has not infrequently been ruled out of court by discrediting the authenticity of the epistle. The compiler of the collection containing it, made in 1125, prefixed the name of Nicholas as that of the pope to whom it was addressed, and as St. Ulric was about equidistant between Nicholas I. in the ninth and Nicholas II. in the eleventh century, it has been suggested that the epistle was addressed to the latter, on the occasion of his reforms in 1059 the use of St. Ulric’s name being assumed as a mistake of the compiler. That this is not so is shown by the fact that already in 1079 it was known as St. Ulric’s, being condemned as such in that year by Gregory VII.—“scriptum quod dicitur sancti Oudalrici ad papam Nicholaum, de nuptiis presbiterorum” (Bernald. Constant. Chron. ann. 1079). The authenticity of the document, I believe, is generally admitted by unprejudiced critics.
[341] Ratherii Discordia c. 1, 6.
[342] Ratherii Epist. XI., XII.—His letter to the Empress Adelaide, announcing his willingness to retire from the contest, and to seek the congenial shades of a monastery, is most uncourtly. (Epist. XIII.)
[343] Ruotgeri Vit. S. Brunonis c. 38.—Ratherius consoled himself epigrammatically by condensing his misfortunes in the Leonine verse—“Veronæ præsul, sed ter Ratherius exsul.”