Still the stubborn priests and their patrons held out, and another miracle was necessary—this time a more impressive one. A second council was called to discuss the matter, and was held at Calne in 978. During the heat of the argument the floor gave way, carrying with it the whole assembly, except St. Dunstan, who remained triumphantly and miraculously perched upon a joist, while his adversaries lay groaning below, in every variety of mutilation.[421] His triumph, however, was but short. The same year the pious child Edward perished through the intrigues of Elfritha, whose son, Ethelred the Unready, succeeded to the throne. The mixed political and religious character of these events is shown by the canonization of Edward, who, though yet a child, was regarded as a martyr by the ascetics, whose cause he had espoused.
As Elfritha had evidently sought the alliance of the secular clergy to strengthen her party, her success proved disastrous to the cause of reform. The respite of peace, too, which had blessed the island during the vigorous reigns of Athelstan the Magnificent and Edgar the Pacific, gave place to the ravages invited by the feeble and vacillating policy of Ethelred the Unready; the incursions of the pagan Danes became more and more frequent and terrible; and what little respect had been inculcated for the strictness of discipline was speedily forgotten in the anarchy which ensued.
The efforts of the reformers appear to have extended even to the British churches of Wales, which had followed Saxon example in abandoning celibacy. The Brut y Tywysogion relates that about the year 861 the priests were forbidden to marry without dispensation from the pope; but they did not submit, and the disturbances thus provoked rendered necessary the abandonment of the effort, so that sacerdotal marriage continued unchecked.[422] We shall see hereafter that in the Principality the custom remained in full vigor until the thirteenth century was well advanced.
How thoroughly the work of Dunstan and Edgar was undone in England is sufficiently indicated by the efforts made not long after, with the consent of Ethelred, to introduce some feeble restraints upon the prevailing immorality. About the year 1006 we find the chief monastery of England, Christ Church at Canterbury, in full possession of the secular clergy, whose irregularities were so flagrant that even Ethelred was forced to expel them, and to fill their places with monks.[423] What was the condition of discipline among the secular priests may be guessed from the reformatory efforts of St. Ælfric, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 995 to 1006. In his series of canons the first eight are devoted to inculcating the necessity of continence; after quoting the Nicene canon, he feels it to be so much at variance with the habits and customs of the age, that he actually deprecates the surprise of his clergy at hearing a rule so novel and so oppugnant to the received practice, “as though there was no danger in priests living as married men;” he anticipates the arguments which they will bring against him, and refutes them with more gravity than success.[424] There is also extant, under the name of St. Ælfric, a pastoral epistle, which is regarded as supposititious by some critics; but its passages on this subject are too similar in spirit to the canons of Ælfric to be reasonably rejected. They show how hopeless was the effort to maintain the purity desired by the ecclesiastical authorities, and that entreaties and exhortations were uttered merely from a sense of duty, and with hardly an expectation of commanding attention. “This, to you, priests, will seem grievous, because ye have your misdeeds in custom, so that it seems to yourselves that ye have no sin in so living in female intercourse as laymen; and say that Peter the Apostle had a wife and children.... Beloved, we cannot now forcibly compel you to chastity, but we admonish you, nevertheless, that ye observe chastity, so as Christ’s ministers ought, in good reputation, to the pleasure of God.”[425]
That these well-meant homilies effected little in reforming the hearts of so obdurate a generation becomes manifest by the proceedings of the council of Enham, held by King Ethelred in 1009. The priests are there entreated, by the obedience which they owe to God, to observe the chastity which they know to be due. Yet so great was the laxity prevailing that some are stated to have two or more wives, and many to be in the habit of changing their spouses at pleasure, in violation of all Christian law. The council was apparently, however, powerless to repress these scandals by an adequate punishment, and contented itself with promising to those who lived chastely the privileges and legal status of nobles, while the vicious were vaguely threatened with the loss of the grace of God and man.[426]
The injunctions of the council as regards the regular clergy, though not particularly specific in their nature, show that even the monks had not responded to the benefits conferred upon them by Edgar the Pacific, nor fulfilled the expectations of the pious Dunstan. An expression employed, indeed, leads the learned Spelman to suggest that there possibly were two orders of monks, the one married and the other unmarried; but this is probably without foundation.[427]
Such was the condition of the church when the increasing assaults of the Northman finally culminated in overthrowing the house of Cerdic, and placing the hated Dane upon the throne of England. Cnut’s long and prosperous reign, and his earnest veneration for the church, as shown by his pilgrimage to Rome, may perhaps have succeeded in removing some of the grosser immoralities of the clergy, but that marriage was still openly and unrestrainedly practised by those in orders is evident. The ecclesiastical laws of Cnut exhort priests to chastity in precisely the same words, and with the same promises as the canons of the council of Enham, but do not allude to the habit of keeping a plurality of wives; while, in the same chapter, a warning to the whole people against unlawful concubinage would seem to indicate that clergy and laity were bound by rules identical in strictness.[428]
That the rule of celibacy was recognized as only binding on the regulars, or monks, and that the secular priesthood were at full liberty to marry is evident from the system of purgation enjoined on them by the same code. The priest who was also a monk (sacerdos regulariter vivens—sacerd þe regollice libbe), could clear himself from an accusation in a simple suit by merely saying mass, and taking the communion, while the secular priest (plebeius sacerdos—mæssepreorst þe regol-lif næbbe) is only equal to the deacon-monk (diaconus regularis—diacon þe regollice libbe), requiring two of his peers as compurgators.[429] The significance of the distinction thus drawn is rendered clear by the version of the passage in a curious Latin text of the code published by Kolderup-Rosenvinge. The chapter is divided into two, the first one with the rubric “De Sacerdotibus,” and commencing “Si contigerit presbyterum regulariter et caste viventem,” &c., while the second is headed “De vulgare sacerdote non casto,” the meaning of which is defined in the expression “Si vulgaris presbyter qui non regulariter vivit.”[430] It is thus evident that purity was expected from those only who had entered into the obligations of monastic life, and also that the reforms of Dunstan had caused the ministers of the altar to be frequently selected from among the monks.
To this period are also, in all probability, to be attributed the “Institutes of Polity, civil and ecclesiastical,” to which reference has been made in the preceding section as blaming priests for decorating their wives with the ornaments belonging to their churches. Unable to denounce efficient penalties for the prevention of such evil practices, the author is obliged to content himself with invoking future punishment from heaven, in vague and meaningless threats—“A priest’s wife is nothing but a snare of the devil, and he who is ensnared thereby on to his end, he will be seized fast by the devil.”[431]