An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church

by Henry Charles Lea

Martin V. had assumed the responsibility of reforming the church, and he did, in fact, attempt it after some fashion, though he apparently took to heart Dante’s axiom—

Lunga promessa, con l’attender corto

Ti farà trionfar nell’ alto seggio.

In 1422 Cardinal Branda of Piacenza, his legate, when sent to Germany to preach a crusade against the Hussites, was honored with the title of Reformer General, and full powers were given to him to effect this part of his mission. The letters-patent of the pope bear ample testimony to the fearful depravity of the Teutonic church,[979] while the constitution which Branda promulgated declares that in a portion of the priesthood there was scarcely left a trace of decency or morality. According to this document, concubinage, simony, neglect of sacred functions, gambling, drinking, fighting, buffoonery, and kindred pursuits, were the prevalent vices of the ministers of Christ; but the punishments which he enacted for their suppression—repetitions of those which we have seen proclaimed so many times before—were powerless to overcome the evils which had become part and parcel of the church itself.[980]

What was the condition of clerical morals in Italy soon after this may be learned from a single instance. When Ambrose was made General of the austere order of Camaldoli he set vigorously to work to reform the laxity which had almost ruined it. One of his abbots was noted for abounding licentiousness; not content with ordinary amours, he was wont to visit the nunneries in his district to indulge in promiscuous intercourse with the virgins dedicated to God. Yet Ambrose in taking him to task did not venture to punish him for his misdeeds, but promised him full pardon for the past and to take him into favor, if he would only abstain for the future—a task which ought to be easy as he was now old and should be content with having long lived evilly and be ready to dedicate his few remaining years to the service of God.[981] When a reformer, who enjoyed the special friendship and protection of Eugenius IV., was forced to be so moderate with such a criminal, it is easy to imagine what was the tone of morality in the church at large.

While the Armagnacs and Burgundians were rivalling the English in carrying desolation into every corner of France, it could not be expected that the peaceful virtues could flourish, or sempiternal corruption be reformed. Accordingly, it need not surprise us to see Hardouin, Bishop of Angers, despondingly admit, in 1428, that licentiousness had become so habitual among his clergy that it was no longer reputed to be a sin; that concubinage was public and undisguised, and that the patrimony of Christ was wasted in supporting the guilty partners of the priesthood. That gambling, swearing, drunkenness, and all manner of unclerical conduct should accompany these disorders, is too probable to require the concurrent testimony which the worthy bishop affords us.[982] Alain Chartier, Archdeacon of Paris and Secretary to Charles VI. and Charles VII., confirms this in a more general way, when he attributes to enforced celibacy and the temporal endowments of the church the vices and crimes which rendered the clergy so odious and contemptible to the laity that he looks forward to the speedy advent of Antichrist to wipe out the whole system in universal ruin.[983] Apparently its corruption was too deep-seated to hope for any milder means of reformation. To this we may at least partially attribute the utter loss of respect for sacred things which rendered the churches and their pastors a special mark for pillage and persecution during the dreary civil wars of the period.[984]

In England, which had enjoyed comparative immunity from civil strife, matters were quite as bad. At the request of Henry V., in 1414, the University of Oxford prepared a series of articles for the reformation of the church, whose shortcomings were vehemently attacked by the Lollards. It is not easy to imagine a more humiliating confession than is contained in the 38th article, directed against priestly immorality. The carnal and undisguised profligacy of ecclesiastics is declared to be a scandal to the church, and its impurity to be a dangerous temptation to others. It is therefore recommended that all public fornicators be suspended for a limited time from the ministry of the altar, and that some corporal chastisement be inflicted on them, in place of the trifling pecuniary mulct, which, levied in secret, had no effect in deterring them from their evil courses.[985]

Such was the state of sacerdotal morals when the great council of Bâle attracted to itself the hopes of Christendom as the sole instrument by which the purification of the church could be effected—a purification which was felt to be the only safeguard against a revolutionary uprising of the indignant laity. When Eugenius IV., towards the close of the year 1431, dreading the antagonism between the council and the papacy, sent his Bull ordering its dissolution, his legate, Cardinal Cesarini, took the responsibility of refusing obedience. His letter explaining the reasons of his contumacy affords a curious picture of the internal condition of the church and of the relations existing between it and the laity. The extreme corruption of ecclesiastical morals had been the principal object of convoking the council and had given rise to a feeling of fierce hostility towards the church. To this was attributable the success which had attended the Hussite movement, and unless the people could have reason to anticipate amendment, there was ample cause to fear a general imitation of the Hussites. So many provincial synods were daily held without result that confidence was no longer felt in the ordinary ecclesiastical machinery; the state of the public mind grew constantly more threatening as fresh scandals were wrought by the clergy, and the hopes entertained of the council were the only restraint which prevented the breaking out of a wide-spread revolt. As a proof of his assertions, the legate refers to various local troubles. Magdeburg had expelled her archbishop and clergy, was preparing wagons with which to fight, after the Bohemian fashion, and was said to have sent for a Hussite to command her forces. Passau had revolted against her bishop, and was even then laying close siege to his citadel. Bamberg was engaged in a violent quarrel with her bishop and chapter. These cities were regarded as the centres of formidable secret confederacies, and were believed to be negotiating with the Hussites.[986] The good fathers evidently recognized the full magnitude of the danger. The results of the inaction of the Council of Constance were full of pregnant warnings. The reformers could no longer be brought to trust the papacy, and those who might secretly deprecate reform were fully alive to the threatening aspect of affairs. They therefore addressed themselves resolutely to the removal of the cause. All who were guilty of public concubinage were ordered to dismiss their consorts within sixty days after the promulgation of the canon, under pain of deprivation of revenue for three months. Persistent contumacy or repetition of the offence was visited with suspension from functions and stipend until satisfactory evidence should be afforded of repentance and amendment. Bishops who neglected to enforce the law were to be held as sharing the guilt which they allowed to pass unpunished; and those prelates who were above the jurisdiction of local tribunals or synods were to be remanded to Rome for trial. The council deplored the extensive prevalence of the “cullagium,” by which those to whom was entrusted the administration of the church did not hesitate to enjoy a filthy gain by selling licenses to sin. A curse was pronounced on all involved in such transactions; they were to share the penalties of the guilt which they encouraged, and were, in addition, to pay a fine of double the amount of their iniquitous receipts.[987] In the Pragmatic Sanction, moreover, agreed upon in 1438 between the Emperor Albert II. and Charles VII. of France, the regulation confiscating three months’ revenues of concubinary priests was embodied.[988]

Honest, well-meant legislation this; yet the fathers of the council or the princes of Christendom could hardly deceive themselves with the expectation that it would prove effectual. If legislation could accomplish the desired result, there had already been enough of it since the days of Siricius. The compilations of canon law were full of admirable regulations, by which generation after generation had endeavored to attain the same object by every imaginable modification of inquisition and penalty. Ingenuity had been exhausted in devising laws which were only promulgated to be despised and forgotten. Something more was wanting, and that something could not be had without overturning the elaborate structure so skilfully and laboriously built up by the craft and enthusiasm of ten centuries.

How utterly impotent, in fact, were the efforts of the council, is evident when, within five years after the adoption of the Basilian canons, Doctor Kokkius, in a sermon preached before the council of Freysingen, could scarcely find words strong enough to denounce the evil courses of the clergy as a class;[989] and when, within fifteen years, we find Nicholas V. declaring that the clergy enjoyed such immunity that they scarcely regarded incontinence as a sin—a declaration sustained by the regulations promulgated for the restraint of the officials of his own court, which imply the previous open and undisguised defiance of the canons.[990]