CLERGY (M.E. clergie, O. Fr. clergie, from Low Lat. form clericia [Skeat], by assimilation with O. Fr. clergié, Fr. clergé, from Low Lat. clericatus), a collective term signifying in English strictly the body of “clerks,” i.e. men in holy orders (see [Clerk]). The word has, however, undergone sundry modifications of meaning. Its M.E. senses of “clerkship” and “learning” have long since fallen obsolete. On the other hand, in modern times there has been an increasing tendency to depart from its strict application to technical “clerks,” and to widen it out so as to embrace all varieties of ordained Christian ministers. While, however, it is now not unusual to speak of “the Nonconformist clergy,” the word “clergyman” is still, at least in the United Kingdom, used of the clergy of the Established Church in contradistinction to “minister.” As applied to the Roman Catholic Church the word embraces the whole hierarchy, whether its clerici be in holy orders or merely in minor orders. The term has also been sometimes loosely used to include the members of the regular orders; but this use is improper, since monks and friars, as such, have at no time been clerici. The use of the word “clergy” as a plural, though the New English Dictionary quotes the high authority of Cardinal Newman for it, is less rare than wrong; in the case cited “Some hundred Clergy” should have been “Some hundred of the Clergy.”
In distinction to the “clergy” we find the “laity” (Gr. λάος, people), the great body of “faithful people” which, in nearly every various conception of the Christian Church, stands in relation to the clergy as a flock of sheep to its pastor. This distinction was of early growth, and developed, with the increasing power of the hierarchy, during the middle ages into a very lively opposition (see [Order, Holy]; [Church History]; [Papacy]; [Investitures]). The extreme claim of the great medieval popes, that the priest, as “ruler over spiritual things,” was as much superior to temporal rulers as the soul is to the body (see [Innocent III.]), led logically to the vast privileges and immunities enjoyed by the clergy during the middle ages. In those countries where the Reformation triumphed, this triumph represented the victory of the civil over the clerical powers in the long contest. The victory was, however, by no means complete. The Presbyterian model was, for instance, as sacerdotal in its essence as the Catholic; Milton complained with justice that “new presbyter is but old priest writ large,” and declared that “the Title of Clergy St Peter gave to all God’s people,” its later restriction being a papal and prelatical usurpation (i.e. i Peter v. 3, for κλῆρος and κλήρων).
Clerical immunities, of course, differed largely at different times and in different countries, the extent of them having been gradually curtailed from a period a little earlier than the close of the middle ages. They consisted mainly in exemption from public burdens, both as regarded person and pocket, and in immunity from lay jurisdiction. This last enormous privilege, which became one of the main and most efficient instruments of the subjection of Europe to clerical tyranny, extended to matters both civil and criminal; though, as Bingham shows, it did not (always and everywhere) prevail in cases of heinous crime (Origines Eccles. bk. v.).
This diversity of jurisdiction, and subjection of the clergy only to the sentences of judges bribed by their esprit de corps to judge leniently, led to the adoption of a scale of punishments for the offences of clerks avowedly much lighter than that which was inflicted for the same crimes on laymen; and this in turn led to the survival in England, long after the Reformation, of the curious legal fiction of benefit of clergy (see below), used to mitigate the extreme harshness of the criminal law.
CLERGY, BENEFIT OF, an obsolete but once very important feature in English criminal law. Benefit of clergy began with the claim on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities in the 12th century that every clericus should be exempt from the jurisdiction of the temporal courts and be subject to the spiritual courts alone. The issue of the conflict was that the common law courts abandoned the extreme punishment of death assigned to some offences when the person convicted was a clericus, and the church was obliged to accept the compromise and let a secondary punishment be inflicted. The term “clerk” or clericus always included a large number of persons in what were called minor orders, and in 1350 the privilege was extended to secular as well as to religious clerks; and, finally, the test of being a clerk was the ability to read the opening words of verse 1 of Psalm li., hence generally known as the “neck-verse.” Even this requirement was abolished in 1705. In 1487 it was enacted that every layman, when convicted of a clergyable felony, should be branded on the thumb, and disabled from claiming the benefit a second time. The privilege was extended to peers, even if they could not read, in 1547, and to women, partially in 1622 and fully in 1692. The partial exemption claimed by the Church did not apply to the more atrocious crimes, and hence offences came to be divided into clergyable and unclergyable. According to the common practice in England of working out modern improvements through antiquated forms, this exemption was made the means of modifying the severity of the criminal law. It became the practice to claim and be allowed the benefit of clergy; and when it was the intention by statute to make a crime really punishable with death, it was awarded “without benefit of clergy.” The benefit of clergy was abolished by a statute of 1827, but as this statute did not repeal that of 1547, under which peers were given the privilege, a further statute was passed in 1841 putting peers on the same footing as commons and clergy.
For a full account of benefit of clergy see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, vol. i. 424-440; also Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, vol. i.; E. Friedberg, Corpus juris canonici (Leipzig, 1879-1881).
CLERGY RESERVES, in Canada. By the act of 1791, establishing the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, the British government set apart one-eighth of all the crown lands for the support of “a Protestant clergy.” These reservations, after being for many years a stumbling-block to the economic development of the province, and the cause of much bitter political and ecclesiastical controversy, were secularized by the Canadian parliament in 1854, and the proceeds applied to other purposes, chiefly educational. Owing to the wording of the imperial act, the amount set apart is often stated as one-seventh, and was sometimes claimed as such by the clergy.