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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part IV}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{footnote
church
clergy
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priests
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VII: History Of Ecclesiastical Power During The Middle Ages
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part IV

     Excommunication had very seldom, if ever, been levelled at the head of a
sovereign before the instance of Lothaire.  His ignominious submission and the
general feebleness of the Carlovingian line produced a repetition of the
menace at least, and in cases more evidently beyond the cognizance of a
spiritual authority.  Upon the death of this Lothaire, his uncle Charles the
Bald having possessed himself of Lorraine, to which the Emperor Louis II. had
juster pretensions, the Pope Adrian II. warned him to desist, declaring that
any attempt upon that country would bring down the penalty of excommunication.
Sustained by the intrepidity of Hincmar, the king did not exhibit his usual
pusillanimity, and the pope in this instance failed of success. ^d But John
VIII., the next occupier of the chair of St. Peter, carried his pretensions to
a height which none of his predecessors had reached.  The Carlovingian princes
had formed an alliance against Boson, the usurper of the kingdom of Arles.
The pope writes to Charles the Fat, "I have adopted the illustrious Prince
Boson as my son; be content therefore the illustrious Prince Boson as my son;
be content therefore with your own kingdom, for I shall instantly
excommunicate all who attempt to injure my son." ^e In another letter to the
same king, who had taken some property from a convent, he enjoins him to
restore it within sixty days, and to certify by an envoy that he had obeyed
the command, else an excommunication would immediately ensue, to be followed
by still severer castigation, if the king should not repent upon the first
punishment. ^f These expressions seem to intimate a sentence of deposition
from his throne, and thus anticipate by two hundred years the famous era of
Gregory VII., at which we shall soon arrive.  In some respects John VIII. even
advanced pretensions beyond those of Gregory.  He asserts very plainly a right
of choosing the emperor, and may seem indirectly to have exercised it in the
election of Charles the Bald, who had not primogeniture in his favor. ^g This
prince, whose restless ambition was united with meanness as well as
insincerity, consented to sign a capitulation, on his coronation at Rome, in
favor of the pope and church, a precedent which was improved upon in
subsequent ages. ^h Rome was now prepared to rivet her fetters upon
sovereigns, and at no period have the condition of society and the
circumstances of civil government been so favorable for her ambition.  But the
consummation was still suspended, and even her progress arrested, for more
than a hundred and fifty years.  This dreary interval is filled up, in the
annals of the papacy, by a series of revolutions and crimes.  Six popes were
deposed, two murdered, one mutilated.  Frequently two or even three
competitors, among whom it is not always possible by any genuine criticism to
distinguish the true shepherd, drove each other alternately from the city.  A
few respectable names appear thinly scattered through this darkness; and
sometimes, perhaps, a pope who had acquired estimation by his private virtues
may be distinguished by some encroachment on the rights of princes or the
privileges of national churches.  But in general the pontiffs of that age had
neither leisure nor capacity to perfect the great system of temporal
supremacy, and looked rather to a vile profit from the sale of episcopal
confirmations, or of exemptions to monasteries. ^i

[Footnote d: De Marca, l. iv. c. 11.]

[Footnote e: Schmidt, t. ii. p. 260.]

[Footnote f: Durioribus deinceps sciens te verberibus erudiendum. Schmidt, p.
261.]

[Footnote g: Baluz.  Capitularia, t. ii. p. 251; Schmidt, t. ii. p. 197.]

[Footnote h: Ibid., t. ii. p. 199.]

[Footnote i: Schmidt, t. ii. p. 414; Mosheim; St. Marc; Muratori, Ann.
d'Italia, passim.]

     The corruption of the head extended naturally to all other members of the
church.  All writers concur in stigmatizing the dissoluteness and neglect of
decency that prevailed among the clergy.  Though several codes of
ecclesiastical discipline had been compiled by particular prelates, yet
neither these nor the ancient canons were much regarded.  The bishops, indeed,
who were to enforce them had most occasion to dread their severity.  They were
obtruded upon their sees, as the supreme pontiffs were upon that of Rome, by
force or corruption.  A child of five years old was made archbishop of Rheims.
The see of Narbonne was purchased for another at the age of ten. ^j By this
relaxation of morals the priesthood began to lose its hold upon the prejudices
of mankind.  These are nourished chiefly indeed by shining examples of piety
and virtue, but also, in a superstitious age, by ascetic observances, by the
fasting and watching of monks and hermits, who have obviously so bad a lot in
this life, that men are induced to conclude that they must have secured a
better reversion in futurity.  The regular clergy, accordingly, or monastic
orders, who practised, at least apparently, the specious impostures of
self-mortification, retained at all times a far greater portion of respect
than ordinary priests, though degenerated themselves, as was admitted, from
their primitive strictness.

[Footnote j: Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 252.  It was almost
general in the church to have bishops under twenty years old.  Id. p. 149.
Even the Pope Benedict IX. is said to have been only twelve, but this has been
doubted.]

     Two crimes, of at least violations of ecclesiastical law, had become
almost universal in the eleventh century, and excited general indignation -
the marriage or concubinage of priests, and the sale of benefices.  By an
effect of those prejudices in favor of austerity to which I have just alluded,
celibacy had been, from very early times, enjoined as an obligation upon the
clergy.  It was perhaps permitted that those already married for the first
time, and to a virgin, might receive ordination; and this, after prevailing
for a length of time in the Greek church, was sanctioned by the council of
Trullo in 691, ^k and has ever since continued one of the distinguishing
features of its discipline.  The Latin church, however, did not receive these
canons, and has uniformly persevered in excluding the three orders of priests,
deacons, and subdeacons, not only from contracting matrimony, but from
cohabiting with wives espoused before their ordination.  The prohibition,
however, during some ages existed only in the letter of her canons.  In every
country the secular or parochial clergy kept women in their houses, upon more
or less acknowledged terms of intercourse, by a connivance of their
ecclesiastical superiors, which almost amounted to a positive toleration. The
sons of priests were capable of inheriting by the law of France and also of
Castile. ^l Some vigorous efforts had been made in England by Dunstan, with
the assistance of King Edgar, to dispossess the married canons, if not the
parochial clergy, of their benefices; but the abuse, if such it is to be
considered, made incessant progress, till the middle of the eleventh century.
There was certainly much reason for the rulers of the church to restore this
part of their discipline, since it is by cutting off her members from the
charities of domestic life that she secures their entire affection to her
cause, and renders them, like veteran soldiers, independent of every feeling
but that of fidelity to their commander and regard to the interests of their
body.  Leo IX. accordingly, one of the first pontiffs who retrieved the honor
of the apostolic chair, after its long period of ignominy, began in good
earnest the difficult work of enforcing celibacy among the clergy. ^m His
successors never lost sight of this essential point of discipline.  It was a
struggle against the natural rights and strongest affections of mankind, which
lasted for several ages, and succeeded only by the toleration of greater evils
than those it was intended to remove.  The laity, in general, took part
against the married priests, who were reduced to infamy and want, or obliged
to renounce their dearest connections.  In many parts of Germany no ministers
were left to perform divine services. ^n But perhaps there was no country
where the rules of celibacy met with so little attention as in England.  It
was acknowledged in the reign of Henry I. that the greater and better part of
the clergy were married, and that prince is said to have permitted them to
retain their wives. ^o But the hierarchy never relaxed in their efforts; and
all the councils, general or provincial, of the twelfth century, utter
denunciations against concubinary priests. ^p After that age we do not find
them so frequently mentioned; and the abuse by degrees, though not suppressed,
was reduced within limits at which the church might connive.

[Footnote k: This council was held at Constantinople in the dome of the
palace, called Trullus, by the Latins.  The nominative Trullo, though
soloecistical, is used, I believe, by ecclesiastical writers in English. St.
Marc, t. i. p. 294; Art de verifier les Dates, t. i. p. 157; Fleury, Hist.
Eccles., t. x. p. 110.  Bishops are not within this permission, and cannot
retain their wives by the discipline of the Greek church.  Lingard says of the
Anglo-Saxon church, - "During more than 200 years from the death of Augustin
the laws respecting clerical celibacy, so galling to the natural propensities
of man, but so calculated to enforce an elevated idea of the sanctity which
becomes the priesthood, were enforced with the utmost rigor: but during part
of the ninth century and most of the tenth, when the repeated and sanguinary
devastations of the Danes threatened the destruction of the hierarchy no less
than of the government, the ancient canons opposed but a feeble barrier to the
impulse of the passions." Ang.-Sax. Church, p. 176.  Whatever may have been
the case in England, those who look at the abstract of the canons of French
and Spanish councils, in Dupin's Ecclesiastical History, from the sixth to the
eleventh century, will find hardly one wherein there is not some enactment
against bishops or priests retaining wives in their houses.  Such provisions
were not repeated certainly without reason; so that the remark of Fleury, t.
xi. p. 594, that he has found no instance of clerical marriage before 893,
cannot weigh for a great deal.  It is probable that bishops did not often
marry after their consecration; but this cannot be presumed of priests.
Southey, in his Vindiclae Ecclesiae Anglicanae, p. 290, while he produces some
instances of clerical matrimony, endeavors to mislead the reader into the
supposition that it was even conformable to ecclesiastical canons. ^*

     [Footnote *: A late writer, who has glossed over every fact in
ecclesiastical history which could make against his own particular tenets,
asserts, - "In the earliest ages of the church no restriction whatever had
been placed on the clergy in this respect." Palmer's Compendious
Ecclesiastical History, p. 115.  This may be, and I believe it is, very true
of the Apostolical period; but the "earliest ages" are generally understood to
go further and certainly the prohibition of marriage to priests was an
established custom of some antiquity at the time of the Nicene council.  The
question agitated there was, not whether priests should marry, or whether
married men should be ordained.  I do not see any difference in principle; but
the church had made one.]]

[Footnote l: Recueil des Historiens, t. xi. preface.  Marina, Ensayo sobre las
Siete Partidas, c. 221, 223.  This was by virtue of the general indulgence
shown by the customs of that country to concubinage, or baragania; the
children of such a union always inheriting in default of those born in solemn
wedlock.  Ibid.]

[Footnote m: St. Marc, t. iii. pp. 152, 164, 219, 602, &c.]

[Footnote n: Schmidt, t. iii. p. 279; Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i.
p. 230.  A Danish writer draws a still darker picture of the tyranny exercised
towards the married clergy, which, if he does not exaggerate, was severe
indeed: alii membris truncabantur, alii occidebantur, alii de patria
expellebantur, pauci sua retinuere.  Langebek, Script.  Rerum Danicarum, t. i.
p. 380.  The prohibition was repeated by Waldemar II. in 1222, so that there
seems to have been much difficulty found.  Id. p. 287 and p. 272.]

[Footnote o: Wilkins, Concilia, p. 387; Chronicon Saxon; Collier, pp. 248,
286, 294; Lyttelton, vol. iii. p. 328.  The third Lateran council fifty years
afterwards speaks of the detestable custom of keeping concubines long used by
the English clergy.  Cum in Anglia prava et detestabili consuetudine et longo
tempore fuerit obtentum, ut clerici in domibus suis fornicarias habeant.
Labbe, Concilia, t. x. p. 1633.  Eugenius IV. sent a legate to impose celibacy
on the Irish clergy.  Lyttelton's Henry II. vol. ii. p. 42.

     The English clergy long set at nought the fulminations of the pope
against their domestic happiness; and the common law, or at least irresistible
custom, seems to have been their shield.  There is some reason to believe that
their children were legitimate for the purposes of inheritance, which,
however, I do not assert.  The sons of priests are mentioned in several
instruments of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but we cannot be sure
that they were not born before their fathers' ordination, or that they were
reckoned legitimate. ^*

     [Footnote *: Among the witnesses to some instruments in the reign of
Edward I., printed by Mr. Hudson Gurney from the court-rolls of the manor of
Keswick in Norfolk, we have more than once Walter filius presbyteri. But the
rest are described by the father's surname, except one, who is called filius
Beatricis; and as he may be suspected of being illegitimate, we cannot infer
the contrary as to the priest's son.]

     An instance, however, occurs in the Rot. Cur. Regis, A.D. 1194, where the
assize find that there has been no presentation to the church of Dunstan, but
the parsons have held it from father to son.  Sir Francis Palgrave, in his
Introduction to these records (p. 29), gives other proofs of this hereditary
succession in benefices.  Giraldus Cambrensis, about the end of Henry II.'s
reign (apud Wright's Political Songs of England, p. 353), mentions the
marriage of the parochial clergy as almost universal. More sacerdotum
parochialium Angliae fere cunctorum damnabili quidem et detestabili, publicam
secum habebat comitem individuam et in foco focariam, et in cubiculo
concubinam.  They were called focariae, as living at the same hearth; and this
might be tolerated, perhaps, on pretence of service; but the fellowship, we
perceive, was not confined to the fireside.  It was about this time that a
poem, De Concubinis Sacerdotum, commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, but
alluding by name to Pope Innocent III., humorously defends the uncanonical
usage.  It begins thus: -

     "Prisciani regula penitus cassatur,
     Sacerdos per hic et haec olim declinabatur,
     Sed per hic solummodo nunc articulatur,
     Cum per nostrum praesulem haec amoveatur."
     The last lines are better known, having been often quoted: -
     "Ecce jam pro clericis multum allegavi,
     Necnon pro presbyteris multa comprobavi;
     Pater-noster nunc pro me, quoniam peccavi,
     Dicat quisque presbyter cum sua suavi."
     Poems ascribed to Mapes, p. 171.  (Camden Society, 1841.)

     Several other poems in this very curious volume allude to the same
subject.  In a dialogue between a priest and a scholar, the latter having
taxed him with keeping a presbytera in his house, the parson defends himself
by recrimination: -

     "Malo cum presbytera pulcra fornicari,
     Servituros domino filios lucrari,
     Quam vagas satellites per antra sectari;
     Est inhonestissimum sic dehonestari."
     (p. 256.)

     John, on occasion of the interdict pronounced against him in 1208, seized
the concubines of the priests and compelled them to redeem themselves by a
fine.  Presbyterorum et clericorum focariae per totam Angliam a ministris
regis captae sunt, et ad se redimendum graviter compulsae.  Matt. Paris, p.
190.  This is omitted by Lingard.

     It is said by Raumer (Gesch. der Hohenstauffen, vi. 235) that there was a
married Bishop of Prague during the pontificate of Innocent III., and that the
custom of clerical marriages lasted in Hungary and Sweden to the end of the
thirteenth century.

     The marriages of English clergy are noticed and condemned in some
provincial constitutions of 1237.  Matt. Paris, p. 381.  And there is, even so
late as 1404, a mandate by the Bishop of Exeter against married priests.
Wilkins, Consilia, t. iii. p. 277.]

[Footnote p: Quidam sacerdotes Latini, says Innocent III., in domibus suis
habent concubinas, et nonnulli aliquas sibi non metuunt desponsare. Opera
Innocent III. p. 558.  See also p. 300 and p. 407.  The latter cannot be
supposed a very common case, after so many prohibitions; the more usual
practice was to keep a female in their houses, under some pretence of
relationship or servitude, as is still said to be usual in Catholic countries.
Du Cange, v. Focaria.  A writer of respectable authority asserts that the
clergy frequently obtained a bishop's license to cohabit with a mate.
Harmer's [Wharton's] Observations on Burnet, p. 11.  I find a passage in
Nicholas de Clemangis about 1400, quoted in Lewis' "Life of Pecock, p. 30.
Plerisque in diocesibus, rectores parochiarum ex certo et conducto cum his
praelatis pretio, passim et publice concubinas tenent. This, however, does not
amount to a direct license.]

     Simony, or the corrupt purchase of spiritual benefices, was the second
characteristic reproach of the clergy in the eleventh century.  The measures
taken to repress it deserve particular consideration, as they produced effects
of the highest importance in the history of the middle ages.  According to the
primitive custom of the church, an episcopal vacancy was filled up by election
of the clergy and people belonging to the city or diocese.  The subject of
their choice was, after the establishment of the federate or provincial
system, to be approved or rejected by the metropolitan and his suffragans;
and, if approved, he was consecrated by them. ^q It is probable that, in
almost every case, the clergy took a leading part in the selection of their
bishops; but the consent of the laity was absolutely necessary to render it
valid. ^r They were, however, by degrees, excluded from any real
participation, first in the Greek, and finally in the western church.  But
this was not effected till pretty late times; the people fully preserved their
elective rights at Milan in the eleventh century, and traces of their
concurrence may be found both in France and Germany in the next age. ^s

[Footnote q: Marca, de Concordantia, &c., l. vi. c. 2.]

[Footnote r: Father Paul on Benefices, c. 7.]

[Footnote s: De Marca, ubi supra.  Schmidt, t. iv. p. 173.  The form of
election of a bishop of Puy, in 1053, runs thus: clerus, populus, et militia
elegimus.  Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii.  Appendix, p. 220.  Even
Gratian seems to admit in one place that the laity had a sort of share, though
no decisive voice, in filling up an episcopal vacancy. Electio clericorum est,
petitio plebis.  Decret. l. i. distinctio 62.  And other subsequent passages
confirm this.]

     It does not appear that the early Christian emperors interposed with the
freedom of choice any further than to make their own confirmation necessary in
the great patriarchal sees, such as Rome and Constantinople, which were
frequently the objects of violent competition, and to decide in controverted
elections. ^t The Gothic and Lombard kings of Italy followed the same line of
conduct. ^u But in the French monarchy a more extensive authority was assumed
by the sovereign.  Though the practice was subject to some variation, it may
be said generally that the Merovingian kings, the line of Charlemagne, and the
German emperors of the house of Saxony, conferred bishoprics either by direct
nomination, or, as was more regular, by recommendatory letters to the
electors. ^v In England also, before the conquest, bishops were appointed in
the Witenagemot; and even in the reign of William it is said that Lanfranc was
raised to the see of Canterbury by consent of parliament. ^w But,
independently of this prerogative, which length of time and the tacit sanction
of the people have rendered unquestionably legitimate, the sovereign had other
means of controlling the election of a bishop.  Those estates and honors which
compose the temporalities of the see, and without which the naked spiritual
privileges would not have tempted an avaricious generation, had chiefly been
granted by former kings, and were assimilated to lands held on a beneficiary
tenure.  As they seemed to partake of the nature of fiefs, they required
similar formalities - investiture by the lord, and an oath of fealty by the
tenant.  Charlemagne is said to have introduced this practice; and, by way of
visible symbol, as usual in feudal institutions, to have put the ring and
crosier into the hands of the newly consecrated bishop.  And this continued
for more than two centuries afterwards without exciting any scandal or
resistance. ^x

[Footnote t: Gibbon, c. 20; St.  Marc, Abrege Chronologique, t. i. p. 7.]

[Footnote u: Fra Paolo on Benefices, c. ix.; Giannone, l. iii. c. 6; l. iv. c.
12; St. Marc, t. i. p. 37.]

[Footnote v: Schmidt, t. i. p. 386; t. ii. pp. 245, 487.  This interference of
the kings was perhaps not quite conformable to their own laws, which only
reserved to them the confirmation.  Episcopo decedente, says a constitution of
Clotaire II. in 615, in loco ipsius, qui a metropolitano ordinari debet, a
provincialibus, a clero et populo eligatur; et si persona condigna fuerit, per
ordinationem principis ordinetur.  Baluz.  Capitul. t. i. p. 21.  Charlemagne
is said to have adhered to this limitation, leaving elections free, and only
approving the person, and conferring investiture on him.  F. Paul on
Benefices, c. xv. But a more direct influence was restored afterwards.  Ivon
Bishop of Chartres, about the year 1100, thus concisely expresses the several
parties concurring in the creation of a bishop: eligibente clero, suffragante
populo, dono regis, per manum metropolitani, approbante Romano pontifice.  Du
Chesne, Script.  Rerum Gallicarum, t. iv. p. 174.]

[Footnote w: Lyttelton's Hist. of Henry II. vol. iv. p. 144.  But the passage,
which he quotes from the Saxon Chronicle, is not found in the best edition.]

[Footnote x: De Marca, p. 416; Giannone, l. vi. p. 7.]

     The church has undoubtedly surrendered part of her independence in
return for ample endowments and temporal power; nor could any claim be
more reasonable than that of feudal superiors to grant the investiture of
dependent fiefs.  But the fairest right may be sullied by abuse; and the
sovereigns, the lay patrons, the prelates of the tenth and eleventh
centuries, made their powers of nomination and investiture subservient to
the grossest rapacity. ^y According to the ancient canons, a benefice was
avoided by any simoniacal payment or stipulation.  If these were to be
enforced, the church must almost be cleared of its ministers.  Either
through bribery in places where elections still prevailed, or through
corrupt agreements with princes, or at least customary presents to their
wives and ministers, a large proportion of the bishops had no valid tenure
in their sees.  The case was perhaps worse with inferior clerks; in the
church of Milan, which was notorious for this corruption, not a single
ecclesiastic could stand the test, the archbishop exacting a price for the
collation of every benefice. ^z

[Footnote y: Boniface Marquis of Tuscany, father of the Countess Matilda, and
by far the greatest prince in Italy, was flogged before the altar by an abbot
for selling benefices.  Muratori, ad. ann. 1046.  The offence was much more
common than the punishment, but the two combined furnish a good specimen of
the eleventh century.]

[Footnote z: St. Marc, t. iii. pp. 65, 188, 219, 230, 296, 568; Muratori, A.
D. 958, 1057, &c.; Fleury, Hist. Eccles., t. xiii. p. 73.  The sum, however,
appears to have been very small; rather like a fee than a bribe.]