Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 16

Here from a MS. of the fifteenth century[247] is a poem of six stanzas, every stanza ending with the line, "Why art thou froward since I am merciable?" It begins--

Upon a cross nailed I was for thee, I suffered death to pay thy raunison;[248]

Forsake thy synne for the love of Me, Be repentant, make plain confession.

To contrite hearts I give remission; Be not despaired, for I am not vengeable; 'Gainst ghostly enemies, think on my Pa.s.sion; Why art thou froward since I am merciable?

Another fifteenth-century poem, whose theme is taken from Solomon's Song, the love of Christ for man's soul, concludes every eight-line stanza with the text, _Quia amore langueo_.[249] Here are two stanzas--

Upon this mount I found a tree, Under this tree a man sitting; From head to foot wounded was he.

His heart's blood I saw bleeding; A seemly man to be a king, A gracious face to look unto; I asked him how he had paining,[250]

He said _Quia amore langueo_.

I am true-love that false was never, My sister, man's soul, I loved her thus, Because I would not from her dissever I left my kingdom glorious; I provide for her a palace precious; She fleeth, I follow, I sought her so.

I suffered the pain piteous, _Quia amore langueo_.

I crowned her with bliss, and she me with scorn, I led her to chamber, and she me to die; I brought her to wors.h.i.+p, and she me to scorn, I did her reverence, and she me villainy, etc.

Another favourite theme was a pathetic "Complaint of Christ," in which He sets before man all that He has done for him, in creation, in providence, in redemption, and appeals against his unkindness. The refrain of every stanza is, "Why art thou to thy friend unkind?" Here is a stanza of it--

Man, I love thee! Whom lovest thou?

I am thy friend, why wilt thou feign?

I forgave, and thou Me slew; Who hath de-parted our love in twain?

Turne to Me! Bethink thee how Thou hast gone amiss! Come home again!

And thou shalt be as welcome now As he that synne never did stain.

Man! bethink thee what thou art; From whence thou come, and whither thou move, For though thou to-day be in health and quarte,[251]

To-morrow I may put thee adown.

I forgave, and thou sayest nay, Why art thou to thy friend unkind?

I have bought thy love full dear, Unkind! why forsakest thou mine?

I gave thee mine heart and blood in fere, Unkind! why wilt thou not give Me thine?

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.

The enforcement of celibacy upon the clergy was an important feature in the plan of the Hildebrandine reformers of the eleventh century. The idea which inspired the enthusiasm of the foremost Churchmen of the time was, no doubt, a grand one. It was to bring the national churches into practical co-operation by a world-wide ecclesiastical organization, and to place the spiritual authority of the whole Church in the hand of one man, in order to control the world-power of kings and princes, and check the manifold abuses which at that time especially threatened to corrupt and secularize the Church. The clergy were intended in the Hildebrandine scheme to be the Pope's local agents in the administration of this ecclesiastical monarchy; and in order to detach them from secular and local ties it was proposed to make the secular clergy a kind of Religious Order--an antic.i.p.ation, in some respects, of the organization of the subsequent Orders of Friars.

We must do the authors of the scheme the justice to remember that they honestly believed that the celibate state--not the mere accident of being unmarried, but the chosen and vowed state--was a higher condition of life; and it was easy to apply St. Paul's advice to those who could accept it, to the special condition of the clergy:--"The unmarried (priest) careth for the things of the Lord, that (he) may be holy both in body and spirit, but the married (priest) careth for the things of the world." It was easy to draw a contrast between the parish priest with a wife and family, bound by a thousand ties to the ordinary interests and anxieties of the world, and the celibate priest, who wants nothing beyond the priest's chamber and his humble fare, and who gives his whole mind and soul to his daily devotions and his spiritual ministrations among his flock; his rusty ca.s.sock a uniform as honourable as the soldier's war-stained coat, his ascetic life ensuring the reverence which even the worldly-minded pay to those who despise worldly things.

To the fulfilment of this idea the great body of the secular clergy in Germany, Italy, and France, as well as England, offered for centuries a stubborn resistance. They stood on the irrefragable ground that the priests and Levites of the Old Dispensation were married men; that our Lord and His apostles gave no such commandment to the Church; that, as a matter of history, some of the apostles were married men; and that for ten centuries bishops and priests of the Church all over the world had married. It was obvious to reply to the supposed advantages of a priesthood disentangled from worldly anxieties, that, on the contrary, it was desirable for the pastors in immediate habitual intercourse with the people to be men who had property and families, because then they could deal with men on the ground of common interests and sympathies; and that to impose compulsory celibacy on the secular clergy was a measure full of the gravest dangers.

The majority of the clergy probably were influenced by the broad common sense which p.r.o.nounced the ultramontane idea to be unscriptural, transcendental, novel, and, therefore, questionable; and, lastly, a burden which no one had the right to impose upon the unwilling. Some of them tauntingly desired the pope to see if he could get the spirits from above to leave their stations and come and rule the Churches under his Holiness, since men were not good enough for him.

The attempt to introduce celibacy among the secular clergy had been begun in the latter part of the Saxon period. We have seen that kings made laws and bishops made canons against the married clergy. We cannot have better evidence than that of aelfric's famous pastoral address, that the Saxon clergy generally had ignored these laws and canons, and that it had not been found practicable to enforce them. aelfric declares that--

The Four General Councils forbade all marriages to ministers of the altar, and especially to ma.s.s-priests [which is a misstatement], and that the canons command that no bishop nor priest shall have in his house any woman except his mother or other person who is above suspicion. "This, to you priests," he says, "will seem grievous, because ye have your misdeeds in custom" [you are accustomed to married priests], "so that it seems to yourselves that ye have no sin in living in female intercourse as laymen do, and say that Peter the Apostle had a wife and children. So he and others had before their conversion, but then forsook their wives and all earthly things"

[which is, to say the least, a doubtful a.s.sumption]. "Beloved," he goes on, "we cannot now forcibly compel you to chast.i.ty, but we admonish you nevertheless that ye observe chast.i.ty as Christ's ministers ought in good reputation to the pleasure of G.o.d."

Gregory VII., in the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1074, took a step in advance of previous legislation on the subject. He peremptorily forbade marriage to the clergy, p.r.o.nounced sentence of excommunication against those who refused to put away their wives, and forbade the laity to be present at ma.s.s when they officiated.

In adopting this legislation in England, Lanfranc considerably modified it. In the Synod of Winchester, in 1076, it was decreed that no canon should be married; the married parochial clergy were not required to put away their wives, but those who were not married were forbidden to take any; and bishops were required not to ordain deacons or priests unless they declare that they have not wives. But this legislation seems to have been largely ignored, and the disobedience winked at.

In 1102, a national synod, held at Westminster, under Anselm of Canterbury and Gerard of York, sought to draw the line more strictly. It enacted that no canon, and no one above the order of sub-deacon, might marry; required those who were married to put away their wives; forbade a married priest to say ma.s.s, and the people to hear him. It added another edict, to which we shall have to refer hereafter--that sons of priests were not to succeed to their fathers' benefices.

It was soon found that it was not possible to enforce these decrees, and the Pope was appealed to on the question. He was so convinced of the difficulty, that he dispensed with the canons, and in a letter (1107) to Anselm gave reasons for so doing, which contain valuable evidence of the condition of things. He founded the dispensation on the particular circ.u.mstances of the English Church, where, he observes, the greater and more valuable part of the clergy were the sons of priests, and therefore he gives Anselm a commission to promote such persons in the Church. He likewise empowers him to dispense with the canons in other cases where the untractableness of the English and the interest of religion should make it necessary. Anselm's canons were repeated by William of Canterbury and Thurstan of York in 1126 and 1127, but were met with a stubborn resistance.[252]

After a short time bishops and great dignitaries ceased to be married men, and sought to enforce the canons on celibacy which they helped to make.

Cathedral dignitaries also generally paid outward respect to the canons, but some of them had unacknowledged wives.[253]

In 1128, at a national synod held in London, the synod resigned the dealing with the recalcitrant clergy into the king's hands. The king (Henry I.) disappointed the archbishops by abstaining from any attempt to enforce celibacy on the clergy, but he ingeniously took advantage of the opportunity to raise a revenue out of them by permitting the clergy to retain their wives on payment of a fee for the licence to do so. The king was said to have raised a great sum of money by this device, which implies that a great number of the clergy were married and retained their wives.

King John, on the publication of the Interdict, seized the wives of the clergy, and only released them on payment of heavy ransom.

Synod after synod continued to legislate against them.[254]

In 1222, a synod held at Oxford, under Archbishop Stephen Langton, enacted that if beneficed men or men in sacred orders should presume to retain their partners publicly in their dwelling-houses (_hospitiis_), or should elsewhere have public access to them to the public scandal, they should be coerced by the withdrawal of their benefice; and that the clergy might not leave such partners (_i.e._ wives) anything in their wills. It also attacked the poor wives, enacting that if they did not leave their partners they should be excluded from the church and the sacraments; if that did not suffice, they should be stricken with the sword of excommunication; and, lastly, the secular arm should be invoked against them.[255]

Archbishop Richard of Wethershead, in 1229 or 1230 repeated the decree that men of the order of sub-deacon and upwards who had married should put away their wives, though they were unwilling and refused to consent,[256] and if they persisted in having publicly a female partner, should, after a first, second, and third warning, be deprived of every benefice and office.

St. Edmund the Canonized Archbishop, in 1234 or 1235, enacted that if any clerics who had been suspended for incontinency should presume to continue to exercise their office they should be deprived of their benefices, and for their double fault _perpetuo d.a.m.nentur_. He tries to make the rectors inform against the clerics in their parishes, threatening that if a case comes to his knowledge by common report before the rector has given in his accusation against his brother, the rector shall be taken to have known of it, and shall be punished as a partaker in the sin. Lastly, he decrees that prelates (archdeacons, officials, and rural deans) who presume to support such persons in their iniquity, especially for the offer of money or of any other temporal advantage, shall be subject to the same penalty.

In 1237, Cardinal Otho came from Rome at the request of the king (Henry III.), unknown to the n.o.bles, and summoned a national council at St. Paul's. It was understood that he was going to make strong decrees against the abuses of the clergy, and especially against the pluralists and the illegitimates, and feeling ran so high among the clergy that the legate obtained from the king an attendance of some n.o.bles, and a guard of some armed knights and about two hundred soldiers, who were placed in ambush for his protection. The decree against the pluralists was so vehemently opposed that the cardinal postponed this question till the Pope could be appealed to.

The canon against the married clergy declared that unless clerks, especially those in holy orders, who publicly keep concubines in their houses, or in those of others', dismiss them therefrom within a month, they shall be suspended from every office and benefice, and if they persist, shall be deprived. And "we strictly order that archbishops and bishops shall make diligent inquiries throughout all their deaneries, and that what we have decreed shall be observed."

The canon on sons of priests forbade the prelates from presuming henceforth under any pretext, or by any fraud, to appoint or admit any to benefices which their fathers held by any kind of t.i.tle, either to the whole or to part, and that they who already hold such benefices shall be deprived.

In 1265, Cardinal Othobon presided over a national council at London, which was of great authority, and was regarded subsequently as a rule of discipline for the English Church, in which the preceding legislation was again repeated.

The Council of Reading, under Archbishop Peckham, in 1279, refers to the canon of Othobon _contra concubinarios_, and orders that archdeacons shall read it at their visitations and see that it is read by the rural deans at their chapters (the laity being excluded), and in case of neglect they shall fast on bread and water on the six week days (unless infirmity hinder them) until they have read or caused it to be read at the next chapter.

Were the laity excluded to screen the infirmities of their pastors, or because the expression of lay dissent would have encouraged the clergy in their contumacy? May we conjecture that, in spite of the urgent commands of the archbishop, the reading of the canon was often omitted, and that the archdeacons and rural deans excused themselves from the consequent penance under favour of the saving clause?[257]

The legislation is itself a witness to the existence of the practices which it tries to suppress. We need no further proof that in the thirteenth century many of the clergy were married men, that in some cases they lived openly with their wives in their dwelling-houses, or, in other cases, they visited them openly in separate houses provided for them; that they refused to give them up in spite of repeated synodical decrees; that clerics who were not themselves married countenanced their married brethren; that even the dignified officials whose business it was to take proceedings against them, hung back from doing so.

After the middle of the fourteenth century this subject disappears from the acts of the synods; not because the clergy had come universally to obey the former canons, but because the question had found a solution, which we proceed to describe. Celibacy was confessedly not a Divine ordinance, but an ecclesiastical regulation, and so long as the two evils were avoided (1) of the parochial benefices being overburdened by the demands of an avowed family; and (2) of the hereditary descent of benefices by the absence of lawful heirs; the ecclesiastical authorities might be satisfied with the obedience of a large proportion of the clergy, and willing to connive at the solution of the question to which the rest resorted.

The solution was as follows: The secular cleric was not bound by any Divine ordinance to celibacy, and did not, like the monks, take any vow of celibacy on admission to Orders. It was only an ecclesiastical regulation; and he took leave to evade the canon. If he married, the marriage was not void in itself, it was only voidable if brought before the Ecclesiastical Court during the lifetime of the parties; but he had taken his precautions in view of that contingency; the marriage was irregularly performed in some particular, or performed in such circ.u.mstances that it was incapable of legal proof. It was something like the morganatic marriages of German princes, illegal, derogatory, not conferring on wife and children the status and rights of legal wife and children, but still not in fact, or in the estimation of society, immoral and disreputable.

It is notorious that in the fifteenth century there were many ecclesiastics, from the popes downwards, who had wives, but not living in their houses, and not presented to the world as wives,[258] and they had children who were presented to the world as nephews and nieces. Warham, the last Archbishop of Canterbury before the Reformation, is said (by Erasmus[259]) to have had a wife who was not secluded from the knowledge and society of his friends; Cranmer certainly married his second wife, the niece of Osiander, before he was archbishop, and did not sever his ties with her after he became archbishop. And it is clear that these relations were not regarded as immoral and disgraceful; in fact, the common sense of mankind gives easy absolution for the breach of inequitable laws.[260]

But there is no doubt that the ambiguity of such relations, at the best, laid open those who entered into them to just censure, and must have lowered their own moral tone and that of those thus connected with them.

Neither is it to be denied that enforced celibacy, and the loose notions encouraged by such connections as those here described, led to a certain amount of profligacy which admits of no excuse or palliation.

So the ultramontane policy at length won a victory--of a sort. It succeeded in preventing the clergy from having wives by conniving at their concubines; it left no legitimate sons of rectors to claim the heritage of their fathers' benefices, and gave dispensations to their illegitimate sons; it established a celibate priesthood, with all the scandals and suspicions a.s.sociated with it; it withdrew its clergy from the ordinary affairs of life, and at the same time from the leaders.h.i.+p of the current practical life of the people. In a biting phrase of the time of Matthew Paris, "The pope deprived the clergy of sons, and the devil sent them nephews."

We have given a--perhaps disproportionately--long chapter to a not very agreeable subject; but it seemed desirable to take the pains necessary to put the matter in its proper light, and not to allow the Englishmen of the great period, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, to lie under the suspicion of being so unG.o.dly that the clergy generally lived in open immorality, and the laity thought little the worse of them for it.