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S A C E R D OT A L C E L I B A C Y
IN THE
C H R IS TI A N C H U R C H
HISTORY
OF
SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
IN THE
CHR ISTIAN C H U R CH
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA, LL.D., S.T.D.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED
0ö rap fleou are x,yetv štº ra tapa poorv
ATHENAGORAE pro Christvanis Legatvo
IN TWO WOLUMES
VOL. II
ji) e w lº oth
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1907
C O N T E N T S
XXIV. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
A. D.
Demoralisation of the sacerdotal body
1418 Futile efforts of the Council of Constance.
1422 Efforts of Martin V. tº * tº
- Undiminished corruption and symptoms of revolt
1423–1430 The Council of Basle attempts a reform
Impotence of the Basilian canons—Venality of the
- papal court . {º ſº tº te ſº tº &
1484—1500 Condition of the Church in Italy, France, England,
- Spain, Germany, and Hungary tº
1486 Relaxation of monastic discipline
1476 John of Nicklaushausen te e
Sacerdotal marriage advocated as a remedy
1479 John of Oberwesel .
1485 Heresy of Jean Laillier
XXV. THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY
Irreverential spirit of the sixteenth century
1510 Complaints of the Germans against the Church
Immobility of the Church wº
- Popular movement—Luther and Erasmus
1518 Official opposition to the abuses of the Church.
1517–1520 Luther neglects the question of celibacy—his gradual
progress gº * * • • ©
1521 First examples of sacerdotal marriage te
Approved by Carlostadt—Disapproved by Luther
1522 Zwingli demands sacerdotal marriage—Luther adopts
it . tº * 4. tº tº e * &
1523 Efforts of the Church to repress the movement.
Popular approbation—Protection in high quarters
205237
13
15
22
24
27
28
29
3]
32
33
35
37
39
42
43
45
47
49
VI
CONTENTS
A. D.
1523–1524
1525
1522–1526
1530
1532–1540
1541
1548
1552
Emancipation of nuns and monks
Marriage of Luther . º º e º
Causes of popular acquiescence in the change
Extreme immorality of the clergy—Papal Dispensa-
tions e g e © tº
Admitted by the Catholics to justify heresy
Erasmus advocates clerical marriage
Assistance from ambition of temporal princes
Efforts at reunion—Confession of Augsburg
Failure of reconciliation—League of Schmalkalden .
The Anabaptists . tº º e e e tº
Partial toleration—Difficulties concerning the Abbey
lands º * º º º º
Attempt at reconciliation © e
The Interim—Sacerdotal marriage tolerated
The Reformation established by the Transaction of ,
PAGE
50
5I
53
54
56
61
62
64
67
68
70
71
73
75
1500–1523
1524
1528
1532
1535
1536
1537–1546
1535—1541
1537
1539
1540
Passau
XXVI. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH
Conservative tendencies of England .
John Colet and Sir Thomas More wº tº e
Difficulties of the situation—Wolsey undertakes the
destruction of monachism º
General suppression of the smaller houses
Henry VIII.'s quarrel with Rome . e ty e
General visitation of monasteries, and suppression of
most of them º º o º
Popular opinions—The Beggars’ Petition .
Popular discontent—The Pilgrimage of Grace
Final suppression of the religious houses and founda-
tions º e
Fate of their inmates e e w
Irish monastic establishments destroyed
Henry still insists on celibacy .
Efforts to procure its relaxation tº e tº
Uncertainty of the subject in the public mind .
Henry's firmness—Act of the Six Articles
Persecution of the married clergy
Modification of the Six Articles
77
78
81
83
85
86
90
94
95
101
102
107
108
109
11 I
112
115
CONTENTS
vii
A. D.
1547
1548–1549
1552
1553
1554
1555
1557
1558
1559
1563
Accession of Edward VI.—Repeal of the Six Articles
Full liberty of marriage accorded to the clergy-- .
Armed opposition of the people
Adoption of the Forty-two Articles .
Difficulty of removing popular convictions * e
*ºr ºn-º-º: of Edward
épealed o g te e
The married clergy separated and deprived
Suffering of the clergy in consequence . tº o
England reconciled to Rome—Church lands not
recalled e e e e
Cardinal Pole's Legatine Constitutions . º * >
More stringent legislation required—Revival of the
old troubles . g tº g
Accession of Queen Elizabeth . tº e tº º
Delay in authorising marriage—Uncertainty of the
married clergy § º ſº e ſº
Elizabeth vi but imposes degrading restrictions
on clerical marriage . s º º e e
The Thirty-nine Articles—Increased emphasis of per-
mission to marry . te ſº { }
Elizabeth maintains her prejudices . tº g tº
Disrepute of sacerdotal marriage—Evil effects on the
Anglican clergy
PAGE
116
118
119
121
122
123
124
128
129
132
133
I 35
137
139
140
141
145
1512
1559–1640
1542–1559
1560
VOL. II.
XXVII. CALVINISM
Lefèvre d'Étaples
The Huguenot Churches
The Reformation in Scotland i.e. tº tº
Corruption of the Scottish Church in the sixteenth
century tº tº e & e o
Efforts at internal reform—their fruitlessness
Marriage assumed as a matter of course by the Pro-
ºtestants te tº tº te tº
Temporal motives assisting the Reformation
Poverty of the Scottish Church establishment .
Influence of celibacy on the struggle tº º e
No formal recognition of clerical marriage thought
necessary *
b
1 50
151
154
155
158
160
161
163
166


CONTENTS
XXVIII. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
Efforts at internal reform . * wº º tº
Universal demand for a general council—Convoked
at Mantua in 1536 º e e •
Assembles at Trent—it labours to separate, not to
reunite the churches . º o
Reassembles at Trent—is again broken up
Again assembles for the last time . & º
Paul III. essays an internal reform without result
Charles V. tries to reform the German Church .
Local reformatory synods—their failure
Clerical marriages demanded as a last resort
Clerical corruption urged as the reason . º &
The French court joins in the demand
The question prejudged . * º e & tº
Negotiations for priestly marriage and Communion
in both Elements . te & e
The council makes celibacy a point of faith
Attempts a reformation .T-" .
The German princes continue their efforts
Essays of Cassander and Wicelius
Successful opposition of Philip II.
Peremptory action of Pius V. .
A.D.
1524–1536
1542–1547
I 551–1552
1562
1536
1548
1548–1551
1560
I 563
I 560
1562–1563
1563
1563–1564
1566
1566–1572
1568–1570
1565–1597
1569–1668
1560—1624
PAGE
171
179

XXIX. THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH
Reception of the Council of Trent except in France
Pius V. endeavours to effect a reform
Labours of St. Charles Borromeo at Milan
Reforms vainly attempted by Italian councils
Condition of the church in Central Europe
Provisions for the children of priests o
Clerical immorality still a justification of heresy
Condition of the Church in France .
The residence of women conceded .
Celebration of Mass by Concubinarians e
The Church in the Spanish Colonies. º
180
181
182
183
185
187
192
193
197
198
200
203
204
206
210
216
217
221
223
227
229
231
232
233
235
239
240
245
CONTENTS
ix
A. D.
1547–1791
1559–1561
1622
xxx. SOLICITATION
Abuse of the Confessional prior to the Reformation
Heretic attacks call for more vigorous action .
Introduction of Confessionals . g º º
Jurisdiction conferred on the Spanish Inquisition—
Its activity . º e o
Resistance of the Regular Orders
Difficulty of defining the Crime º -
Bull of Gregory XV., Universi Dominici Gregis
Tardy acceptance by Spain—Rejection by France
and Germany º º º & o o º
Solicitation becomes merely a technical offence—
Indecency in the Confessional
Duty of Penitents to denounce Offenders
Absolution of Partners in Guilt
Demand for name of Accomplice in Sin
Passive Solicitation—Flagellation e º e
Results of the papal Decrees—France, Germany,
Italy, Spain—Favour shown to the Accused .
Avenues of escape open .
Mildness of punishment
Spontaneous Self-Accusation . e ſº º
Preponderance of culprits in the Religious Orders
PAGE
251
254
255
257
260
261
264
265
Divorcedf Morals and Religion—Absolution facilitated
XXXI. THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION
1758–1800
1783
1760–1787
1789
1789–1790
Sacerdotal marriage obsolete—Grandier, Du Pin,
Bossuet se ſº ſº º e
The eighteenth century—Controversy reopened
Joseph II. proposes to permit sacerdotal marriage
Clerical immorality undiminished
The French Revolution º * ſº e
Confiscation of church property—Suppression of
monachism e º e e º e
Celibacy deprived of legal protection—Marriage of
priests . © º º & tº
Marriage becomes a test of good citizenship
Persecution of the unmarried clergy
267
270
271
276
277
279
285
287
29]
294
295
297
298
300
30|
306
309
310
311
314
X
CONTENTS
A.D.
1795–1797
I 801
1801–1807
1815–1883
1821–1866
1878
1820–1867
Resistance of the great body of the clergy
Married clergy repudiated by their bishops
Celibacy restored by the Concordat . * * ſº
Clerical marriage continues — Napoleon decides
against it
XXXII. THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY
Vacillating policy in France as to clerical marriage .
Various movements in favour of clerical marriage
Immobility of the Church e tº wº
The Old Catholics adopt clerical marriage
Civil marriage laws opposed by the Church
Suppression of monastic orders
Influence of celibacy on clerical morality
Solicitation in modern times g te
Influence of celibacy on the social organisation
INDEx ſº e e * * e tº * *
PAGE
315
316
3.18
320
322
323
326
329
330
335
339
342
358
365
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
NEITHER the assaults of heretics nor the constant efforts
at partial reform attempted by individual prelates had thus
far proved of any avail. As time wore on, the Church
sank deeper into the mire of corruption, and its struggles
to extricate itself grew feebler and more hopeless. We
have seen that, early in the fifteenth century, Gerson
advised an organised system of concubinage as preferable
to the indiscriminate licentiousness which was everywhere
prevalent. Even more suggestive are the declarations of
Nicholas de Clamenges, Rector of the University of Paris
and Secretary of the anti-pope Benedict XIII. He does
not hesitate to say that the vices of the clergy were so
universal that those who adhered to the rule of chastity
were the objects of the most degrading and disgusting
suspicions, so little faith was there in the possible purity
of any ecclesiastic. He also records the extension of a
custom to which I have already alluded when he states
that in a majority of parishes the people insisted on their
pastors keeping concubines, and that even this was a pre-
caution insufficient for the peace and honour of their
families." Elsewhere he describes the mass of the clergy
as wholly abandoned to worldly ambition and vices, op-
pressing and despoiling those subjected to them, and
1 Taceo de fornicationibus et adulteriis, a quibus qui alieni sunt probro caeteris
ac ludibrio esse solent, spadonesque aut sodomitae appellantur ; denique laici usque
adeo persuasum habent mullos coelibes esse, ut in plerisque parochiis non aliter velint
presbyterum tolerare nisi concubinam habeat, quo vel sic suis sit consultum uxoribus,
quae nec sic quidem º: sunt extra periculum.—Nic. de Clamengis de
Praesul. Simoniac (Opp. Lug. Bat. 1613, p. 165).
VOL. II. {
\ o
wº
A
2 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
spending their ill-gotten gains in the vilest excesses, while
they ridiculed unsparingly such few pious souls as endea-
voured to live according to the light of the gospel." Another
tract which passes under his name declares that in most
of the dioceses the parish priests openly kept concubines,
which they were permitted to do on payment of a tax to
their bishops. Nunneries were brothels, and to take the
veil was simply another mode of becoming a public pros-
titute.” Cardinal Peter d'Ailly declares that he does not
dare to describe the immorality of the nunneries.” In a
similar indignant mood Gerson stigmatises the nunneries
of his time as houses of prostitution, the monasteries as
centres of trade and amusement, the cathedral churches as
dens of ravishers and robbers, and the priesthood at large
as habitual concubinarians.” That he felt these evils to be
inseparable from the condition of the Church is evident
when, in an argument to prove the necessity of celibacy,
he is driven to the assertion that it is better to tolerate
incontinent priests than to have no priests at all." He
argues that the clergy are worthy of as many sentences of
damnation as they seduce souls to perdition by their cor-
rupt example, and he asks, when he who destroys himself
by his own sins is to be condemned, whether he who draws
with him numerous others is not still more worthy of per-
dition." Theodoric a Niem represents the bishops of
Scandinavia as carrying with them their concubines on
their pastoral visitations, and as inflicting penalties on such
of the parish priests as they found living without similar
companions, while these women habitually took precedence
1 Nic. de Clamengiis Disput. super Mater. Concil. General.
2 Nic. de Clamengiis de Ruina Ecclesiae cap. xxii., xxxvi.-Conf. Theobaldi Con-
quest. (Von der Hardt T.I. P. VI. xix. p. 909.)
3 P. de Alliaco Canones Reformat. cap. iv. (Von der Hardt T.I. P. VI. p. 425.)
4 Gersoni Declarat defect. viror. ecclesiast. lxv., lxvi.
5 Dicinus quod de duobus malis minus est incontinentes tolerare sacerdotes quam
nullos habere.—Gersoni Dial. Sophiae et Naturae Act. IV.
6 Ejusd. Sermo de Vita Clericorum.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 3
in church of the wives of the neighbouring gentry—and he
adds that the clergy of the south of Europe were no better.”
Theodoric Vrie, a learned and pious Churchman of Saxony,
is equally unsparing in his denunciations of the Teutonic
clergy*—and, indeed, the testimony of the writers of the
period is so unanimous that their descriptions of clerical
vices cannot be regarded as the mere rhetorical declamation
of disappointed reformers.
It was evident that the efforts of local synods were
fruitless to eradicate evils so general and so deeply rooted,
while the necessity for some reform became every day
more apparent. Though Lollardry had been crushed in
England under the stern hand of Henry V., yet it was
reappearing in Bohemia in a form even more threatening.
The Council of Pisa had not succeeded in healing the Great
Schism, and there arose a general demand for an OEcumenic
Council in which the Church Universal should assemble for
the purpose of purifying itself, of eradicating heresy, and
of settling definitely the pretensions of the three claimants
to the papacy. John XXIII. yielded to the pressure, and
the call for the Council of Constance went forth in his name
and in that of the Emperor Sigismund.
So powerful a body had never before been gathered
together in Europe. It claimed to be the supreme repre-
sentative of the Church, and though it acknowledged
John XXIII. as the lawful successor of St. Peter, it had
no scruples in arraigning, trying, condemning, and deposing
him—an awful expression of its Supremacy, without
precedent in the past and without imitation in succeeding
ages. As regards heresy, it did the best it could, according
to the lights of its age, by burning John Huss and Jerome
of Prague. Its functions as a reformer, however, required
for their exercise more nerve than even the condemnation
1 Theod. a Niem Nemoris Unionis Tract. W. cap. XXXV.
2 Theod. Wrie Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. II., III. (Won. der Hardt T. I.).
4. SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of a pope. Many members were thoroughly penetrated
with the conviction that reform was of instant necessity,
and such men as Gerson, Peter d'Ailly of Cambrai, and
Nicholas de Clamenges were prepared to shrink from none
of the means requisite for so hallowed an end. In the
existing corruption, however, of the body from which
representatives were drawn, such men could scarcely form
a controlling majority. After the council had been in
session for nearly two years, the reformers began to despair
of effecting anything, and Clamenges did not hesitate to
assert that nothing was to be expected from men who
would regard reform as the greatest calamity that could
befall themselves;" while another of the members of the
council declared that every one wanted such a reform as
should allow him to retain his own particular form of
iniquity.” These estimates, indeed, of the character of the
majority of the good fathers of Constance are borne out by
the contemporary accounts of the multitudes who flocked
to it to ply their trades among the assembled dignitaries of
the Church, showing that they were by no means all devoted
to mortifying the flesh.”
The feelings of those who sincerely desired reform, as
they saw the prospect rapidly fading before their eyes,
may be estimated by a sermon of a sturdy Gascon abbot,
Bernhardus Baptisatus, preached before the council in
August 1517, about three months before the conservatives
succeeded in carrying their point by electing Martin V.
He denounces the members of the council as Pharisees,
falsely pretending to be devout in order to elude the
punishment due to their crimes. The masses and pro-
1 Nic. de Clamengiis, Disput. Sup. Mat. Conc. General. This work was written
in 1416, after the council had been in session for nearly two years.
2 Theobaldi Conquestio (Von der Hardt T.I. P. XIX. p. 904).
3 Item, fistulatores, tubicenae, joculatores, 516; item, meretrices, virgines pub-
licae, 718.--Laur. Byzynii Diar. Bell. Hussit. A Catholic contemporary, however,
reduces the number of courtesans to 450 and that of jugglers and minstrels to 320
(Joann. Fistenportii Chron. ann. 1415.-Hahn. Collect. Monument. I. 401).
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 5
cessions, which were the main business of the assemblage,
he declares to be valueless in the eyes of God, for most
of those who so busily took part in them were involved
solely in worldly cares, laughing, cheating, sleeping, or de-
moralising the rest with their ungodly conversation. The
Holy Spirit did not hold the acts of the council acceptable,
nor dwell with its unrighteous members.” Such a convo-
cation could have but one result.
It is easy therefore to understand the influences that
were brought to bear to defeat the expectations of the
reformers: how the subject could be postponed until after
the questions connected with the papacy and with heresy
were disposed of; and how, after the election of Martin V.,
those who shrank from all reform could assume that it
might safely be entrusted to the hands of a pontiff so able,
so energetic, and so virtuous. In all this they were
successful. The council closed its weary sessions,
22 April, 1418, and during its three years and a half
of labour it had only found leisure to regulate the dress
of ecclesiastics, the unclerical cut of whose sleeves was
especially distasteful to the representative body of Chris-
tendom.”
Still, the reformers had made a stubborn fight, and had
procured the appointment of a commission to consider all
reformatory propositions and prepare a general scheme for
the adoption of the council. This body laboured as dili-
gently as though its deliberations were to be crowned with
practical results, and various projects of reform proposed
by it have been preserved. In one of these the severest
measures of repression were suggested to put an end to the
scandal of concubinage which was openly practised in the
majority of dioceses. Under this scheme, while all the
canonical punishments heretofore decreed were maintained
1 Bernhardi Baptisati Sermo (Von der Hardt T.I. P. xvi.II. pp. 884–5).
2 Concil. Constant. Sess. XLIII. can. de Vita et Honestate Clericorum.
6 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
infull vigour, deprivation was pronounced against all holders
of ecclesiastical preferment, from bishops down, who
should not within one month eject their guilty partners ;
their positions were declared vacant inso jure, and their
successors were to be immediately appointed. Those who
did not hold benefices were similarly to be declared in-
eligible to preferment. It appears that scandals had arisen
in many places from the Hildebrandine and Wickliffite
heresy, whereby parishioners declined the ministrations of
those who were living in open and notorious sin; and to
avoid these, while the commission declined to pass an
opinion on the propriety of such action, it advised that such
private judgment should not be exercised." In another
elaborate system of reform, which bears the marks of
mature deliberation, the attempt was made to eradicate
the long-standing abuse of admitting to preferment the
illegitimate children of ecclesiastics, and it was declared
that papal dispensations should no longer be recognised
except in cases of peculiar fitness or high rank.” The same
code of discipline struck a significant blow at the inviola-
bility of the monastic profession when it endeavoured to
check the prevailing and deplorable licentiousness of the
nunneries by decreeing that no woman should be admitted
to the vows beneath the age of twenty, and that all vows
taken at a younger age should be null and void.” These
projects are interesting merely as indicating the direction
in which the reforming portion of the Church desired to
move, and as showing that even they did not propose to
remove the celibacy which was the chief cause of the evils
they so sincerely deplored.
Martin V. had assumed the responsibility of reforming
the Church, and he did, in fact, attempt it after some
1 De Ecclesiae Reformat. Protocoll. cap. xxxiii. (Von der Hardt T. I. P. x.
pp. 635-6.)
2 Reformatorii Constant. Decretal. Lib. I. Tit. v. (Ibid. p. 679).
3 Ibid. Lib. III. Tit. x. cap. 20 (p. 722.)
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 7
fashion, though he apparently took to heart Dante's
axiom—
Lunga promessa, con l’attender corto
Tifarā trionfar nel' alto seggio.
In 1422 Cardinal Branda of Piacenza, his legate, when
sent to Germany to preach a crusade against the Hussites,
was honoured 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
depravity of the Teutonic Church," 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 preva-
lent 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.” This condition of
affairs was not the result of any abandonment of the
attempt to enforce the canons. Local synods were meeting
every year, and scarcely one of them failed to call attention
to the subject, devising fresh penalties to effect the im-
possible. The result is shown in the lament of the Council
of Cologne in 1423.”
1 For instance, as regards the religious houses—“In nonnullis quoque monas-
teriis . . . norma disciplinae respuitur, cultus divinus negligitur, personae quoque
hujusmodi, vitae ac morum honestate prostrata, lubricitati, incontinentiae, et aliis
variis carnalis concupiscentiae voluptatibus et viciis non sine gravi divinae majestatis
offensa tabescentes, vitam ducunt dissolutam.”—Martin W. ad Brandam S. iii. (Lude-
wig Reliq. Msctorum XI. 409.)
2 Usque adeo nonnullorum clericorum corruptela excrevit, ut morum atque
honestatis vestigia apud eos pauca admodum remanserint.—Constit. Brandae $ 1 (Op.
cit. XI. 385.)
3 “Quia tamen, succrescente malitia temporis moderni, labes hujusmodi criminis
in ecclesia Dei in tantum inolevit, quod scandala plurima in populo sunt exorta, et
verisimiliter exoriri poterunt in futurum, et ex fide dignorum relatione percepimus
quod quidam ecclesiarum praelati et alii, etiam capitula . . . tales in suis iniquita-
&
8 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
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 favour, 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." 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
tibus sustinuerunt et sustinent.” So far, however, were the decrees of the council
from being effective, that the Archbishop was obliged to modify them and to declare
that they should only be enforced against those ecclesiastics who were notoriously
guilty, and who kept their concubines publicly.—Concil. Coloniens. ann. 1423 can. i.
viii. (Hartzheim W. 217, 220).
1 Ambrosii Camaldulensis Lib. V. Epist. xii. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. III.
119-21). This was not the only case of abbots whose scandalous lives were treated
with equal forbearance. See Epistt. xiii., xiv.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 9
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 testi-
mony which the worthy bishop affords us." 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 endow-
ments 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.” 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.”
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 forni-
cators 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,
1 Harduini Andegav. Epist. Statut. Praef. (Martene Thesaur. IV. 523-4.)
2 Alan. Charter. Lib. de Exilio (Johan. Mariae Lib. de Schismat. et Concil.).
3 Nic. de Clamengiis de Lapsu et Reparat. Justitiae (Ed. 1519, pp. 13–14).
IO SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
levied in secret, had no effect in deterring them from their
evil courses.”
This was the outcome of the great general council, on
which such hopes had been built by Christendom, but the
good fathers of Constance, conscious of their shortcomings
in the matter of reform, had adopted the canon Frequens,
ordering the assembly of another general council in five
years, to be followed by successors every seven years there-
after. One was accordingly convoked at Siena in 1423,
to be summarily dissolved in 1424 by the presiding papal
legate, when the demand for effective measures of reform
in the head and members of the Church grew too unman-
nerly to be further evaded. The next general council was
due in 1431, but Pope Martin took no steps for its assem-
bling until at the end of 1430 it was made plain to him
that Europe was determined to find, with him or without
him, some means of attempting a purification felt to be
necessary as a safeguard against a revolutionary uprising
of the laity.” Yet scarcely had the fathers fairly gathered
in the Council of Basle, when Eugenius IV., who had mean-
while succeeded to the chair of St. Peter, sent orders for
its dissolution to his legate, Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini.
The legate, who had better opportunity than his master
ofestimating the temper of Christendom, refused obedience,
and 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
1 Wilkins III. 364–5.
2 Jo. de Ragusio Init. et Prosec. Con. Basil. (Monumentt. Con. Gen. Saec. XV.
T.I.). —Concil. Senensis (Harduin. VIII. 1025-6).-Ad. Concil. Basil. (Harduin. VIII.
1108–10).-Raynald. Annal. ann. 1425, n. 3, 4.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY II.
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 ecclesi-
astical machinery; the state of the public mind grew con-
stantly 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 widespread revolt. As a proof of his assertions, the
legate refers to various local troubles. Magdeburg had
expelled her archbishop and clergy, was preparing waggons
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 con-
federacies, and were believed to be negotiating with the
Hussites." The good fathers evidently recognised 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 depriv-
ation 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
1 AFneae Sylvii Comment. de Gest. Conc. Basil. ad calcem (Opp. Basil. 1551, pp.
66–70).-Cf. Sigismundi Imp. Avisam. ann. 1433 (Goldast III. 427 sqq.).
I2 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
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 licences to sin. A curse was pro-
nounced 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." 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.”
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, even if the Basilian canons had been con-
firmed by the Holy See and accepted by the Church at
large. 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 endeavoured to attain the same object by every
imaginable modification of inquisition and penalty. In-
genuity had been exhausted in devising laws which were
only promulgated to be despised and forgotten. Some-
thing 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
1 Concil. Basiliens. Sess. xx. (Jan. 22, 1435.)
2 Pragm. Sanct. ann. 1438 cap. 31 (Goldast. I. 403). D'Argentré, Collect. Judic.
de novis Erroribus, I., II., 234).
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 13
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;' and when, within fifteen years, we
find Nicholas V. declaring that the clergy enjoyed such
immunity that they scarcely regarded incontinence as a
sin—which is perhaps no wonder, when he prohibited the
members and officials of the Curia from keeping concubines,
under pain of forfeiture of office and disability for prefer-
ment, unless they should previously have obtained letters
of absolution from the Holy See—the perennial font of
corruption which meets us at every turn.”
Shrouded under a thin veil of formality, this in sub-
stance indicates the degrading source of revenue which
was so energetically condemned in inferior officials. The
pressing and insatiable pecuniary needs of the papal court,
indeed, rendered it impotent as a reformer, however
honest the wearer of the tiara might himself be in desiring
to rescue the Church from its infamy. Reckless expendi-
ture and universal venality were insuperable obstacles to
any comprehensive and effective measures of reforma-
tion. Every one was preoccupied either in devising or in
resisting extortion. The local synods were engaged in
quarrelling over the subsidies demanded by Rome, while
the chronicles of the period are filled with complaints of
the indulgences granted year after year to raise money for
various purposes. Sometimes the objects alleged are
indignantly declared to be purely supposititious; at other
times intimations are thrown out that the collections
were diverted to the private gain of the popes and of
1. Quoniam nostri temporis clerici sunt, heu, affectu crudeles, affatu mendaces,
gestu incompositi, victu luxuriosi, actu impii, et sub vacuo sanctitatis nomine sancti
nominis derogant disciplinae (Hartzheim W. 266). The council contented itself with
repeating the canons of Basle.
* Lib. III. Tit. i. c. 8, in Septimo, “Nisi inhabilitatem suam. antea per dictae
sedis litteras obtinuerint absolvi.”
14 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
their creatures." The opinion which the Church in
general entertained of the papal court is manifested
with sufficient distinctness in a letter from Ernest,
Archbishop of Magdeburg, to his ambassador at Rome.
The prelate states that he has deposited five hundred
florins in Fugger's bank at Augsburg, for which he desires
to procure certain bulls, one to enable him to grant indul-
gences, the other to compel the chapter of Magdeburg to
allow him to dispose of the salt-works of Halle, in defiance
of the vested rights of his Church — thus taking for
granted a cynicism of venality which it would be difficult
to parallel in the secular affairs of the most corrupt of
courts.” Even the power to dispense from the vow of
continence was occasionally turned to account in this
manner. One of the accusations against John XXIII.
was that for 600 ducats he had released Jacques de Vitry,
1 Comp. Doeringii Chron. passim Döringk was minister or head of the Fran-
ciscan order in Saxony, and therefore may be considered an unexceptionable
witness.
In the Polish diet of 1459, one of its leading members brought forward a series
of propositions which showed the feelings entertained by the people towards papal
exactions—“The Bishop of Rome has invented a most unjust motive for imposing
taxes—the war against the infidels . . . The Pope feigns that he employs his
treasures in the erection of churches; but in fact he employs them to enrich his
relations,” &c.—Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, i. 96.
The councils of Constance and Basle had produced, for a time, a spirit of great
independence. John of Frankfort does not hesitate to declare that the papal autho-
rity is not binding when in opposition to the law of God—“Unde patet quod nec
papalis vel et imperialis constitutio legi Dei obvians possit dici recta; nec aliquis
ipsorum potest licite mandare quod sua constitutio servetur a subditis’’ (Johann. de
Francford. contra Feymeros). According to the decisions of the Decretalists, this
was rank heresy, and yet John of Frankfort was one of the leading minds of the
period, and of unquestioned orthodoxy. He was a popular preacher, a doctor of
theology, chaplain and secretary of the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and a bold
disputant against the Hussites. He records with his own hand that, as inquisi-
tor, he convicted and burned, July 4, 1429, at Lüders, an unfortunate heretic who
denied the propriety of invoking the Virgin and the saints. Under the skilful
management, however, of Nicholas W. and Pius II. this spirit of independence
was kept in check, to again revive, in the next century, in a more determined
form.
2 Ludewig Reliq. MSctorum. XI. 415.-Under Boniface IX., at the commence-
ment of the century, claims arising from simoniacal transactions were constantly
and openly prosecuted in the court of the Papal Auditor.—Theod, a Niem de Wit.
Joann. XXIII.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 15
a Hospitaller, from his vows, had restored him to the
world, and enabled him to marry."
The aspirations of Christendom had culminated in the
Council of Basle in the most potent form known to the
Church Universal. If the results were scarce perceptible
while the influences of the council were yet recent, and
while the antagonistic papacy was under the control of
men sincerely desirous to promote the best interests of
the Church, such as Nicholas V. and Pius II., we can feel
no wonder if the darkness continued to grow thicker and
deeper under the rule of such pontiffs as Sixtus IV.,
Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI. Savonarola found an
inexhaustible subject of declamation in the fearful vices of
the ecclesiastics of his times, whom he describes as ruffiani
e mezzani.” In the assembly of the Trois Etats of France,
held at Tours in 1484, the orator of the Estates, Jean de
Rély, afterwards Bishop of Angers, in his official address
to Charles VIII. declared it to be notorious that the
religious orders had lost all devotion, discipline, and
obedience to their rule, while the canons (and he was
himself a canon of Paris) had sunk far below the laity in
their morals, to the great scandal of the Church.” Yet
what could be accomplished by an uncompromising re-
former was shown when, about 1490, Niccolò Bonafede,
afterwards Bishop of Chiusi, was sent to Trani as archi-
episcopal vicar. He found that nearly all the priests openly
kept concubines and brought up their children without
shame—the primicier, in fact, had eleven in his house.
Bonafede ordered that all should dismiss their companions
1 Concil. Constantiens. Sess. XI.
2 “Si vous saviez tout ce que je sais ! des choses dégoûtantes des choses horri-
bles l vous en frémiriez Quandje pense à tout cela, à la vie que ménent les prêtres,
je ne puis retenir mes larmes.” And again, “Ma peggio ancora. Quello che sta la
notte con la concubina, quell'altro con il garzone, e poila mattina va a dire messa,
pensa tu come la va. Che vuoi tu fare di quella messa 7”—Jérome Savonarole d'après
les documents originaux, par F. T. Perrens, pp. 71–2. Paris, 1856.
3 Masselin, Journal des États de Tours, pp. 197-99.
I6 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
within eight days, under penalty of forfeiture of benefice,
and that the women should leave the diocese, under pain
of scourging." He had already given evidence of his
tenacity of purpose, and his commands were obeyed by
all but one, in which case the priest was deprived of his
preferment, and the unfortunate woman was duly flogged
and banished.”
In England, the facts developed by the examination
which Innocent VIII. in 1489 authorised Morton, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, to make into the condition of the
religious houses, present a state of affairs quite as bad.
Henry VII.'s first Parliament, in 1485, had endeavoured
to accomplish some reform by passing an Act empowering
the episcopal authorities to imprison all priests and monks
convicted of carnal lapses,” but this, like all similar legis-
lation, whether secular or ecclesiastical, appears to have
been useless. Innocent describes the monasteries, in his
bull to the archbishop, as wholly fallen from their original
discipline, and this is fully confirmed by the results of the
visitation. The old and wealthy abbey of St. Albans, for
instance, was little more than a den of prostitutes, with
whom the monks lived openly and avowedly. In two
priories under its jurisdiction the nuns had been turned
out and their places filled with courtesans, to whom the
monks of St. Albans publicly resorted, indulging in all
manner of shameless and riotous living, the details of
which can well be spared.* These irregularities were
emulated by the secular ecclesiastics. Among the records
of the reign of Henry VII. is a memorial from the gentle-
men and farmers of Carnarvonshire, complaining that the
seduction of their wives and daughters was pursued syste-
1 Leopardi, Vita di Niccolò Bonafede, p. 18 (Pesaro, 1832).
2 1 Henr. VII. 4.
3 Wilkins III. 630–33.
4 Yet in the letter of Archbishop Morton to the Abbot reciting all these enormities,
he is not even threatened with deposition, but only invited to mend his ways.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 17
matically by the clergy." That the prevalence of these
practices was thoroughly understood is shown in a book of
instructions for parish priests drawn up by a canon of
Lilleshall about this period. In enumerating the causes
for which a parson may shrive a man not of his own parish,
he includes the casein which the penitent has committed sin
with the concubine or daughter of his own parish priest.”
Spain was equally infected. The Council of Aranda,
in 1473, denounced bitterly the evil courses by which the
clergy earned for themselves the wrath of God and the
contempt of man, and it endeavoured to suppress the
sempiternal vice by the means which had been so often
ineffectually tried — visitations, fines, excommunication,
suspension, forfeiture of benefice, and imprisonment—but
all to as little purpose as before.” Vainly Ferdinand and
Isabella in repeated edicts sought to restrain the evil by
attacking the concubines with fines, scourging and banish-
ment, for the male offenders were beyond their jurisdic-
tion.* The trouble continued without abatement, and the
Council of Seville, in 1512, felt itself obliged to repeat as
usual all the old denunciations and penalties, including
those against ecclesiastics who officiated at the marriages
of their children, which it prohibited for the future under
a fine of 2000 maravedis—a mulct which it likewise pro-
vided for those who committed the indecency of having
their children as assistants in the solemnity of the Mass.”
We shall see hereafter how fruitless were all these efforts
to cure the incurable.
1 Froude's History of England, Ch. III.
2 Or gef hym self had done a synne
By the prestes Sybbe kynne,
Moder or suster, or hys lemmon
Or by hys doghter gef he had on.
John Myrc's Instructions for Parish Priests, p. 26 (Early English Text Society,
1868).
3 Concil. Arandens. ann. 1473 c. ix. (Aguirre V. 345-6.)
4 Novisima Recopilacion, Lib. XII., Tit. xxvi., leyes 3-5.
5 Concil. Hispalens. ann. 1512 can. xxvi., xxvii. (Aguirre V. 371-2)
VOL. II. B
I8 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
What was the condition of morals in Germany may be
inferred from some proceedings of the chapter of Bruns-
wick in 1476. The canons intimate that the commission
of scandals and crimes has reached a point at which there
is danger of their losing the inestimable privilege of
exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. They therefore
declare that for the future the canons, vicars, and officiating
clergy ought not to keep their mistresses and concubines
publicly in their houses, or live with them within the
bounds of the church, and those who persist in doing so
after three warnings shall be suspended from their prebends
until they render due satisfaction." In this curious glimpse
into the domestic life of the cathedral close it is evident
that the worthy canons were moved by no shame for the
publicity of their guilt, but only by a wholesome dread of
giving to their bishop an excuse for procuring the forfeiture
of their dearly prized right of self-judgment.
The Hungarian Church, by a canon dating as far back
as 1382, had finally adopted a pecuniary mulct as the most
efficacious mode of correcting offenders. The fine was
five marks of current coin, and by granting one-half to the
informer or archdeacon, and the other to the archiepiscopal
chamber, it was reasonably hoped that the rule might be
enforced. As might have been expected, this resulted,
not in reforming the clergy, but in providing a source of
revenue for the prelates, so that all parties were interested
in maintaining a flourishing condition of immorality, as
Jacopo della Marchia, one of the fiercest persecutors of
heresy, found to his cost. In 1436 he was sent by
Eugenius IV. as inquisitor of Hungary and Austria to
check the spread of Hussitism. His unsparing severity
excited such general terror that he is said to have received
the submission of fifty-five thousand converts, but when,
at Fünfkirchen, he paused in his missionary labours to
1 Statut. Eccles, in Braunschweig. cap. 75 (Mayer, Thes, Jur, Eccles. I. 124).
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY I9
reform the concubinarian priests, his resolution gave way,
for they repelled his interference so energetically that he
was forced to fly for his life. Pope and Emperor were
invoked, and he was enabled to return, but we hear no
more of any effort on his part to meddle with the clergy
and their partners." That matters remained unaltered is
shown by two synods of Gran, one in 1450 and the other
in 1480, which reiterate the complaint, not only that the
archdeacons and other officials kept the whole fine to
themselves, but also, what was even worse, that they per-
mitted the criminals to persevere in sin, in order to make
money by allowing them to go unpunished.* This state
of affairs was not to be wondered at if the description of
his prelates by Matthias Corvinus be correct. They were
worldly princes, whose energies were devoted to wringing
from their flocks fabulous revenues to be squandered
in riotous living on the hordes of cooks and concubines
who pandered to their appetites.” The morals of the
regular clergy were no better, for a diet held by Vladislas
II. in 1498 complained of the manner in which abbots and
other monastic dignitaries enriched themselves from the
revenues of their offices, and then, returning to the world,
publicly took wives, to the disgrace of their order.”
In Pomerania the evil had at length partially cured
itself, for the female companions of the clergy seem to
have been regarded as wives in all but the blessing of the
Church. Benedict, Bishop of Camin, in 1492 held a synod
in which he quaintly but vehemently objurgates his
ecclesiastics for this wickedness ; declares that no man
can part such couples joined by the devil; alludes to
their offspring as beasts creeping over the earth, and has
1 Wadding, Annal. Minorum, ann. 1437, n. 6–12.
2 Synod. Strigonens. ann. 1382, 1450, 1480 (Batthyani III. 275, 481, 557).
3 Galeoti Martii de dictis et factis Matthiae Regis cap. XI. (Schwandtneri Rer.
Hungar, Script.).
4 Synod. Reg. ann. 1498 c. 16. (Batthyani I. 551).
20 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
his spleen peculiarly stirred by the cloths of Leyden and
costly ornaments with which the fair sinners were bedecked,
to the scandal of honest women." His indignation was
wasted on a hardened generation, for his successor, Bishop
Martin, on his accession to the see in 1499, found the
custom still unchecked. The new bishop promptly
summoned a synod at Sitten in 1500, where he reiterated
the complaints of Benedict, adding that the priests convert
the patrimony of Christ into marriage portions for their
children, and procure the transmission of benefices from
father to son, as though glorying in the perpetuation of
their shame. What peculiarly exasperated the good
prelate was that the place of honour was accorded as a
matter of course to the priests and their consorts at all the
merry-makings and festivities of their parishioners, which
shows how fully these unions were recognised as legiti-
mate, and apparently, for prudential reasons, encouraged
by the people.”
Similar customs, or worse, doubtless prevailed in Sles-
wick, for when Eggard was consecrated bishop in 1494, he
signalised the commencement of his episcopate by forbid-
ding his clergy to keep such female companions. The
result was that before the year expired he was forced to
abandon his see, and five years later he died, a miserable
exile in Rome.”
In fact, so loose had become the conception as to
celibacy that in some places priestly marriage was quietly
1 Wiae Hist. Episc. Camin. c. 41.-These irregularities were not of recent intro-
duction. The canon referred to is copied almost literally from a synod held nearly
forty years before by Bishop Henning. In fact, from the description given by the
latter of the drinking, gambling, trading, and licentiousness of the ecclesiastics of
Camin, there was little of the clerical character about them.—Synod. Camin. ann.
1454 (Hartzheim V. 930).
2 Wiae Hist. Episc. Camin. c. 42. –Synod. Sedimens. c. 5.
In West Prussia, in 1497, the synod of Ermeland expresses itself as scandalised
by the priests taking their companions publicly to fairs and other gatherings, and,
to put a stop to the practice, it offers to secret informers one-half of the fine imposed
on such indiscretions.—Synod. Warmiens. ann. 1497 c. xxxix. (Hartzheim W. 668).
3 Boissen Chron, Sleswigens. ann. 1494.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 21
resumed, subject to the condition of resigning benefices.
In a formulary of the fifteenth century there are formulae
for conferring parish churches, canonries, and precentor-
ships thus vacated by the wedlock of the incumbent."
Other churches had become established as hereditary,
descending from father to son, and only in default of male
issue did their collation revert to the bishop. The old
rule rendering the bastards of priests incapable of prefer-
ment still remained on the books, but dispensations
removing such disabilities for benefices without cure of
souls were remanded to episcopal jurisdiction; a regular
formula was provided for such cases, and, in the prevalent
venality of the period, we may assume that they could be
had by any applicant at a moderate price.”
The monastic Orders were no better than the secular
clergy. When Ximenes was made Provincial of the
Franciscan Order in Spain, he set himself earnestly at
work to force the brethren to live according to the rule.
The “Conventuals,” as the great body of the Order was
called to distinguish them from the “Observantines,” led
disorderly lives, almost purely secular, and refused abso-
lutely to submit to the observance of their vows. King
Ferdinand being appealed to, pronounced sentence of
banishment upon them, and they absolutely preferred
existence in exile to the insupportable yoke of their Order.
Yet they considered themselves so aggrieved that when
they left Toledo they marched in procession through the
Puerta Visagra with a crucifix at their head, singing the
113th Psalm, “In exitu Israel de Egypto.” When
Ximenes was promoted to the primatial see of Toledo,
1 Formularium Instrumentorum ad usum Curie Romane, fol. 20a, 91a, 101b.
(s.l. c.a., Hain 7276.)—“Cum itaque parochialis ecclesia. N. loci de N. quam nuper
dilectus noster N. de N. ipsius ecclesie rector obtinebat ex ed vacet et vacare nosca-
tur ad presens quod dictus P[resbyter] matrimonium per verba de presenti legitime
cum quadam mulieri contraxit illudgue secundum morem patrie solemnizavit et per
carnalem copulam confirmavit,” etc.
2 Ibid., fol. 20b, 21a.
22 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the malcontents appealed to the Vicar General of the
Order in Rome, who came to Spain and warmly espoused
their cause, being only forced to desist by the decided
stand taken by Queen Isabella in favour of Ximenes." It
was the same with the other monastic Orders. A bull of
Alexander VI., issued in 1496 for the purpose of reforming
the Benedictines, describes the inhabitants of many estab-
lishments of both sexes in that ancient and honoured
institution as indulging in the most shameless profligacy;
and marriage itself was apparently not infrequently prac-
tised.” Savonarola did not hesitate to declare that nuns
in their convents became worse than harlots.” Even the
strictest of all the orders—the Cistercian—yielded to the
prevailing laxity. A general chapter, held in 1516,
denounces the intolerable abuse indulged in by some
abbots, who threw off all obedience to the rule, and dared
to keep women under pretence of requiring their domestic
services.” To fully appreciate the force of this indication.
it is requisite to bear in mind the stringency of the regula-
* Robles, Vida del Card. Ximenes de Cisneros, cap. XII., XIII. Cf. Wadding,
Annal Minor, ann. 1495, n. 34–36; ann. 1496, n. 10–15.
When the Franciscan general expressed to Isabella at great length the unworthi-
ness and demerits of Ximenes, she quietly asked him whether he was sane and knew
to whom he was speaking.—Gomesius de Rebus gestis Fr. Ximenii, Lib. I. fol. 14.
This reformation was not lasting. In 1545 Philip II. threatened to expel them all
from Spain : Pius IV. proposed that they should gradually become extinct, by for-
bidding the reception of novices; but he finally empowered his legate to reduce them
to observance of the rule or to extinguish them, as Philip might prefer.—Döllinger,
Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen u. Cultur-Geschichte, I. 617 (Regensburg, 1862).
2 Rursus in certis monasteriis dicti ordinis, ipsae moniales apertis claustris,
indifferenter omnes homines etiam suspectos intromittunt, ac extra monasteria in
curiis, castris et plateis vagantes, plura scandala committunt . . . Similiter religiosi
qui in sacris ordinibus constituti non sunt, relicto habito regulari, matrimonium
contrahere dicuntur. . . . Praeterea omnes et singulos monachos et moniales re-
gulam S. Benedicti hujusmodi expresse vel tacite professos, qui habitum monas-
ticum sine dispensatione legitima reliquerunt aut matrimonia contraxerunt, ad
monasteria, st illa eaciverwnt, redire et habitum monasticum ac velum nigrum reas-
Sumere dicta auctoritate compellatis.-App. ad Chron. Cassinens. Ed. Dubreul,
pp. 902–3.
The words italicised would seem to indicate that monks' and nuns occasionally
married without even quitting their monasteries.
3 Perrens, Jérome Savonarole, p. 84.
4 Statut. Ord. Cisterc. ann. 1516 (Martene Thesaur. IV. 1636–7).
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 23
tions which forbade the foot of woman to pollute the
sacred retirement of the Cistercian monasteries."
The efforts constantly made to check these abuses pro-
duced little result. A Carthusian monk, writing in 1489,
* Thus, in 1193, the general chapter of the Order promulgated the rule—“Si conti-
gerit mulieres abbatiam ordininis nostri ex consensu intrare, ipse abbas a patre abbate
deponatur absolue retractatione. Et quicumque sine conscientia abbatis introduxerit,
de domo ejiciatur, non reversurus, nisi per generale capitulum.”—(Capit, General.
Cisterc. ann. 1193 cap. 6—apud Martene Thesaur. IV. 1276.) The strictness with
which this was enforced is illustrated by the proceedings in 1205 against the abbot
of the celebrated house of Pontigny, because he had allowed the Queen of France
and her train to be present at a sermon in the chapel and a procession in the cloisters,
and to spend two nights in the infirmary. He adduced in his defence a special
rescript of the Pope and a permission from the head of the Order in favour
of the Queen, but these were pronounced insufficient, and sentence was passed that
he merited instant deposition “quia tam enorme factum sustinuit, in totius ordinis
injuriam,” but that, in consequence of the powerful intercession of the Archbishop
of Rheims and other bishops, he was allowed to escape with lighter punishment.—
(Hist. Monast. Pontiniac.—Martene Thesaur. III. 1245.)
This rule, indeed, was almost universal in the ancient monasteries. The great
abbey of St. Martin of Tours preserved it inviolate until the incursions of the North-
men rendered the house an asylum for the inhabitants of the surrounding territory,
and the prohibition was subsequently revived and formally approved by Leo VII. in
938 (Leonis P.P. VII. Epist. vi.). In that of Sithieu, from the time of its founda-
tion early in the seventh century, it was preserved without infraction for more than
three centuries. Even the licence of the Carlovingian revolution did not cause its
inobservance ; and when, amid the disorders of the tenth century, the Counts of
Flanders became lay abbots of the convent, and discipline was almost forgotten,
the mediation of two bishops was required to obtain permission, about the year 940,
for Adela, Countess of Flanders, prostrated with mortal sickness, to be carried in and
laid before the altar, where she miraculously recovered.—(De Mirac. S. Bertin. Lib.
II. c. 12.—Chron. S. Bertin. c. 23, 24.)
So when Boniface founded the abbey of Fulda, he prohibited the entrance of
women in any of the buildings, even including the church. The rule was preserved
uninfringed through all the licence of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and when,
in 1132, the Emperor Lothair came to Fulda to celebrate Pentecost, his empress
was not allowed to witness the ceremonies. So when Frederick Barbarossa, in 1135,
spent his Easter there, he was not permitted to enter the town because his wife was
with him. In 1370 Boniface IX., at the request of the Abbot John Merlaw, relaxed
the rule and permitted women to attend at the services of the church—shortly after
which it was destroyed by lightning, as a warning for the future.—(Paullini Chron.
Badeslebiens. § viii.)—An equally convincing indication of the favour with which
this regulation was regarded by Heaven was afforded when Abbot Helisacar, about
the year 830, introduced it in the celebrated monastery of St. Riquier, and imme-
diately the number of miracles worked by the relics of the saint increased in a
notable degree (Chron. Centulensis Lib. III. cap. iv.).-At the Grande Chartreuse,
founded by St. Bruno towards the end of the eleventh century, women were not
even allowed to enter on the lands of the community.—Chart. S. Hugon, Gratiano-
polit. (Patrolog. T. 166, p. 1571).
24 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
deplores the fact that while monasteries were everywhere
being reformed, few if any of them maintained their
morals, but returned to their old condition immediately
on the death of the zealous fathers who had sought to
improve them." That condition is described by a Benedic-
tine abbot, the celebrated Trithemius, in general terms, as
that of dens in which it was a crime to be without sin, their
inhabitants for the most part being addicted to all manner
of vices, and being monks only in name and habit.”
That the clergy, as a body, had become a stench in the
nostrils of the people is evident from the immense applause
which greeted all attacks upon them. In 1476 a rustic pro-
phet arose in the hamlet of Niklaushausen, in the diocese of
Wurzburg, who was a fit precursor of Muncer and John of
Leyden. John of Niklaushausen was a swineherd, who pro-
fessed himselfinspired by the Virgin Mary. From the Rhine-
lands to Misnia, and from Saxony to Bavaria, immense
multitudes flocked to hear him, so that at times he
preached to crowds of twenty and thirty thousand men.
His doctrines were revolutionary, for he denounced
oppression both secular and clerical; but he was particu-
larly severe upon the vices of the ecclesiastical body. A
special revelation of the Virgin had informed him that
God could no longer endure them, and that the world
could not, without a speedy reformation, be saved from
the divine wrath consequent upon them.” The unfor-
tunate man was seized by the Bishop of Wurzburg; the
fanatical zeal of his unarmed followers was easily subdued,
and he expiated at the stake his revolt against the powers
that were.
1 Anon. Carthus. de Relig. Orig. cap. XL. (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VI. 93).
2 Johan. de Trittenheim Lib. Lugubris de Statu et Ruina Monast. Ordinis
Cap. III.
3 Annuntia populo fideli meo, et dic quod Filius meus avaritiam, superbiam et
uxuriam clericorum et sacerdotum amplius sustinere nec possit nec velit. Unde
nisi se quantocius emendaverint, totus mundus propter eorum scelera periclitabitur.
—Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1476.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 25
Such being the state of ecclesiastical morality through-
out Europe, there can be little wonder if reflecting men
sought occasionally to reform it in the only rational
manner—not by an endless iteration of canons, obsolete as
soon as published, or by ingeniously varied penalties, easily
varied or compounded—but by restoring to the minister
of Christ the right to indulge legitimately the affections
which bigotry might pervert, but could never eradicate.
Even as early as the close of the thirteenth century, the
high authority of Bishop William Durand had acknow-
ledged the inefficacy of penal legislation, and had suggested
the discipline of the Greek Church as affording a remedy
worthy of consideration." As the depravity of the Church
increased, and as the minds of men gradually awoke from
the slumber of the dark ages, and shook off the blind
reverence for tradition, the suggestion presented itself with
renewed force. At the Council of Constance Cardinal
Zabarella did not hesitate to suggest that, if the concu-
binary practices of the clergy could not be suppressed, it
would be better to concede to them the privilege of
marriage,” and shortly after the failure of the council to
effect a reform had became apparent, Guillaume Saignet
wrote a tract entitled “Lamentatio ob Caelibatum Sacer-
dotum,” in which he attacked the existing system, and
called forth a rejoinder from Gerson. The Carmelite,
Thomas Connecte, was a wandering preacher who filled
France and the Low Countries with denunciations of
popular vices, both lay and clerical. His eloquence won
1 Quum pene in omnibus conciliis et a plerisque Romanis pontificibus super cohi :
benda et punienda clericorum incontinentia, et eorum honestate servanda multa
hactenus emanaverint constituta ; et nullatenus ipsorum reformari quiverit correctio
morum : . . . videretur pensandum an expediret et posset provideri quod in ecclesia
Occidentali, quantum ad votum continentiae, servaretur consuetudo ecclesiae Orien-
talis, quantum ad promovendos, potissime quum tempore Apostolorum consuetudo
ecclesiae Orientalis servaretur.—Durand. de Modo General. Concil. P. II. rubr. 46
(Calixtus, p. 537).
2 Card. Zabarellae Capit. Agend. in Concil. Constant. cap. XII. (Von der Hardt
T.I. P. ix. p. 525).
26 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
immense applause, and his auditors were reckoned in
crowds of from ten to twenty thousand souls. He was
especially severe on the concubimage of all ranks of the
clergy, and recommended a restoration of priestly mar-
riage as the appropriate remedy; but when, in 1432, he
ventured in Rome to lash the corruption of the Curia, he
was found to be a heretic, and his career was ended at the
stake." When the Council of Basle was earnestly engaged
in the endeavour to restore forgotten discipline, the
Emperor Sigismund laid before it a formula of reformation
which embraced the restoration of marriage to the clergy.
His orator drew a fearful picture of the evils caused by the
rule of celibacy—evils acknowledged by every one in the
assembly—and urged that, as it had produced more injury
than benefit, the wiser course would be to follow the
example of the Greek Church.” A majority of the Council
assented to the principle, but shrank from the bold step
of adopting it. Eugenius IV. had just been forced to
acknowledge the legitimacy of the body as an OEcumenic
council; the strife with the papacy might again break forth
at any moment, and it was not politic to venture on
innovations too audacious. The conservatives, therefore,
skilfully eluded the question by postponing it to a more
favourable time, and the postponement was fatal.
One of the most celebrated members of the council,
Cardinal Nicholas Tudeschi, surnamed Panormitanus, whose
pre-eminence as an expounder of the canon law won for him
the titles of “Canonistarum Princeps” and “Lucerna
Juris,” declares that the celibacy of the clergy was not
essential to ordination or enjoined by divine law; and he
records his unhesitating opinion that the question should
be left to the option of the individual—those who had
1 Monstrelet, Chronique, II., 53, 127. —Martene, Ampliss. Collect. VIII. 92.-
Altmeyer, Précurseurs de la Réforme, I. 237.
2 Zaccaria, Nuova Giustificaz. pp. 121–2,-Milman, Latin Christ. Book XIII.
chap. 12.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 27
resolution to preserve their purity being the most worthy,
while those who had not would be spared the guilt which
disgraced them.” So AEneas Sylvius, who as Pius II. filled
the pontifical throne from 1458 to 1464, and who knew
by experience how easy it was to yield to the temptations
of the flesh, is reported to have said that marriage had been
denied to priests for good and sufficient reasons, but that
still stronger ones now required its restoration.” Indeed,
when arguing before the Council of Basle in favour of the
election of Amedeus of Savoy to the papacy, he had not
scrupled to declare that a married priesthood would be the
salvation of many who were damned in celibacy.” And
we have already seen that Eugenius IV. in 1441, and
Alexander VI. in 1496, granted permission of marriage to
several military Orders, as the only mode of removing the
scandalous licence prevailing among them.
This question of the power of the Pope to dispense with
the necessity of celibacy seems to have attracted some
attention about this period. In 1505, Geoffroy Boussard,
afterwards Chancellor of the University of Paris, published
a tract wherein he argued that priestly continence was
simply a human and not a divine ordinance, and that the
Pope was fully empowered to relax the rule in special
cases, though he could not abolish wholly an institution of
such long continuance which had received the assent of so
many holy fathers and general councils. At the same
time, one of his arguments in favour of its enforcement
shows how little respect was left in the minds of all thinking
men for the claims of the Church to veneration. He quotes
1 Not having the works of Tudeschi to refer to, I give his remarks as quoted by
- Villadiego (Fuero Juzgo, p. 177, No. 85) from Gloss. in cap. olim, de cleric. conjug.—
“Quod deberet ecclesia facere sicut bonus medicus, ut si medicina, experientia
docente, potius officit quam prodit, eam tollat; sic eorum voluntati relinqueretur, ita
ut Sacerdos qui abstinere noluisset, posset uxorem ducere, cum quotidie illicito coitu
maculentur.”
2 Sacerdotibus magna ratione sublatas nuptias, majori restituendas videri...—
Platina in Wit. Pii II.
8 ACneſe Sylvii de Concil. Basil. Lib. II.
28 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Bonaventura to the effect that if bishops and archbishops
had licence to marry they would rob the Church of all its
property, and none would be left for the poor, for, he adds,
“since already they seize the goods of the Church for the
benefit of distant relatives, what would they not do if they
had legitimate children of their own 2 * *
When the advantages and the necessity of celibacy thus
were doubted by the highest authorities in the Church, it
is no wonder if those who were disposed to question the
traditions of the past were led to reject it altogether. In
1479 John Ruchrath, of Oberwesel, graduate of Tubingen,
and doctor of theology, in his capacity of preacher at
Worms openly disseminated doctrines which differed in
the main but little from those of Wickliffe and Huss. He
denied the authority of popes, councils, and the fathers of
the Church to regulate matters either of faith or discipline.
The Scripture was the only standard, and no one had a
right to interpret it for his brethren. The received obser-
vances of religion, prayers, fasts, indulgences, were all
swept away, and universal liberty of conscience proclaimed
to all. Of course, Sacerdotal celibacy shared the same fate,
as a superstitious observance contrived by papal ingenuity
in opposition to evangelical simplicity.” Thus his intrepid
logic far outstripped the views of his predecessors, and
Luther afterwards acknowledged the similarity between
his teachings and those of John of Oberwesel. Yet he had
not the spirit of martyrdom, and the Inquisition speedily
forced him to a recantation, which was of little avail, for he
soon after perished miserably in the dungeon into which he
had been thrust.”
Still more remarkable as an indication of the growing
1 De Continentia Sacerdotum, Nürnb. 1510, Prop. 6, 7.
2 Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1479. D'Argentré, Collect. judic. de novis
Erroribus, I., II., 291 sqq.
3 Serrarii Hist. Rer. Mogunt. Lib. I. c. 34.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 29
spirit of independence was an event which in July 1485
disturbed the stagnation of the centre of theological ortho-
doxy—the Sorbonne. A certain Jean Laillier, priest and
licentiate in theology, aspiring to the doctorate, prepared
his thesis or “Sorbonique,” in which he broached various
propositions savouring strongly of extreme Lollardry. He
denied the supremacy of the Pope, and indeed reduced the
hierarchy to the level of simple priesthood; he rejected
confession, absolution, and indulgences; he refused to
acknowledge the authority of tradition and legends, and
insisted that the fasts enjoined by the Church had no claim
to observance. Celibacy was not likely to escape so auda-
cious an inquirer, and accordingly among his postulates
were three, declaring that a priest clandestinely married
required no penitence; that the Eastern clergy committed
no sin in marrying, nor would the priests of the Western
Church if they were to follow that example; and that
celibacy originated in 1073, in the decretals of Gregory VII.,
whose power to introduce the rule he more than questioned.
The Sorbonne, as might be anticipated, refused the doc-
torate to so rank a heretic, and Laillier had the boldness
not only to preach his doctrines publicly, but even to
appeal to the Parlement for the purpose of forcing his
admission to the Sorbonne. The Parlement referred the
matter to the Bishop of Paris and to the Inquisitor. A
long controversy followed, and it required the interposition
of Innocent VIII. before Laillier could be punished and
forced to recant." In Poland, too, there were symptoms
of similar revolt against the established ordinances of the
Church, as shown in a book published at Cracow in 1504,
“De Matrimonia Sacerdotum.”
The corruption of the Church establishment, in fact, had
1 D’Argentré, I., II., 309 sqq.
2 Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, I. 110.
30 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
reached a point which the dawning enlightenment of the
age could not much longer endure. The power which had
been entrusted to it, when it was the only representative of
culture and progress, had been devoted to selfish purposes,
and had become the instrument of oppression in all the
details of daily life. The immunity which had been ser-
viceable through centuries of anarchy had become the
shield of vices. The wealth so freely lavished upon it by
the veneration of Christendom was wasted in excesses.
All efforts at reformation from within had failed ; all
attempts at reformation from without had been success-
fully crushed and sternly punished. Intoxicated with
centuries of domination, the muttered thunders of growing
popular discontent were unheeded, while its corruptions
were displayed before the people with more careless cyni-
cism. There appeared to be no desire on the part of the
majority of the clergy to make even a pretence of the
virtue and piety on which were based their claims for
reverence, while the laity were daily growing less reverent,
were rising in intelligence, and were becoming more
inclined to question where their fathers had been content
to believe. Such a complication could have but one
result. -
CHAPTER XXV
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY
THE opening of the sixteenth century witnessed an ominous
breaking down of the landmarks of thought. The revival
of letters, which was fast rendering learning the privilege
of all men in place of the special province of the legal and
clerical professions; the discovery of America, which
destroyed reverence for primeval tradition, and accustomed
men's minds to the idea that startling novelties might yet
be truths; the invention of printing, which placed within
the reach of all inquirers who had a tincture of education
the sacred writings for investigation and interpretation, and
enabled the thinker and the innovator at once to command
an audience and disseminate his views in remote regions ;
the European wars, commencing with the Neapolitan con-
quest of Charles VIII., which brought the nations into
closer contact with each other, and carried the seeds of
culture, civilisation, and unbelief from Italy to the farthest
Thule; all these causes, with others less notable, had been
silently but effectually wearing out the remnants of that
pious and unquestioning veneration which for ages had lain
like a spell on the human mind.
In this bustling movement of politics and commerce,
arts and arms, science and letters, religion could not expect
to escape the spirit of universal inquiry. Even before
opinion had advanced far enough to justify examination
into doctrinal points and dogmas, there was a general
readiness to regard the shortcomings of sacerdotalism, in
the administration of its sacred trust, with a freedom of
32 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
criticism which could not long fail to destroy the respect
for claims of irrefragable authority. The disposition to
criticise the abuses of the ecclesiastical system, to note its
shortcomings, and to apply remedial measures was general,
and savoured little of the respect which the Church had for
so many centuries inculcated as one of the first of Christian
duties. Its past services were forgotten in present wrongs.
Its pretensions had at one time enabled it to be the pro-
tector of the feeble and the sole defence of the helpless,
but that time had passed. Settled institutions were fast
replacing anarchy throughout Europe, and its all-pervading
authority would no longer have been in place, even if exer-
cised for the common benefit. When it was notorious,
however, that the powers and immunities claimed by the
Church were largely employed for evil rather than for
good, their anachronism became too palpable, and their
destruction was only a question of time.
Signs of the coming storm were not wanting. In 1510
a series of complaints against the tyranny and extortion
of Rome was solemnly presented to the Emperor. The
German churches, it was asserted, were confided by the
successors of St. Peter to the care of those who were better
fitted to be keepers of mules than pastors of men, and the
Pope was significantly told that he should act more tenderly
and kindly to his children of Teutonic race, lest there
might arise a persecution against the priesthood, or a
general defection from the Holy See, after the manner of
the Hussites." The Emperor was warned, in his efforts to
obtain the desired reform, not to incur the censures and
enmity of the Pope, in terms which show that only the
political effects of excommunication were dreaded, and
that its spiritual thunders had lost their terrors. He was
1 Gravamina German. Nationis, No. VII.-Remed. contra Gravamina (Freher. et
Struv. II. 677–8).
In the previous century some remonstrances against grievances had been uttered,
but in a very different tone from this.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 33
further cautioned against the prelates in general, and the
mendicant friars in particular, in a manner denoting how
little reverence was left for them in the popular mind, and
how thoroughly the whole ecclesiastical system had become
a burden and reproach, and no longer an integral part of
every man's life and the great motive power of Christen-
dom.”
It was evident that the age was rapidly outstripping
the Church, and that the latter, to maintain its influence
and position, must conform to the necessities of progress
and enlightenment. On previous occasions it had done so,
and had, with marvellous tact and readiness, adapted itself
to the exigencies of the situation in the long series of
vicissitudes which had ended by placing it supreme over
Europe. But centuries of almost uninterrupted prosperity
had hardened it. The corruption which attends upon
wealth had rendered wealth a necessity, and that wealth
could only be had by perpetuating and increasing the
abuses which caused ominous murmurs of discontent in
those nations not hardy enough to set limits to the
authority of the Holy See. The Church had lost its
suppleness, and was immovable. A reform such as was
demanded, while increasing its influence over the souls
of men, would have deprived it of control over their
purses; reform meant poverty. The sumpter-mule loaded
with gold, wrung from the humble pittance of the West-
phalian peasant, under pretext of prosecuting the war
against the infidel, would no longer cross the Alps to
stimulate with its treasure the mighty genius of Michael
Angelo, or the fascinating tenderness of Raphael; to
provide princely revenues for the bastards of a pope, or
to pay mercenaries who were to win them cities and
lordships; to fill the antechamber of a cardinal with
1 Avisamenta ad Caesar. Majest. (Ibid. p. 680).
WOL. II. C
34 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
parasites, and to deck his mistresses with the silks and
jewels of Ind; to feed needy men of letters and scurri-
lous poets; to soothe the itching palms of the Rota,
and to enable all Rome to live on the tribute so cun-
ningly exacted of the barbarian.* The wretched ending
of the Council of Basle rendered any internal reformation
impossible which did not derive its initiative and inspira-
tion from Rome. In Rome, it would have required the
energy of Hildebrand, the stern self-reliance of Innocent,
the unworldly asceticism of Celestin combined, even to
essay a reform which threatened destruction so complete
to all the interests accumulated by sacerdotalism around
the Eternal City. Leo X. was neither Hildebrand, nor
Innocent, nor Celestin. With his voluptuous nature,
elegant culture, and easy temper, it is no wonder that
he failed to read aright the signs of the times, and that
he did not even recognise the necessity which should
impose upon him a task so utterly beyond his powers.
The fifth Council of Lateran had no practical result.
1 When Diether was elected Archbishop of Mainz, in 1459, his envoys sent to
obtain his confirmation from Pius II. were stupefied with a demand for 20,506 florins
—more than double the amount of annates previously assessed on the see. He
refused to yield to the demand, but the Roman bankers had already advanced to the
members of the Curia their shares of the spoils, and on his persistent refusal he was
deposed by the Pope, and Adolph of Nassau appointed in his place, leading to a bloody
war and the devastation of city and territory.—Appell. Dom. Dytheri (Senckenberg,
Selecta Juris T. IV. p. 393).--Cf. Helwich de Dissidio Moguntino (Rer. Moguntiac.
Script. T. II.). This is probably the fraud alluded to by the Diet of 1510, where it
was complained that the annates of the see of Mainz were raised from 10,000 florins
to 25,000; and this latter sum was exacted seven times in one generation, resulting
in taxation on the peasantry so severe that an insurrection against the clergy was
threatened.—Remed. contra Gravam. (Freher. et Struv. II. 678.)
In the complaint made to Adrian VI., in 1528, by the Diet of Nürnberg, it is
asserted that three generals of the mendicant Orders at Rome had purchased the
cardinalate with gold wrung from Germany.—Gravam. Nationis German. cap. lxxiii.
—ap. Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. II. 203.
That this estimate of the papal Curia was shared by the orthodox is shown in the
story told of Pierre Danes, Bishop of Vaur, who in 1545 was sent as ambassador by
Francis I. to the Council of Trent. In debate a French theologian was inveighing
against the corruptions of the Rota, when an Italian ecclesiastic sneeringly cried
out, “Gallus cantat.” Danes promptly rejoined, “Utinam illo gallicinio Petrus
ad resipiscentiam et fletum excitetur.”—Le Plat, Monument. Concil, Trident,
VII. 224.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 35
Blindly he plunged on : money must be had at any cost,
until the methods employed in marketing the St. Peter's
indulgence attracted the attention of Luther, and Teutonic
insubordination burst forth at the sound of his voice.*
It would be a mistake to credit Luther with the Re-
formation. His bold spirit and masculine character gave
to him the front place, and drew around him the less
daring minds who were glad to have a leader to whom to
refer their doubts, and on whom their responsibility might
partly rest; yet Luther was but the exponent of a public
sentiment which had long been gaining strength, and
which in any case would not have lacked expression. In
that great movement of the human mind he was not
the cause, but the instrument. Had his great opponent
Erasmus enjoyed the physical vigour and practical bold-
ness of Luther, he would have been handed down as the
heresiarch of the sixteenth century. He too had borne
his full share in preparing the minds of men for what was to
come. The whole structure of sacerdotalism felt the blows
of his irreverential spirit, which boldly declared that the
Scriptures alone contained what was necessary to salvation.”
Theological subtleties and priestly observances were alike
useless or worse than useless. For the living, it was idle
to attend Mass; for the dead, it was folly to look to such
a means for extrication from purgatory.” The confessional
was to be visited only as a formal prerequisite to par-
taking of the Eucharist; * pilgrimages and the veneration
1 The briefs of Leo X. from March 1513 to October 1515, calendared by Cardinal
Hergenrother (Leonis X. Regestu, Friburgi, 1884–1891) throw abundant light on the
worldliness and venality of the papal court of the period, the reckless prodigality of
Leo, and the ruinous financial expedients to which he resorted. Not the least of his
burdens was the gigantic enterprise of rebuilding the church of St. Peter, inherited
from Julius II.
2 Erasmi Colloq. Confabulatio Pia.
3 Ibid. See also the Encomium Moriae, “Nam quid dicam de iis qui sibi fictis
scelerum condonationibus suavissime blandiuntur, ac purgatorii spatia veluti
clepsydris metiuntur, secula, annos, menses, dies, horas, tanquam e tabula mathe-
matica citra ullum errorem dimentientes?”
4 Confabulatio Pia.
36 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of relics were ridiculed with a reckless freedom which
showed how shaken was the reverence of the past."
Nothing, indeed, can give us a more thorough conviction
of the readiness of the public to welcome a radical change
than the wealth of indignant bitterness which Erasmus,
himself a canon regular and a priest, heaps upon all orders
of the Church, and the immense applause which everywhere
greeted his attacks. His sarcastic humour, his biting
satire, his exquisite ridicule, nowhere find a more congenial
subject than the vices of the monks, the priests, the pre-
lates, the cardinals, and even of the Pope himself, until
even Luther, as late as 1517, feels constrained to deplore
that the evils which afflicted the Church should be thus
exposed to derision.” It affords a curious illustration of
the times to read those writings which a century earlier
might have led him to share the fate of John Huss and
Jerome of Prague, and to reflect that he was not only the
admiration of both the learned and the vulgar of Europe,
but also the petted protégé of king and kaiser, the corre-
spondent of popes, and finally the champion of the system
which he had so ruthlessly reviled, and which he never
ceased to deplore.” The extraordinary favour with which
1 Speaking of the Virgin’s milk and the countless relics of the cross everywhere
exposed to the adoration of the pious, he exclaims, “O matrem filio simillimam ille
nobis tantum sanguinis reliquit in terris ; haec tantum lactis quantum vix credibile
est esse posse uni mulieri uniparae, etiamsi nihilbibisset infans . . . Idem caussantur
de cruce Domini, quae privatim ac publice tot locis ostenditur, ut si fragmenta con-
ferantur in unum, navis onerariae justum onus videri possint ; et tamen totam crucem
suam bajulavit Dominus’—to which he makes a pious interloculor reply, “Novum
fortasse dici possit ; mirum nequaquam, quum Dominus, qui haec auget pro suo arbi.
trio, sit omnipotens.”—Colloq. Peregrinat. Religionis.
2 Supplement. Epist. M. Lutheri, No. II. (Halae, 1703.)
3 The popular view of the priesthood is well summed up by Erasmus in the
following dialogue : “COCLES, Cur mavis sacerdotium quam uxorem 7—PAMPHAGUs,
Quia mihi placet otium. Arridet Epicurea vita.-Co. At mea sententia suavius
vivunt, quibus est lepida puella domi, quam complectantur, quoties libet.—PAM. Sed
adde, nonnunquam quum non libet. Amo voluptatem perpetuam. Quiducit uxorem,
uno mense felix est : cui contingit optimum sacerdotium, in omnem usque vitam
fruitur gaudio.—CO. Sed tristis est solitudo, adeo ut nec Adam suaviter victurus
fuerit in Paradiso nisi deus illi adjunxisset Evam.—PAM. Non deerit Eva cuisit
opulentum Sacerdotium,” &c. —Erasmi Colloq. de Captandis Sacerdotiis.
It is, however, perhaps in the “Encomium Moriae" that he gives fullest rein to
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 27
his works were received by all classes shows how fully he
was justified in the indignation which he so unsparingly
lavished on clerical abuses, and how eagerly the public
appreciated one who could so well express that which was
felt by all. Equally significant was the popularity of the
“Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum,” in which the learned
wits of the new school poured forth upon the clergy a
broad and homely ridicule which exactly suited the taste
of the age; * while Cornelius Agrippa more than rivalled
Erasmus in the wealth of vigorous denunciation with
which he lashed the vices of all the orders of ecclesiastics,
from the Pope to the beguine.”
Not less indicative of the dangerous state of opinion
was an address delivered in the diet held at Augsburg in
his bitter satire. His own sad experience of conventual life gave him special oppor-
tunity of declaiming against the monks “qui se vulgo religiosos ac monachos appel-
lant, utroque falsissimo cognomine, quum et bona pars istorum longissime absit a
religione, et nulli magis omnibus locis sint obvii.” Their habit, their observances,
their discipline, their ignorance, idleness, vices, are recounted at great length and
with the most stinging ridicule, and he makes Folly dismiss them with the con-
temptuous valediction, “Verum ego istos histriones, tam ingratos beneficiorum
meorum dissimulatores quam improbos simulatores pietatis liberiter relinquo.” The
secular priesthood, the bishops, and even the Pope himself are treated with little
more respect, and every class of the ecclesiastical body is stigmatised as endeavour-
ing to thrust upon others the care of the flock and industrious only in shearing the
sheep.
The “Encomium Moriae" had an immediate and immense success. Numberless
editions were required to supply the avidity of the learned, and it was immediately
translated into almost every language of Europe for the benefit of the unlearned. It
appeared in 1509; the Colloquies in 1516.--When these works had produced their
result, their dangerous tendencies were discovered, and they enjoyed the honour of
being included in the first Index Expurgatorius (App. Concil. Trident.). Cardinal
Caraffa, indeed, in 1538, had urged upon Paul III. the propriety of excluding the
Colloquies from use in schools as a text-book for students.-Concil. de Emend.
Eccles. (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. II. 602.)
1 The “Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum” was certainly published before 1516, pro-
bably in 1515 (Ebert, Bibliog. Dict. s. v.).--It is equally severe upon the monks—
“Tuncille dixit : ego distinguo de monachis, quia accipiuntur tribus modis. Primo,
pro Sanctis et utilibus, sed illi sunt in coelo. Secundo, pro nec utilibus nec in-
utilibus, et illi sunt picti in ecclesia. Tertio, modo pro illis qui adhuc vivunt, et illi
multis nocent, etiam non sunt sancti, quia ita superbi sunt sicut unus saecularium.
Et italibenter habent pecunias et pulchras mulieres,” &c. And again, “Ubi enim
diabolus pervenire vel aliquid efficere non potest, ibi semper mittit unam malam
antiquam vetulam vel unum monachum.”
* De Vanitate Scientiarum cap. lxi., lxii., lxiv.
38 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
1518, when the legates of Leo X. appealed to Germany
for a tithe to assist in carrying on the war against the
Turk. The orator who replied to them did not restrain
his indignation at the deplorable condition of the Church,
which he attributed solely to the worldly ambition of the
popes. Since they had united temporal with spiritual
dominion—or, rather, since they had allowed temporal
interests to divert them wholly from their spiritual duties
—all had gone amiss. Christendom was despoiled from
without, and filled with tumult within. Religion was
openly contemned ; Christ was daily bought and sold;
the sheep were shorn, and the pastor took no care of them.
He did not even hesitate to charge, with emphasis and at
much detail, that the money extorted from Germany
under pious pretexts was squandered in Italy on the
private quarrels and for the aggrandisement of the papal
houses and those of the members of the sacred college.”
All other nations were protected from papal rapacity and
tyranny by formal agreements. Germany alone was sur-
rendered defenceless, and not only were her bishops plun-
dered, but even the smallest benefice conla not be confirmed
without the recipient running the gauntlet of a horde of
officials whose exactions forced him to sell the very furni-
ture of his church. As the rules of law and the dictates of
justice were equally disregarded, the popular sentiment was
becoming openly hostile to the Church.” A state of feeling
which dictated and permitted such a declaration from the
supreme representative body of the empire, when brought
into collision with the pretensions of the Holy See, now
more exaggerated than ever, could have but one result—
revolution.
With all this licence, Germany was still, by the force of
circumstances, less independent of the papacy than any
1 Orat, in Comit. Augustan. (Freher. et Struv. II. 702.)
2 Bartholini Comment. de Comit. Augustens. ann. 1518 (Senckenberg. Selecta
Juris T. IV. pp. 669–70).
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 39
other Tramontane power. The fractioning of the empire
since the death of Barbarossa, carefully stimulated by papal
intrigues, had deprived it of unity and prevented the con-
solidation of a power capable of resisting the encroachments
of the Curia, which sucked the life-blood of both priest and
peasant, and rendered the very name of Rome hateful to
all, but especially to Teutonic ecclesiastics." What was
going on elsewhere in Europe may be guessed from the
humiliating conditions exacted in 1517 of Silvester Darius,
the papal collector, on his assuming the functions of his
important office in England. He bound himself by oath
not to execute any letters or mandates of the Pope injurious
to the King, the kingdom, or the laws ; not to transmit
from England to Rome, without a special royal licence,
any gold, or silver, or bills of exchange; not to leave the
kingdom himself without a special licence under the great
seal; with other less notable restrictions, the practical effect
of all being to place him and his duties wholly under the
control of the King.” The position of England had changed
since the days of Innocent and John. Had the dissensions
of Germany permitted equal progress, Luther might per-
haps have only been known as an obscure but learned
Orthodox doctor, and the inevitable revolt of half of Chris-
tendom have been postponed for a century.
It is not my province to follow in detail the vicissitudes
of the Reformation, but only to indicate briefly its relations
with sacerdotal asceticism. Luther at first, like Wickliffe
and Huss, paid no attention to the subject. In fact, when
on the 31st of October, 1517, he nailed on the church door
of Wittenberg his celebrated ninety-five propositions,
nothing was further from his expectations than to create a
1 See the dispatches of the nuncio Aleander and the letter of Archbishop Albert
of Mainz to Pope Leo, in Balan, Monument. Reform. Lutherean, pp. 31-2, 58, 74, 98,
165, 268–9.
2 Rymer, Foedora XIII. 586–7.
40 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
heresy, a schism, or even a general reform in the Church.
He had simply in view to vindicate his ideas on the subject
of justification, derived from St. Augustin, against the
Thomist doctrines which had been exaggerated into the
monstrous abuses of Tetzel and his fellows." In the
general movement of the human mind at that period so
much had been said that was inimical to the received prac-
tices of the Church, without calling forth the thunders of
Rome, that men seemed to think the day of toleration
had at last come. The hierarchy sat serenely upon their
thrones, and in the confidence of unassailable power ap-
peared willing to allow any freedom of speculation which
did not assail their temporal privileges. Yet amid the
general agitation and opposition to Rome which pervaded
society, it was impossible for a bold and self-reliant spirit
such as Luther's not to advance step by step in a career of
which the ultimate goal was as little foreseen by himself
as by others. Still his progress was wonderfully slow.
Even in 1519 he still considered himself within the pale of
the Church: in a letter to Leo X. he protested before God
that he did not seek in any way to attack the power of
either the Pope or the Roman Church, which he held to
be supreme over all in heaven and earth, save Jesus Christ
alone;” and in the same year, in a sermon on matrimony,
he alluded not unfavourably to the life of virginity.”
Events soon after forced him to further and more dan-
gerous innovations, yet when Leo X., in June 1520, issued
his celebrated bull, “Exsurge Domine,” to crush the rising
1 Even in this Luther was by no means the first. Erasmus had exposed the
demoralisation of the system with fully as much fervour in the “Encomium Moriae.”
—“Hic mihi puta negotiator aliquis, aut miles, aut judex, abjecto ex tot rapinis
unico nummulo, universam vitae Lernam semel expurgatam putat, totgue perjuria,
tot libidines, tot ebrietates, tot rixas, tot cades, tot imposturas, tot perfidias, tot
proditiones existimat velut ex pacto redimi, et ita redimi ut jam liceat ad novum
scelerum orbem de integro reverti.”—And in the “Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum”
the falseness of its promises was unflinchingly asserted.
2 Lutheri Opp. T. I. fol. 210b (Jenae, 1561).
2 Ibid. T. I. fol. 335a.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 41
heresy, in the forty-one errors enumerated as taught by
Luther there is no allusion to any doctrine specially
inimical to ascetic celibacy.” At almost the same moment,
however, Luther, in his address to the Christian nobles of
Germany, proposed that through the intervention of a
general council the privilege of marriage should be granted
to parish priests, and this was speedily followed by the
suggestion that vows of chastity taken before the age of
eighteen should be invalid.”
The papal condemnation, followed as it was by the
public burning of his writings, aroused Luther to a more
active and aggressive hostility than he had previously
manifested. In his book “De Captivitate Babylonica
Ecclesiae" he attacked the sacrament of ordination, denied
that it separated the priest from his fellows, and ridiculed
the rule concerning digami, which excluded from the
priesthood a man who had been the husband of any but a
virgin, while another who had polluted himself with six
hundred concubines was eligible to the episcopate or
papacy.” Finally, on 10th December 1530, he proclaimed
war to the knife by burning at Wittenberg the books of the
canon law, and justifying his act by a manifesto recapitulat-
ing the damnable doctrines contained in them. Among
these he enumerates the prohibition of sacerdotal marriage
as the origin and cause of excessive vice and scandal." As
he said himself, hitherto he had only been playing at con-
troversy with the Pope, but this was the beginning of
serious work." Soon after this, in a controversy with
Ambrogio Catarino, he stigmatised the rule of celibacy as
angelical in appearance, but devilish in reality, and
invented by Satan as a fertile source of sin and perdition.”
1 Mag. Bull. Roman. Ed. 1692, I. 614.
2 Herzog, Abriss, T. III. p. 34.—Lutheri Opp. T. I. fol. 359b.
3 De Captiv. Babylon. Eccles. (Lutheri Opp. II. fol. 283a.)
4 Artic. et Errores Libb. Jur. Canon. No. 18 (Lutheri Opp. II. fol. 3.18a).
5 Ibid. fol. 31.9b.
6 Ibid. fol. 362a, 374a.
42 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
In the mighty movement which was agitating men's
minds, Luther had been anticipated in this. As early as
1518, a monk of Dantzic named James Knade abandoned
his order, married, and publicly preached resistance to
Rome. It is evident that in this he had the support of
the people, for though he was imprisoned and tried by the
ecclesiastical authorities, the only punishment inflicted on
him was banishment." In the multitude of other questions
more interesting to the immediate disputants this point of
discipline seems to have attracted but little attention until
1521, when during Luther's enforced seclusion in the
Wartburg, Bartholomew Bernhardi, pastor of Kammerich,
near Wittenberg, put the heresiarch's views into action
in the most practical way by obtaining the consent of his
parish and celebrating his nuptials with all due solemnity.
Albert, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, addressed
to Frederic, Elector of Saxony, a demand for the rendition
of the culprit, which that prudent patron of the Reforma-
tion skilfully eluded, and Bernhardi published a short
defence or apology in which he denounced the rule of
celibacy as a “frivolam traditiunculam.” He argued the
matter, quoting the texts which since his time have been
generally employed in support of sacerdotal marriage: he
referred to Peter and Philip, Spiridion of Cyprus, and
Hilary of Poitiers, as examples of married bishops; quoted
the story of Paphnutius, and relied on the authority of the
Greek Church. This apparently did not satisfy the arch-
bishop, for Bernhardi felt obliged to address a second
apology to Frederic of Saxony, to whom he appealed for
protection against the displeasure of his ecclesiastical
superiors.” In spite of molestation, he continued in the
exercise of his priestly functions until death. Less fortu-
nate were his immediate imitators. A priest of Mansfield
1 Krasinski, op. cit. I. 112–3.
2 Lutheri Opp. Jenae, 1581, T. II. fol. 438, 440.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 48
who took to himself a wife was thrown into prison at Halle
by Albert of Mainz, and Jacob Siedeler, pastor of Glas-
hiitten, in Misnia, who was guilty of the same crime,
perished miserably in the dungeon of Stolpen, to which he
was committed by Duke George of Saxony.”
The enthusiastic Carlostadt, relieved for the time from
the restraint of Luther's cooler wisdom, threw himself with
zeal into this new movement of reform, and lost no time
in justifying it by a treatise in which he argued strenuously
in favour of priestly marriage, and energetically denounced
the monastic vows as idle and vain. Luther, however, in
his retreat, seems not yet prepared to take any very
decided position. In a letter of 17th January 1522, to
Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, one of the officials of the
Archbishop of Mainz, and a favourer of the Reformation,
he takes the latter severely to task with respect to his
action in a case of the kind—probably that of the priest of
Mansfield alluded to above. The man had been set at
liberty, but forced to separate himself from his wife, and
Capito had defended himself on the ground that the woman
was a harlot. Luther asks him why he had been so earnest
with a single strumpet, when he had taken no action with
so many under his jurisdiction in Halberstadt, Mainz, and
Magdeburg, and adds that when the priest had acknow-
ledged the woman as his wife there should have been
nothing further done. He proceeds to say, however, that
he does not ask for the freedom of sacerdotal marriage, and
that he is not prepared to take any general position con-
cerning it, except that it is lawful under God.” Either
with or without his approbation, however, his friends lost
no time in enforcing the new dogma, which they pro-
claimed to the world in the most authoritative manner.
During the same year Luther's own Augustinian Order
1 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1521.
2 Lutheri Epist. Jenae, 1545, T II. fol. 38, 39.
44 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
held a provincial synod at Wittenberg, in which they
formally threw open the doors of the monasteries, and
permitted all who desired it to return to the world, declar-
ing that in Christ there was no distinction between Jew
and Greek, monk and layman, and that a vow in opposi-
tion to the Gospel was no vow, but an impiety. Cere-
monies, observances, and dress were pronounced futile;
those who chose to abide by the established rule were free
to do so, but their preferences were not to be a law to
their fellows. Those who were fitted for preaching the
Word were advised to depart; those who remained were
obliged to perform the manual labour which had been so
prominent a portion of primitive Teutonic monasticism,
and mendicancy was strictly forbidden. In a few short
and simple canons a radical rebellion thus declared itself
in the heart of an ancient and powerful order, and princi-
ples were promulgated which were totally at variance with
sacerdotalism in all its protean forms."
This broad spirit of toleration did not suit the views of
the more progressive reformers. In Luther's own Augus-
tinian convent at Wittenberg, one of his most zealous
adherents, Gabriel Zwilling, preached against monachism
in general, taking the ground that salvation required the
renunciation of their vows by all who had been ensnared
into assuming the cowl; and so great was his success that
thirteen monks at once abandoned the convent. Yet even
on Luther's return to Wittenberg he at first took no part
in the movement. He retained his Augustinian habit, and
continued his residence in the convent; but before the
close of the year (1522) he put forth his work, “De Votis
Monasticis,” in which he fully and finally adopted the
views of his friends, and showed himself as an uncompro-
mising enemy of monasticism.” How difficult it was for
1 Synod. Vuitemberg. (Lutheri Opp. II. 470.)
2 Lutheri Opp. II. 477 sqq.-In this edition the tract is dated 1522 in the
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 45
him, however, to shake off the habitudes in which he had
been trained is shown by the fact that, even at the end of
1523, he still sometimes preached in his cowl and some-
times without it.”
Notwithstanding the zealous opposition of the orthodox
ecclesiastical authorities, the doctrine and practice of
Wittenberg were not long in finding earnest defenders
and imitators. But few such marriages, it is true, are
recorded in 1522, although Balthazar Sturmius, an
Augustinian monk of Saxony, committed the bolder
indiscretion of marrying a widow of Franconia. In that
year, however, we find Franz von Sickingen, knight-errant
and condottiere, who was then a power in the state,
advocating the emancipation and marriage of the religious
orders, in a letter to his father-in-law, Diedrich von Henth-
schuchsheyn. Still more important was the movement
inaugurated in Switzerland by Ulrich Zwingli, who, with
ten other monks of Nôtre-Dame-des-Hermites, on July 2,
1522, addressed to Hugo von Hohenlandemberg, Bishop
of Constance, a petition requesting the privilege of
marriage. The petitioners boldly argued the matter, citing
the usual Scriptural authorities, and adjured the bishop in
the most pressing terms to grant their request. They
warned him that a refusal might entail ruinous disorders
on the whole sacerdotal body, and that, unless he seized
the opportunity to guide the movement, it might speedily
assume a most disastrous shape. They asserted, indeed,
that not only in Switzerland, but elsewhere, it was gener-
ally believed that a majority of ecclesiastics had already
chosen their future wives, and that a return to the old
order of things was beyond the power of man to accom-
index and 1521 in the text. Henke and Ranke, however, agree in assigning it to a
period subsequent to his return from Wartburg.
i Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1523.−The fact that Spalatin recorded whether he wore
the cowl or not, shows the importance which Luther's friends attached to his exam-
ple with respect to it.
46 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
plish. This was followed, July 13, by a similar memorial
addressed to the Government of the Swiss Confederacy.
The signers frankly admitted their inability to preserve
chastity, and asked the State to protect them in their
marriages if the bishop allowed them to marry."
In this assertion, Zwingli and his companions followed
perhaps rather the dictates of their hopes than of their
judgment, for the revolution was by no means as universal
or immediate as their threats or warnings would indicate.
Its progress, nevertheless, was rapid and decided. In
Zurich the secular authorities gave permission to all nuns
to abandon their cloisters; in 1523, Leo Judae, Zwingli's
foremost disciple and parish priest of St. Peters, married a
former beguine, and in 1524 Zwingli himself married
Anna Reinhart, widow of Hans Meyer, with whom he had
been living as man and wife since 1522.” In Germany,
Luther, whom we have seen, in the earlier part of 1522,
still giving but a qualified assent to the daring innovation
of his followers, in February 1523 wrote to Spalatin in
favour of a married pastor who was seeking preferment at
the hands of the Elector Frederic;” and in April 1523
he himself officiated and preached a sermon in favour of
matrimony to a multitude of distinguished friends at the
wedding of Wenceslas Link, vicar of the Augustinian
Order, one of his oldest and most valued supporters, who
had stood unflinchingly by him when arraigned by Cardinal
Caietano before the Emperor Maximilian at the Diet of
Augsburg.” Not less important was the countenance
1 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1522.-Huldreich Zwingli, by Samuel Macauley Jackson,
p. 166 (New York, 1901).
2 Jackson's Huldreich Zwingli, p. 232.-Herzog, Abriss, III. 76. See Ibid. p. 88,
for the contest in Basle over the marriage of Stephan Stoer, pastor of Liestal, where
CEcolampadius maintained the unscriptural character of the canon of celibacy.
3 Supplement. Epistt. M. Lutheri No. 31 (Halae, 1703).
4 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1523.−Thammii Chron. Colditens.—Link married a
daughter of Suicer, a lawyer of Oldenburg, in Misnia, and the bride's example was
shortly afterwards followed by her two sisters, one of whom was united to Wolfgang
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 47
given to the innovation, two days later, by the Elector
Frederic, who consented to act as sponsor at the baptism
of the first-born of Franz Gunther, pastor of Loch," the
ceremony being performed by the honest chronicler Spalatin
himself.
It is curious to see in Spalatin's diary how each succes-
sive marriage is recorded as a matter of the utmost interest,
the hopes of the reformers being strengthened by every
accession to the ranks of those who dared to defy the rules
which had been deemed irreversible for centuries. Nor
was it an act without danger, for no open rupture had as
yet taken place between the temporal power of any state
and the central authority at Rome. Even in electoral
Saxony, though Duke Frederic, by a cautious course of
passive resistance, afforded protection to the heretics, yet
he still considered himself a Catholic, and the ritual of
his chapel was unaltered. Elsewhere the ecclesiastical
power was bent on asserting its supremacy over the
licentious apostates who ventured to sully their vows and
prostitute the sacrament of marriage by their incestuous
unions. The old charge of promiscuous intercourse was
resorted to in their case, as it has been with almost every
heresy in every age, for the purpose of exciting popular
odium,” and wherever the discipline of the Church could be
enforced, it was done unsparingly. The temper of these
endeavours to repress the movement is well illustrated by
Fuess, parish priest of Kolditz, and formerly a monk of Gera; while the other accepted
the addresses of the parish priest of Kitscheren. (Spalatin, ubi sup.)
1 Spalatin, ubi sup.–How these innovations were regarded in Rome is manifested
in a minatory epistle addressed, in 1522, by Adrian VI. to the Elector Frederic of
Saxony. “Et cum ipse sit apostata ac professionis suae desertor, ut plurimos sui
faciat similes, sancta illa Deo vasa polluere non veretur, consecratasque virgines et
vitam monasticam professas extrahere a monasteriis suis, et mundo imo diabolo
quem semel abjuraverunt, reddere . . . Christi sacerdotes etiam vilissimis copulant
meretricibus,” etc. (Hartzheim VI. 192.) -
2 See the address of Frederic Nausea, surnamed Blancicampianus, afterwards
Bishop of Vienna, at the Council of Mainz in 1527.-Synod. Mogunt. ann. 1527
(Hartzheim VI. 207).
48 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
the regulations promulgated under the authority of the
Cardinal-legate Campeggio, when in 1524 he succeeded in
uniting a number of reactionary princes at the Assembly
of Ratisbon. Deploring the sacrilege committed in the
marriages of priests and monks, which were becoming
extremely common, he granted permission to the secular
powers to seize all such apostates and deliver them to the
ecclesiastical officials, significantly restraining them, how-
ever, from inflicting torture. The officials were empowered
to condemn the offenders to perpetual imprisonment, or
to hand them over to the secular arm—a decent euphuism
for a frightful death; and any negligence on the part of
the ordinaries exposed those officers to the pains and
penalties of heresy."
In spite of all this, however, the votaries of marriage had
the support and sympathy of the great body of the people.
It shows how widely diffused and strongly implanted was
the conviction of the evils of celibacy, when those who
four centuries earlier had so cruelly persecuted their
pastors for not discarding their wives now urged them to
marriage, and were ready to protect them from the conse-
quences of the act. Thus, during the summer of 1524,
Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, provost of St. Thomas and
priest of the church of St. Peter at Strassburg, whom we
have seen two years earlier prosecuting a married priest,
took to himself a wife, by the request of his parishioners;
and when the chapter of canons endeavoured to interfere
with him, the threatening aspect of the populace warned
them to desist. Nor was this the only case, for Bishop
William undertook to excommunicate all the married
priests of Strassburg, when the senate of the city resolutely
espoused their cause, and even the authority of the legate
Campeggio could not reconcile the quarrel.”
1 Reformat. Cleri German. ann. 1524 c. 26 (Goldast. Constit. Imp. III. 491).
2 Spalatin. Annal, ann. 1524.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 49
Even higher protection was sometimes not wanting.
When Adrian VI., in 1522, reproached the Diet of Nürn-
berg with theinobservance of the decree of Worms and the
consequent growth of Lutheranism, and King Ferdinand,
in the name of the German states, replied that a council
for the reformation of the Church was the only remedy,
the question of married priests arose for discussion. The
German princes alleged that they could find in the civil
and municipal laws no provisions for the punishment of
such transgressions, and that the canons of discipline
could only be enforced by the ecclesiastical authorities
themselves, who ought not to be interfered with in the
discharge of their duty by the secular authorities." This
was scant encouragement, but even this was often denied
in practice. When, in 1523, Conrad von Tungen, Bishop
of Wurzburg, threw into prison two of his canons, the
doctors John Apel and Frederic Fischer, for the crime of
marrying nuns, the Council of Regency at Nürnberg
forced him to liberate them in a few weeks.” The latter
fact is the more remarkable, since but a short time pre-
viously (6 March, 1523) the Imperial Diet at Nürnberg,
under the auspices of the same Regency, had expressed its
desire to give every assistance to the ecclesiastical authority
in enforcing the canons. In a decree on the subject of
the religious disturbances it adopted the canon law on
celibacy as part of the civil law, pronouncing sentence
of imprisonment and confiscation on all members of the
clergy who should marry, and ordering the civil power in
1 Respons. S. R. I. Ordinum Norimb. cap. 18 (Goldast, op. cit. I. 455).—With this
the Legate Cheregato professed himself to be content, but he bitterly complained
of an intimation that if these apostate priests and nuns transgressed the laws in any
other way, the secular tribunals would punish them. He held that, though apos-
tates, they were still ecclesiastics, only amenable to the courts Christian, and he
protested against any violation of the privileges and jurisdiction of the Church
such as would be committed in bringing them before a civil magistrate. (Ibid.
p. 456.)
2 Spalatin. ann. 1523.
VOL. II. D
50 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
all cases to assist the ecclesiastical in its efforts to punish
offenders."
In the Low Countries, under the Regency of Margaret
of Austria, the civil power not only assisted but stimulated
the ecclesiastical to its duty. A conspicuous case was
that of Jan de Backer (Pistorius) of Woerden, who had
married, abandoned the priesthood, and supported himself
by manual labour, until the preaching of the St. Peter's
indulgence in Woerden induced him to resume the ton-
sure and priestly functions in order to combat it. It
illustrates the disciplinary looseness of the pre-Reformation
period that he seems not to have been disturbed in his
apostacy and marriage, but the Lutheran revolt had
created a different temper. He was arrested and carried
to The Hague, where he was tried by the inquisitors of
Louvain, who earnestly endeavoured to induce him to
abandon his wife and recant his errors as to papal authority,
purgatory, &c., but in vain. There was nothing left to do
with him but to burn him alive, which was executed
accordingly, 15 September, 1525.”
The emancipation of nuns excited considerable public
interest, and in many instances was effected by aid from
without. A certain Leonhard Kopp, who was a deter-
mined enemy of monachism, rendered himself somewhat
notorious by exploits of the kind. One of the earliest
instances was that by which, on Easter Eve, 1523, at con-
siderable risk, he succeeded in carrying off from the
convent of Nimptschen, in Misnia, eight young virgins of
noble birth, all of whom were subsequently married, and
one of whom was Catharine von Bora.” The example was
contagious. Before the month was out six nuns, all of
1 Edict. Norimb. Convent. ann. 1523 c. 10, 18, 19 (Goldast. II. 151).—This illus-
trates well the vacillating conduct of the Council of Regency during this period.
2 Fredericq, Corpus Documentt. Inquisitionis Neerlandicae, IV. 406–99.
3 Chron. Torgaviae—Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1523. He conveyed them at once to
Wittenberg, and Luther writes to Spalatin asking him to collect funds for their
support until they can be permanently provided for.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 51
noble blood, left the abbey of Sormitz, and soon after
eight escaped from that of Peutwitz, at Weissenfels.”
Monks enfranchised themselves with still less trouble.
At Nürnberg, in 1524, the Augustinians in a body threw
off their cowls and proclaimed themselves citizens.”
Finally, Luther gave the last and most unquestionable
proof of his adhesion to the practice of sacerdotal mar-
riage by espousing Catharine von Bora, whom we have
seen escaping, two years before, from the convent of
Nimptschen. Scandal, it would seem, had been busy with
the intimacy between the pious doctor and the fair rene-
gade, who had spent nearly the whole period of her liberty
at Wittenberg, and Luther, with the practical decision of
character which distinguished him, suddenly resolved to
put the most effectual stop to rumours which his enemies
doubtless were delighted to circulate. On the evening of
13 June, 1525, without consulting his friends, he invited
to supper Pomeranius, Lucas Cranach, and Apellus, and
had the marriage ceremony performed.” It took his
followers completely by surprise; many of them dis-
approved of it, and Justus Jonas, in communicating the
fact to Spalatin, characterises it as a startling event, and
evidently feels that his correspondent will require the most
incontrovertible evidence of the fact, when he declares
that he himself had been present and had seen the bride-
groom in the marriage bed.* If the portraits after Lucas
1 Spalatin. ubi sup.
2 Spalatin. ann. 1524.
8 Melanchthon to Camerarius (ap. Mayeri Dissert. de Cath. Lutheri conjuge.
pp. 25–6).—Melanchthon can only suggest that it was a mysterious act of Providence.
—“Isto enim sub negotio fortasse aliquid occulti et quiddam divinius subest, de
quo nos curiose quaerere non decet.”—The whole letter is singularly apologetic in
its tone.
4 Spalatin, ann. 1525.
Pomeranius, a priest of Wittenberg, in writing to Spalatin, gives as the reason of
Luther's marriage—“Maligna fama effecit ut Doct. Martinus insperato fieret con-
junx”; and Luther, in a letter to the same, admits this even more distinctly—“Os
obstruxi infamantibus me cum Catherina Borana.” That his action was not gene-
rally approved by his friends is apparent from his asking Michael Stiefel to pray that
52 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Cranach given in Mayer's Dissertation on Catharine be
faithful likenesses, it was scarcely the beauty of his bride
that led Luther to take this step, for her features seem
rather African than European."
When Luther had once decided for himself on the
propriety of sacerdotal marriage, he was not likely to stop
half-way. Some of the reformers were disposed to adopt
his new life may sanctify him—“Nam vehementer irritantur sapientes, etiam inter
nostros.”—Spalatin. ubi sup.
That surprise should have been aroused is singular, when he had already pro-
claimed the most extreme views in favour of matrimony. As early as 1522 he
delivered his famous “Sermo de Matrimonio,” in which he enjoins it in the strictest
manner as a duty incumbent upon all. Thus, in considering the impediments to
marriage, he treats of vows, concerning which he says: “Sin votum admissum est,
videndum tibi est, ut supra memoravi, num tribus eviratorum generibus compre-
hendaris, quae conjugio ademit Deus, ubi te in aliquo istorum uno non repereris,
votum rescindas, monasticen deseras oportet ; moxque ad naturalem sociam adjungas
te matrimonii lege.”—P. I. c. 8 (Opp. Ed. Vuitemberg. W. 121). To this must be
added his decided opinions on the subject of conjugal rights, as developed in the
well-known passage which has excited so much animadversion, and which, if we are
to interpret it literally, conveys a doctrine which sounds so strangely as the precept
of a teacher of morality. In treating of the causes of divorce, he remarks: “Tertia
ratio est, ubi alter alterisese subduxerif, ut debitam benevolentiam persolvere nolit,
aut habitare cum renuerit. Reperiuntur enim interdum adeo pertinaces uxores, qui
etiam si decies in libidinem prolabentur mariti pro sua duritia non curarent. Hic
oportunum est ut maritus dicat ‘Si tu nolueris, alia volet.” Si domina nolit, adveniat
ancilla, ita tamen ut antea iterum et tertio uxorem admoneat maritus, et corum aliis
ejus etiam pertinaciam detegat, ut publice et ante conspectum ecclesiae, duritia ejus
et agnoscatur et reprehendatur. Si tum renuat, repudia eam, et in vicem Vasti
Ester surroga, Assueri regis exemplo’” (Ibid. p. 123).
One conclusion at least can safely be drawn from this, that the morality of the
age had impressed Luther with the belief that the self-restraint of chastity was
impossible.
That the Catholics should make themselves merry over the marriage of the apos-
tate monk and nun was to be expected, and Jerome Emser did not think it beneath
him to write an epithalamium on the wedding of his former friend, of which the
following may be taken as a specimen—
Ad Priapum Lampsacenum
Veneramur, et Silenum
Bacchumque cum Venere
cum jubilo.
Septa claustri dissipamus,
Sacra vasa compilamus
Sumptus unde suppetat
cum jubilo.
Mayeri Dissert. p. 22, 23.
1 Mayeri de Cath. Luth. conjug. Dissert. 4to, Hamburgi, 1702.
Cranach, as we
have seen, was one of the three witnesses present at the marriage.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 53
the principles of the early Church, and, while permitting
married priests to officiate, denied to them the right to
marry a second time or to espouse any but virgins, declar-
ing all digami worthy of death and calling upon the people
to drive them out. Against these Luther, in 1528, took
up the cudgels vigorously, arguing the question in all its
bearings, and arriving at the conclusion that only bigamists
were to be shunned or deemed unworthy of holy orders."
Yet at the same time his thoroughly practical mind pre-
vented him from losing sight of some of the evils insepar-
able from the revolution which he had wrought in an
institution so deeply affecting daily life as monasticism.
As late as 1543, in a letter to Spalatin, while congratulat-
ing him on the desire expressed by some nuns to leave
their convent, he cautions them not to do so unless they
have a certainty or at least a speedy prospect of marriage.
He complains of the number of such cases in which he
had been obliged to support the fugitives, and he con-
cludes by declaring that old women who had no chance
of finding husbands had much better remain in their
cloisters.”
It is not difficult to explain why there was so ready
and general an acquiescence in the abrogation of a rule
established by the veneration of so many centuries. Not
only had the doctrines of the reformers taken a deep and
firm hold of the popular heart throughout Germany,
destroying the reverence for tradition and antiquity, and
releasing the human mind from the crushing obligation of
blind obedience, but there were other motives, natural if
not particularly creditable. The ecclesiastical foundations
had long neglected the duties of charity, hospitality, and
education, on which were grounded their claims to their
broad lands and rich revenues. While, therefore, the
1 Lutheri Opp. (Jenae, 1564) T.I., fol. 496–500.
2 Supplement Epistt. M. Lutheri No. 212 (Halae, 1703).
54 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
temporal princes might be delighted with the opportunity
of secularising and seizing the Church possessions, the
people might reasonably hope that the increase of their
rulers’ wealth would alleviate their own burdens, as well
as release them from the direct oppression which many of
them suffered from the religious establishments. Even
more potential was the disgust everywhere felt for the
flagrant immorality of the priesthood. The dread experi-
enced by every husband andfather lest wife and daughter
might at any moment fall victims to the lust of those
who had every opportunity for the gratification of unholy
passions led them to welcome the change, in the hope that
it would result in restoring decency and virtue to a class
which had long seemed to regard its sacred character as the
shield and instrument of crime.
The moral character of the clergy, indeed, had not
improved during the busy and eventful years which
marked the first quarter of the sixteenth century. There
is a curious little tract, printed in Cologne in 1505, with
the approbation of the faculty, which is directed against
concubinage in general, but particularly against that of the
priests. Its laborious accumulation of authorities to prove
that licentiousness is a sin is abundant evidence of the
existing demoralisation, while the practices which it com-
bats, of guilty ecclesiastics granting absolution to each
other and mutually dispensing themselves from confession,
show how easily the safeguards with which the Church
had sought to surround her ministers were eluded." The
degradation of the priesthood, indeed, can readily be
measured when, in the little town of Hof, in the Vogtland,
three priests could be found defiling the sacredness of Ash
Wednesday by fiercely fighting over a courtesan in a house
1 Avisamentum de Concubinariis non absolvendis, 4to, 1505. –The author devotes
a long argument to prove that incontinence in a priest is worse than homicide. His
conclusion is “Omnis sacerdos fornicando est sacrilegus et perjurus; et gravius
totiens quotiens peccat quam si hominem occidat.”
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 55
of ill-fame; * or when Leo X., in a feeble effort at reform,
was obliged to argue that systematic licentiousness was not
rendered excusable because its prevalence amounted to a
custom, or because it was openly tolerated by those whose
duty was to repress it.” In fact, a clause in the Concordat
with Francis I. in 1516, renewing and enhancing the former
punishments for public concubinage, would almost justify
the presumption that the principal result of the rule of
celibacy was to afford to the officials a regular revenue
derived from the sale of licences to sin *—the old abuse,
which rises before us in every age from the time of
Damiani and Hildebrand, and which, since John XXII.
had framed the tariff of absolutions for crime known as
the “Taxes of the Penitentiary,” had the authority of
the papacy itself to justify it. In the oldest form in which
this has reached us, issued by Benedict XII. in 1338, abso-
lution and dispensation for a concubinary priest is rated at
only four gros tournois, or less than half a florin, and the
same price is named for the absolution of one who has
been suspended for adultery. In a somewhat later tax-
list, dispensation for the son of a priest to be admitted to
orders and preferment is rated at twelve gros, but if he
desired a bishopric, it cost thirty.” It is no wonder that
1 Wideman. Chron. Curiae ann. 1505.
2 Neque superiorum tolerantia, seu prava consuetudo, quae potius corruptela
dicenda est, a multitudine peccantium, aliave quaelibet excusatio eis aliquo modo
suffragetur.—Concil. Lateran. W. ann. 1514 Sess. IX.
3 Quia vero in quibusdam regionibus nonnulli jurisdictionem ecclesiasticam
habentes, pecuniarios quaestos a concubinariis percipere non erubescunt, patientes
eos in tali foeditate sordescere.—Concil. Lateran. V. ann. 1516 Sess. XI.-Cf. Cornel.
Agripp. De Vanitate Scient. c. lxiv.–Agrippa even states that it was a common thing
for bishops to sell to women whose husbands were absent the right to commit adultery
without sin.
4 P. Denifle, Die àlteste Taxrolle der apost. Pönitentiarie (Archiv für Literatur-
und-Kirchengeschichte, Bd. V. pp. 227, 230).—Tangl. Das Taxwesen der påpstlichen
Kanzlei, Mittheilungen des Instituts für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung,
Bd. XIII., pp. 96, 97.
These prices were simply for the letters; there were other fees which increased
the cost considerably, and when sin had been committed there were pecuniary
penances at the discretion of the papal penitentiaries.
56 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
reforming bishops and councils found their efforts baffled
when the only result was to increase the revenues of the
papal chancery by stimulating the demand for its inter-
ference.
That no concealment was thought necessary, and that
sensual indulgence was not deemed derogatory in any way
to the character of a Christian prelate, may be reasonably
deduced from the panegyric of Gerard of Nimeguen on
Philip of Burgundy, grand-uncle of Charles V., a learned
and accomplished man, who filled the important see of
Utrecht from 1517 to 1524. Gerard alludes to the amorous
propensities and promiscuous intrigues of his patron with-
out reserve, and as his book was dedicated to the Arch-
duchess Margaret, sister of Charles V., it is evident that he
did not feel his remarks to be defamatory. The good pre-
late, too, no doubt represented the convictions of a large
portion of his class, when he was wont to smile at those
who urged the propriety of celibacy, and to declare his
belief in the impossibility of chastity among men who, like
the clergy, were pampered with high living and tempted
by indolence. Those who professed to keep their vows
inviolate he denounced as hypocrites of the worst descrip-
tion, and he deemed them far worse than their brethren
who sought to avoid unnecessary scandal by decently
keeping their concubines at home."
Even this reticence, however, was considered unneces-
sary by a large portion of the clergy. In 1512, the Bishop
of Ratisbon issued a series of canons in which, after quoting
the Basilian regulations, he adds that many of his eccle-
siastics maintain their concubines so openly that it would
appear as though they saw neither sin nor scandal in such
conduct, and that their evil example was the efficient cause
of corrupting the faithful.” In Switzerland the same abuses
1 Gerardi Noviomagi Philippus Burgundus (Mathaei Analect. I. 230).
2 Statut. Synod. Joan. Episc. Ratispon. ann. 1512 (Hartzheim VI. 86).
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 57
were quite as prevalent, if we may believe a memorial
presented, in 1533, by the citizens of Lausanne, complain-
ing of the conduct of their clergy. They rebuked the in-
continence of the priests, whose numerous children were
accustomed to earn a living by beggary in the streets, but
the canons were the subjects of their especial objurgation.
The dean of the chapter had defied an excommunication
launched at him for buying a house near the church in
which to keep his mistress; others of the canons had taken
to themselves the wives of citizens and refused to give them
up; but the quaintest grievance of which they had been
guilty was the injury which their competition inflicted on
the public brothel of the town." What was the condition
of clerical morality in Italy may be gathered from the
stories of Bishop Bandello, who, as a Dominican and a
prelate, may fairly be deemed to represent the tone of the
thinking and educated classes of society. The cynical
levity with which he narrates scandalous tales about monks
and priests shows that in the public mind sacerdotal im-
morality was regarded almost as a matter of course.”
The powerful influence of all this on the progress of the
Reformation was freely admitted by the authorities of the
Church. When the legate Campeggio was sent to Germany
to check the spread of heresy, in his reformatory edict
issued at Ratisbon in 1524 he declared that the efforts of
the Lutherans had no little justification in the detestable
morals and lives of the clergy, and this is confirmed by his
unsparing denunciation of their licentiousness, drunkenness,
quarrels, and tavern-haunting; their traffic in absolution
1 Art. 18e “Item. Mais, Nous nous plaignions d'aucuns chanoines quinous gatent
nótre bordeau de la ville, car il y en a qui le tiennent en leurs maisons, privément,
pour tous venans.”—Quoted from a contemporary MS. by Abraham Ruchat in his
“Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse,” T. I. p. xxxiii.-v. (Genève, 1727.) Ac-
cording to Cornelius Agrippa, the Roman prelates derived a regular revenue from this
source, the right to keep definite numbers of strumpets in the public brothels being
partitioned out between them.—De Vanitate Scient. c. lxiv.
2 See, for instance, Novelle, P. III, Nov. lvi.
58 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
for enormous offences; their unclerical habits and hideous
blasphemy ; their indulgence in incantations and dabbling
in witchcraft.* Very significant is his declaration that the
canonical punishments shall be inflicted on concubinary
priests, in spite of all custom to the contrary or all con-
nivance On the part of the prelates.*
How little, indeed, licentious ecclesiastics might rea-
sonably dread the canonical punishments is illustrated in
the report, by the celebrated jurisconsult Grillandus, of a
case which came before him while he was auditor of the
1 Reformat. Cleri German (Hartzheim VI. 198).—** Hanc perditissimam hæresin
. non parvam habuisse occasionem, partim a perditis moribus et vita clericorum”
etc.
There was no scruple in confessing this fact by those who spoke authoritatively
for the Catholic Church, and it long continued to be allegedas the cause of the stub-
bornness of the heretics. Thus the Bishop of Constance, in the canons of his Synod
of 1567—“ Estote etiam memores, damnatam et detestandam cleri vitam huic malo
in quo, proh dolor ! versamur, majori ex parte ansam præbuisse . . . Omnes sapientes
peritique viri unanimi sententia hoc asserunt, hocque efflagitant penitus, ut prius
clerus ecclesiarumque ministri ac doctores a vitæ sordibus repurgentur, quam ulla
cum adversariis nostris de doctrina concordia expectari queat.” And then, after
describing in the strongest terms the vices of the clergy and their unwillingness to
reform, he adds, ** Quæ sane morum turpitudo, vehementer et tantopere imperiti
populi animos offendit ut subinde magis magisque a catholica nostra religione alienior
efficiatur, atque sacerdotium una cum sacerdotibus doctrinam juxta atque doctores,
execretur, dirisque devoveat: ita ut, protinus ad quamvis sectam deficere potius
paratus sit quam quod ad ecclesiam redire velit.”—Synod. Constant. ann. 1567
(Hartzheim VII. 455).
Pius V. himself did not hesitate to adopt the same view. In am epistle addressed
to the abbots and priors of the diocese of Freysingen, in 1567, he says—“ Cum nobis-
cum ipsi cogitamus quæ res materiam præbuerit tot tantisque pestiferis hæresibus
. . . tanti mali causam præcipue fuisse judicamus corruptos prælatorum mores, qui
. eandemque vivendi licentiam iis, quibus præerant permittentes et exemplo eos
suo corrumpentes, maximum apud laicos odium contemptionem et invidiam non
immerito contraxerunt” (Hartzheim VII. 586).
2 Reformat. Cleri German. cap. xv.—So when, in 1521, Conrad,1Bishop of Wurz-
burg, issued a mandate for the reformation of his clergy, he described them as for
the most part abandoned to gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, quarrelling, and lust.
—Mandat. pro Reformat. Oleri. (Gropp, Script. Rer. Wirceburg. I. 269).--In 1505
the Bishop of Bamberg, in complaining of his clergy, shows us how little respect;
was habitually paid to the incessant repetition of the canons.—** Condolenter referi-
mus vitam et honestatem clericalem adeo apud quamplures nostrarum civitatis et
dioceseos clericos esse obumbratam ut vix inter clericos et laycos discrimen habea-
tur: et ipsa statuta nostra synodalia in ipsorum clericorum cordibus obliterata et a
pluribus non visa aut perlecta vilipendantur : nullam propter nostram, quam
hactenus pii pastoris more tolleravimus patientiam, capientes emendationem.”—
(Hartzheim VI. 66.)
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 59
Papal Vicar in Rome. A Spanish priest and doctor of
canon law, residing in the Christian capital, became en-
amoured of several young nuns at once, and endeavoured
to seduce them by teaching them that, as they and he
were alike spouses of Christ, carnal affection between them
was their duty. Failing in this, he sought to compel the
assistance of God in his designs, and, being a man of
literary culture, he composed a number of prayers of
singular obscenity, and bribed various ignorant priests to
recite them amid the ineffable mysteries of the Mass,
hoping thus to obtain the aid of Heaven in overcoming the
chastity of his intended victims. At length he chanced to
offer one of these prayers to a priest of somewhat better
character, who was sufficiently shocked by it to communi-
cate with the authorities. Brought before Grillandus, the
guilty Spaniard sought to justify himself by alleging
various Scriptural texts, but upon being warned that such
a defence would subject him to a prosecution for heresy,
he recanted and acknowledged his errors. For this com-
plicated mingling of lust and sacrilege his only punishment
was a short banishment from Rome." When the papal
court set such an example, what was to be expected of
less enlightened regions ?
How keenly these evils were felt by the people, and
how instinctively they were referred to the rule of celibacy
as to their proper origin, is shown by an incidental allusion
in the formula of complaint laid before the Pope by the
Imperial Diet held at Nürnberg early in 1522, before the
heresy of priestly marriage had spread beyond the vicinity
of Wittenberg. The diet, in recounting the evils arising
from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction which allowed clerical
offenders to enjoy virtual immunity, adduced, among other
grievances, the licence afforded to those who, debarred by
the canons from marriage, abandoned themselves night
1 Grillandi Tract, de Sortilegiis Quaest. xvii. No. 1.
60 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
and day to attempts upon the virtue of the wives and
daughters of the laity, sometimes gaining their ends by
flattery and presents, and sometimes taking advantage of
the opportunities offered by the confessional. It was not
uncommon, indeed, for women to be openly carried off by
their priests, while their husbands and fathers were
threatened with vengeance if they should attempt to
recover them. As regards the sale to ecclesiastics of
licences to indulge in habitual lust, the diet declared it to
be a regular and settled matter, reduced to the form of an
annual tax, which in most dioceses was exacted of all the
clergy without exception, so that when those who per-
chance lived chastely demurred at the payment, they were
told that the bishop must have the money, and that after
it was handed over they might take their choice whether
to keep concubines or not." In the face of this condition
of ecclesiastical morality, it required some obtuseness for
Adrian VI. to compare Luther to Mahomet, the one seek-
ing to attract to his party the carnal-minded by permitting
marriage, even as the other had established polygamy,”
and, further, to abuse him for uniting the ministers of
Christ with the vilest harlots.”
Among the diverse opinions of existing evils and their
remedy, it is interesting to see what was the view of the
subject taken by those ecclesiastics whose purity of life
removed them from all temptation to indulgence, and who
1 Gravamin. Ordin. Imperii cap. xxi., lvii., lxx. (Goldast. I.464.)
When such complaints were made by the highest authority in the empire, it is
not difficult to understand the reasons which led the Senate of Nürnberg—which
city had not yet embraced the Reformation—to deprive, in 1524, the Dominicans
and Franciscans of the superintendence and visitation of the nuns of St. Catharine
and St. Clare ; norldo we need Spalatin's malicious suggestion—“cura et visitatione,
pene dixeram corruptione.”—Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1524.
2 Adriani PP. VI. Instructio data Fr. Cheregato, Nov. 25, 1522 (Le Plat, Monu-
ment. Concil. Trident. II. 146).
3 Adriani PP. VI. Breve ad Frid. Saxon. (Lutheri Opp. T. II. fol. 542b.—Le Plat,
II. 134.)
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 61
yet were not personally interested in upholding the gigantic
but decaying structure of sacerdotalism. Of these men
Erasmus may be taken as the representative. His opinion
on all the questions of the day was too eagerly desired for
him to escape the necessity of pronouncing his verdict on
the innovation portended by the one or two marriages
which took place near Wittenberg in 1521, and accordingly,
in 1522, from his retreat in Basle he issued a short disserta-
tion on the subject, which, although addressed merely to
Bishop Christopher of that city, was evidently intended
for a European audience. In this essay, after sketching
the rise of celibacy and attributing it to the purity and
fervour of the early Christians, he proceeds to depict the
altered condition of the Church. Among the innumerable
multitude of priests who crowd the monasteries, the
chapters, and the parishes, he declares that there are few
indeed whose lives are pure, even as respects open and
avowed concubinage, without penetrating into the mys-
teries of secret intrigue. As, therefore, there is no Scrip-
tural injunction of celibacy, he concludes that, however
desirable it might be to have ministers free from the cares
of marriage and devoting themselves solely to the service
of God, yet, since it seems impossible to conquer the
rebellious flesh, it would be better to allow those who
cannot control themselves to have wives with whom they
could live in virtuous peace, bringing up their children in
the fear of God, and earning the respect of their flocks.
No more startling evidence, indeed, of the demoralisation
of the period could be given than the cautious fear which
Erasmus expresses lest such a change should be opposed
by the episcopal officials, who would object to the diminu-
tion of their unhallowed gains levied on the concubines of
the clergy."
1 Erasmi Lib. xxxi. Epist. 43.
Notwithstanding the sarcasm, popularly attributed to Erasmus, on the occasion
of Luther's union with Catharine von Bora—that the Reformation had turned out to
62 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
When such was the condition of ecclesiastical morality,
and such were the opinions of all except those directly
interested in upholding the old order of things, it is no
wonder if the people were disposed to look with favour on
the marriage of their pastors, and if the rejection of celibacy
gave a fresh impetus to the cause of Lutheranism. In the
early days of all sects, it is only those of ardent faith and
pure zeal who are likely to embrace a new belief, with all
the attendant risks of persecution and contumely. The
laxity of life allowed to the Catholic clergy would attract to
its ranks and retain those whose aim was sensual indulgence.
Thus necessarily the reformers who married would present
for contrast regular and chaste lives and well-ordered
households, purified by the dread of the ever-impending
troubles to which the accident of a day might at any time
expose them. The comparison thus was in every way
favourable to the new ideas, and they flourished accord-
ingly.
Nor, perhaps, were the worldly inducements to which
I have before alluded less powerful in their own way in
advancing the cause. Shortly before Luther's marriage,
whatever influence was derivable from an aristocratie
example was obtained when the Baron of Heydeck, a
knight of the Teutonic Order, renounced his vows and
publicly espoused a nun of Ligny." This may possibly
be a comedy, seeing that it resulted in a marriage—he continued to raise his voice
in favour of abolishing the rule of celibacy. Thus he writes, in October 1525,
“Wehementer laudo coelibatum, sed ut nunc habet sacerdotum ac monachorum vita,
praesertim apud Germanos, praetaret indulgeri remedium matrimonii" (Lib. XVIII.
Epist. 9). And again, in 1526, “Ego nec sacerdotibus permitto conjugium, nec
monachis relaxo vota, neid fiat ex auctoritate Pontificum, ad aedificationem ecclesiae
non ad destructionem. . . . In primis optandum esset sacerdotes et monachos casti-
tatem ac coelestem vitam amplecti. Nunc rebus adeo contaminatis, fortasse levius
malum erat eligendum ” (Lib. XVIII. Epist. 4).
Yet, in his “Liber de Amabili Ecclesiae Concordia,” written in 1533 in the hope
of reuniting the severed Church, while awaiting the promised general council which
was to reconcile all things, Erasmus did not hesitate to give utterance to the opinion
that those who fell away in heresy or even schism were worse than those who lived
impurely in the true faith.
1 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1525.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 63
have encouraged his superior, Albert of Brandenburg,
Grand Master of the Order, to execute his remarkably suc-
cessful coup d'état, in changing his religion and seizing the
estates of the order, thus practically founding the state
which chance and talent have exalted until it has been able
to realise the dream of a united Germany. The liberty
of marriage which he thus assumed was soon turned to
account in his advantageous alliance with Frederic, King
of Denmark, whose daughter Dorothea he espoused, the
Bishop of Szamland officiating as his proxy, and the actual
marriage being celebrated 14 June, 1526."
Luther may reasonably be held excusable for counselling
and aiding a transaction which lent such incalculable
strength to the struggling cause of the Reformation, and
it is not to be wondered at if he endeavoured to follow it
up with another of a similar character. The nephew of
the Duke of Prussia, also named Albert of Brandenburg,
occupied the highest place in the Teutonic hierarchy, as
Archbishop both of Mainz and Magdeburg, in the latter
of which powerful sees the Lutheran heresies had taken
deep root. Luther sought to induce the archbishop to
follow his uncle's example; to take possession in his own
right of the Magdeburg territories, and to transmit them
to the posterity with which Heaven could not fail to bless
his prospective marriage—a scheme which met the warm
approbation of the leading nobles of the diocese. Albert
thought seriously of the project, especially as the Peasants'
War then raging was directed particularly against the
lands of the Church, but he finally abandoned it, and his
flock had to work out their reformation without his assis-
tance.”
Perhaps some plans of territorial aggrandisement may
* Spalatin. Annal... ann. 1526.
* Henke Append. ad Calixt. p. 595.-Serrarii Rerum Mogunt. Lib. v. (Script.
Rer. Mogunt. I. 831, 839). As Albert, though Primate of Germany, was only thirty-
five or six years of age, the proposition was not an unreasonable one.
64 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
have stimulated the zeal of the Count of Embden, who
boasted that he had assisted and encouraged the marriage
of no fewer than five hundred monks and nuns;" yet the
process of secularising the monastic foundations was in
many places by no means sudden or violent. Thus, when
the Abbot of Ilgenthal in Saxony died in 1526, the Elector
John simply forbade the election of a successor, and placed
the abbey in charge of a prefect, while the remaining
monks were liberally supplied until they one after another
died out;” and in 1529, when Philip, Count of Waldeck,
took possession of the ancient monastery of Hainscheidt,
he caused all the monks to be supported during life.”
Through all this period the hope had never been
abandoned of such an arrangement as would prevent an
irrevocable separation in the Church. Moderate and
temperate men on both sides were ready to make such
concessions of form as would enable Christendom to re-
main united, as the great vital truths on which all were
agreed so far outweighed the points of divergence.
Whether these hopes were well or ill founded was to be
determined at the Diet of Augsburg, to which, in June
1530, both parties were summoned for the purpose of
submitting their differences to the Emperor. Charles
came to Germany in the full flush of his recent extraor-
dinary triumphs, the most powerful prince since the days
of Charlemagne. Europe was at length at peace, even the
Turk only looming in the East as a probable, not as an
existing, enemy. But Charles, newly crowned at Bologna,
came ostensibly as the steadfast ally of the Pope, and
Clement VII. had not the slightest intention of renouncing
the traditional and imprescriptible rights of the Holy See.
The Catholic princes of Germany, too, had their grounds
1 Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1526.
2 Thammii Chron. Coldicens.
3 Chron, Waldeccense (Hahnii Collect. Monument. I. 851).
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 65
of private quarrel with their Protestant peers, and, holding
an unquestioned majority, were not disposed to abandon
their position. The Protestant princes, on the other hand,
were firm in their new-found faith, and, however disposed
to avert the threatened storm by the sacrifice of non-
essentials, their convictions were too strong for them to
retrace the steps which they had taken during so many
long and weary years. It is evident that, with such
materials on either side, no reunion was probable; and,
even had an accommodation on points of doctrine been
possible, there was one subject which scarcely seemed to
admit of satisfactory compromise. In the states of the
reform the downfall of monachism had placed in the hands
of the temporal powers large bodies of sequestrated abbey
lands. To the Catholic it was sacrilege to leave these in
the hands of the spoiler; the Protestant would not willingly
give up the spoil.
The contest was opened by the Protestants submitting
a statement of their belief, divided into two parts, the one
devoted to points of faith, the other to matters of practice.
Prepared principally by Melanchthon, it presents their
tenets in the mildest and least objectionable form, and
becoming the recognised standard of their creed, it has
attained a world-wide renown under the name of the
Confession of Augsburg. The questions of celibacy and
monastic vows were ably and temperately argued; their
post-scriptural origin was shown, and the reasons which
induced the reformers to reject them were placed in a light
as little offensive as possible." At first a counter-state-
ment was anticipated from the Catholics, and negotiations
were expected to be carried on by a comparison of the two,
but they took higher ground, and contented themselves with
1 Confess. Augustanae P. II. Art. ii., vi.
In his Apology for the Augsburg Confession, however, even the coldness of
Melanchthon is warmed in describing the hideous licentiousness caused by the law
of celibacy (Lutheri Opp. T. IV. p. 252–3).
VOL. II. E
66 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
drawing up a refutation of the Confession. The Emperor
was firm. His aspirations for the universal monarchy,
which ever eluded his grasp, did not comport with
encouraging independence of thought and freedom of
religious belief. In his theory, uniformity of religion was
a necessary element of the political system which was to
make him sovereign of Europe, and he would listen to no
compromise. He was inclined to summary measures, but
the Catholic princes were hardly prepared for the conse-
quences of an immediate rupture, and, after a threatening
interval, another effort was made to effect a reconciliation.
Conferences between the leading theologians on both sides
took place, and the Lutherans, warned of their danger,
were more disposed than ever to make concessions and to
accept such terms as the stronger party were willing to
offer them. At length, on the 8th of September, the draft
of a proposed plan of accord was laid before the Diet. In
this the points in dispute were referred to that future
OEcumenic council which had so long been demanded as
the panacea for all ecclesiastical ills, and which, after more
than thirty years of continued expectation, was destined to
fail so miserably in reconciling difficulties. Such monas-
teries as had not been destroyed were to be maintained in
the exercise of the customary rites and observances of reli-
gion. Abbots and communities who had been ejected were
to be allowed to return ; and all religious houses which had
been emptied of their occupants were to be placed in the
hands of officers appointed by the Emperor, who were to
administer their possessions until the future council should
decide upon all the points relating to monachism; the
Protestants thus relieving themselves of the accusation
that they were actuated by motives of worldly gain.
Similar proposals were made with regard to communion in
the two elements and clerical marriage. These were left
as open questions for the council to settle, while a phrase
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 67
of doubtful import subjected them in the meantime to the
governments of the several states." The concessions in
this project, however, though they might suit the views of
the temperate doctors and princes in Germany, and though
even the Roman Curia might be willing to grant them in
order to save its threatened temporal power over the
Teutonic states, did not suit the policy of Charles, who
regarded the Church as simply one of the instruments with
which he was to build up his universal empire.” It was
not difficult for him, therefore, to bring to naught all such
schemes of conciliation. The restoration of all abbots and
monks was ordered ; restitution of Church lands was com-
manded, or their delivery to the Emperor, to be held until
the assembling of the future council; and when the Diet
adjourned, Charles issued a decree enjoining on all married
priests to abstain from their wives, to eject them, and to
seek absolution from their ordinaries.”
The threatening aspect of affairs warned the Protestant
princes that no time was to be lost in making provision for
mutual defence, and ere the year was out the famous
League of Schmalkalden enabled them to present a united
front to the powers which they had virtually defied. Into
the political history of that eventful time it is not my
province to enter. Suffice it to say that they were able to
maintain their position, and in their own states to oppose
the reactionary movement which at times seemed to be
on the point of destroying all that had been accomplished.
In this their task was complicated by the extravagances
of those whose enthusiasm, unbalanced by reason, carried
them beyond restraint. If Luther had found it no easy
task to break the chains which for so many ages had kept
1 Deliberat. de Concordia etc. c. iii., v. (Goldast I. 509).
2 See Letter of Bergenroth to Romilly, from Simancas, June 14, 1863 (Cart-
wright's Memoir of Bergenroth, London, 1870, p. 124).
3 Sentent. Caroli W. § 5 (Ibid. I. 510). —Rescript. Caroli W. § 5 (Ibid. III. 512).
Henke, Append. ad Calixt. pp. 595-6.
68 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
in check the spirit of free inquiry, he discovered that it was
impossible to control that spirit once let loose; and the
wild excesses of Anabaptism were at once the exaggeration
and the opprobrium of Lutheranism. Originally earnest
and self-denying, the primitive Anabaptists had captivated
the fiery soul of Carlostadt, while Luther was in his
Patmos of Wartburg. The ensuing development was in
some sort a resuscitation of the Brethren of the Free
Spirit, remnants of whom doubtless existed in many
hidden quarters. The inner light was the guide which
every man should follow, and this was to result in the
Kingdom of God, wherein all should be equal and live in
brotherly affection, without subjection to government of
any kind. These alluring dreams spread through the
populations with amazing rapidity, calling forth the severest
repression by the authorities, who recognised in them the
danger not only to religion, but to the whole social organi-
sation. The sectaries manifested the sincerity of their
convictions by the steadfast cheerfulness with which they
endured imprisonment, torture, and the stake; but this
ardent fanaticism also found expression in lawless licentious-
ness among those who mistook the impulses of the flesh
for the dictates of the spirit. There is doubtless much
exaggeration in the description of the igneum baptisma by
which in Munster John Mathison encouraged promiscuous
licence among the elect, but the history of mystic ardour
furnishes too many examples of such aberrations for us to
question the probability of their occurrence among such an
assemblage of disordered and disorderly minds."
Luther, moreover, was quite as resolute in setting limits
to his movement as Rome had been in forbidding all
progress, and the Anabaptists were to him enemies as
detestable as Catholics. The Protestant princes, more-
1 Kerssenbroch Bell. Anabaptist, cap. 15, 31.-Janssen, Geschichte der Deutscher
Volkes. III., 99 sqq. (Ed. 1887.)
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 69
over, had too much worldly wisdom to imperil their
dangerous career by any alliance with fanatics whose
extravagances provoked opposition so general. The cause
of the Reformation, therefore, although it suffered no little
from so portentous an illustration of the dangers resulting
from the destruction of the ancient barriers, escaped all
contamination in itself, and its leaders pursued their course
undeviatingly.
Meanwhile the League of Schmalkalden accomplished
its purpose. Henry VIII. and Francis I. were eager to
seize the opportunity of encouraging dissension in the
empire. The Turk became more menacing than ever.
Charles, always ready to yield for a time when opposition
was impolitic, gracefully abandoned the position assumed
at Augsburg; and the negotiations of Schweinfurth and
Nürnberg resulted in the decree of the Diet of Ratisbon in
1582, by which, until the assembling of the future council,
all religious disturbances were prohibited, and the imperial
chamber was commanded to undertake no prosecutions on
account of heresy. Toleration was thus practically estab-
lished for the moment, but the abbots and monks who had
been ejected, and who had been anticipating their restora-
tion, became naturally restive. Charles cunningly sent
from Italy full powers to the chamber to decide as to what
causes arose from religious disputes, and what were simply
civil or criminal. Thus entrusted with the interpretation
of the Ratisbon decree, the chamber assumed that claims
On Church lands were not included in the forbidden class,
while oldedicts prohibiting the observances of Lutheranism
brought all religious questions within the scope of criminal
law. The promised toleration was thus practically denied,
but, fortunately for the Protestants, Ferdinand was
anxiously negotiating for their recognition of his dignity
as King of the Romans, and by the Transaction of Cadam
70 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
in 1533 he purchased the coveted homage by accepting
their construction of the edict of Ratisbon.
Still the Protestants complained of persecution and
the Catholics of proselytism. The ensuing fifteen years
were filled with a series of bootless negotiations, pre-
tended settlements, quarrels, recriminations, and mutual
encroachments, which year after year occupied the succes-
sive Diets, and kept Germany constantly trembling on
the verge of a desolating civil war. It would be useless
to disturb the dust that covers these forgotten transac-
tions, which can teach us nothing save that the Protes-
tants still refused to recognise that the schism was past
human power to heal; that Rome, recovering from her
temporary hesitation, would not abate one jot of her pre-
tensions to save her supremacy over half of Christendom ; "
and that Charles, as a wily politician, was always ready in
adversity to abandon with a good grace that which he had
arrogantly seized in prosperity.” How eager, indeed,
were the Protestants to effect some compromise which
should relieve them from their exceptional position is
strikingly manifest in the Articles which Melanchthon
and his friends in 1535 submitted to Francis I., after the
Sorbonne had refused to enter into a disputation or con-
ference with them. In this document all non-essentials
were abandoned; doctrinal dissidences were skilfully
evaded, and stress only was laid upon such regulations as
should remove the external corruption of the Church.
1 How little the situation was comprehended is amusingly shown in a letter from
an enlightened and liberal prelate, Johann Schmidt, Bishop of Vienna, to Ferdinand,
in 1540, concerning some proposed negotiations then on foot for a reconciliation
between the Churches. He lays down as a condition precedent to reunion that all
the Church lands confiscated by the Protestants shall be restored, and the
monastic orders re-established. The mesne profits, he admits, cannot be collected,
but some composition for them should be made.—Le Plat, Monument. Concil.
Trident. II. 649.
2 An elaborate series of documents relating to these transactions may be found
in Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 511, III. 172–235. Also in Le Plat, Monument. Concil.
Trident, Vol. II.
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 71
Melanchthon proposed that the monastic orders should be
continued, but that the vows should not be perpetual, so
that religion might not be disgraced by the excesses of
those who had mistaken their vocation. So, as regards
priestly celibacy, he proposed that, as human nature
rendered it impossible to supply the multitude of parishes
with men able to live in continence, those who could not
preserve their purity should be allowed to marry; while,
to prevent the dilapidation of Church property, the higher
positions should be reserved to men of mature age who
could lead a single life.” The Sorbonne, in reply, con-
descended to no argument, but contented itself with
asserting that the Protestants desired the subversion of
all religion, while, on the other hand, Melanchthon had
the satisfaction of being proclaimed a traitor by the
Germans.
In all this the only point which possesses special
interest for us is another authoritative attempt at recon-
ciling the irreconcilable which occurred in 1540 and 1541.
It was suggested that all parties should unite on the
basis of sacerdotal marriage, the use of the cup by the
laity, and the rejection of the authority of the Holy See.
Matters reached such a point that the legate Morone
reported, in July 1540, that he was ready to run away in
despair; the three great ecclesiastical electors and all the
episcopate except the Bishop of Trent, and the princes
except the Dukes of Bavaria and Brunswick, were in
favour of it, while France would undoubtedly follow the
example, while he distrusted the assurances of Charles
and King Ferdinand that they would not abandon the
papacy.” If Charles had only had Germany in view, he
might well have been tempted to follow in the footsteps
of Henry VIII., and found an independent Church under
1 Artic. Melanch. ad Regem Francia, No. X., XI. (Le Plat, op. cit. II. 785–7.)
2 Dittrich, Nunciaturberichte Giovanni Morones, pp. 73, 76–9.—Lämmer, Monu-
menta Vaticana, Saeculi XVI. pp. 288–9.
72 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
his supremacy, but his interests in Spain and Italy bound
him to the papacy, and he was sincere in his pledges to
Morone. He was anxious, however, to put an end to the
religious strife, and after a conference between Melanch-
thon and Dr. Eck at Worms, Charles himself presented
to the Diet of Ratisbon in 1541 a statement of the ques-
tions in dispute, with propositions for mutual concession
and compromise. In the course of this he reviewed the
practice of the Church in various ages with regard to
sacerdotal celibacy, admitting that the enforcement of it
was not in accordance with the ancient canons, and indicat-
ing a willingness to see it abrogated." The Protestants,
who were ready to make many sacrifices for peace, hailed
this intimation with triumph, stoutly insisting on the
repeal of the obnoxious rule, which they stigmatised as
unjust and pernicious.” So nearly did the parties at
length approach each other, that there appeared every
reason to anticipate a successful result to the effort, when
Paul III. interfered and pronounced all the proceedings
null and void, as the Church alone had power to regulate
its internal affairs. The expectations excited by these
negotiations naturally stimulated the desire of the people
for a change in the discipline of the Church, and the next
year we find Paul III. obliged to exhort the Bishop of
Merseberg, under threats of ejection, to resist the clamours
of his subjects, who demanded the abrogation of priestly
celibacy and the use of the cup for the laity. The Council
of Trent, he said, had been called to consider these
matters, and immediate change was especially inadmis-
sible.”
1 Lib. ad Rationem Concord. ineundam Art, XXII. § 13 (Goldast. II. 199).
2 Respons. Protestant. Art. X. § 3 (Ibid. II. 206). This was still more strongly
insisted on in a paper subsequently drawn up by Bucer and presented in the name
of the Protestants.-Respons. Protestant. c. 11–14 (Ibid. p. 213).
3 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. III. 152—3.
Pope Paul III, was created Cardinal by Pope Alexander VI. His name was
Alexander Farnese, and, owing to his dissipated habits and to the fact that his pro-
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 73
Charles had long recognised that the perpetual menace
of a powerful confederation such as the Schmalkaldic
League, entertaining constant relations with the external
enemies of the empire, was incompatible with the peace
of Germany and with an imperial power such as he was
resolved to wield. The time at last came for the develop-
ment of his plans. The skill of Alva and the treachery
of Maurice of Saxony were crowned with success. The
battle of Muhlberg broke the power of the Protestants
utterly, and laid them helpless at his feet. Yet the pro-
gress of the new ideas had already placed them beyond the
control of even the triumphant Charles, though he had
the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse in
his dungeons. When, at the Diet of Augsburg in
1548, he proposed the curious arrangement known as
the Interim, by which he hoped to keep matters quiet
until the final verdict of that OEcumenic council which
constantly vanished in the distance, he felt it necessary
to permit all married priests to retain their wives until
the question should be decided by the future council.
A faint expression of a preference for celibacy, more-
over, was significant both in what it said and what it left
unsaid."
The Interim, of course, satisfied neither party. The
motion was obtained for him by his sister Giulia Orsini (neé Farnese), one of Pope
Alexander's mistresses, he was known as “the Cardinal of the Petticoat"—Cardinale
della Gomella. A son of Paul III., Pietro Ludovico Farnese, born 1490, became Duke
of Parma. He was assassinated in 1547. One of his sons, born 1520, was named
Alexander, and was created a Cardinal by his grandfather, Paul III.
1 Et quanquam cum Apostolo sentiendum eum qui coelebs est curare quae sunt
Domini, etc. (I. Cor. vii.) eoque magis optandum multos inveniri clericos qui cum
coelibes sint vere etiam contineant, tamen quum multi qui ministerii ecclesiastici
functiones tenent, jam multis in locis duxerint uxores, quas a se dimittere nolint ;
Super ea re generalis concilii sententia expectetur, cum alioqui mutatio in ea re, ut
nunc sunt tempora, sine gravi rerum perturbatione nunc fieri non possit.—Interim
cap. XXVI, § 17.
Charles must have entertained the expectation that a change would be authorised
by thc Council of Trent, or prudence would have dictated the policy of not leaving
the matter open with the consciousness that the difficulty could only become daily
greater by tolerance.
74 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Catholics regarded it as an unauthorised reformation, the
Protestants as disguised Popery. Charles, however, in
the plenitude of his power, obliged many of the Lutheran
states to accept it; while, as regards the Catholics, he
was perhaps not sorry to show the Pope that he too, like
Henry VIII., could regulate the consciences of his subjects
and prescribe their religious faith. He had broken with
Paul III. ; the Council of Trent, against his wishes, had
been removed to Bologna on a frivolous pretext; and a
schism like that of England was apparently again impend-
ing. At the least, Charles might not unreasonably desire
to manifest that at last he was independent of that papal
power with which mutual necessities had so long enforced
the closest relations, and to prove that deference to his
wishes was henceforth to be the price of his all-important
support. He demanded that legates should be sent to
Germany armed with extraordinary powers, among which
was included authority to grant dispensations to married
priests. Paul III. referred the request to the Sacred
College, and to the council then sitting at Bologna, and
it was unanimously replied that it should be granted, with
the limitation that monks should not be included, and
that priests thus permitted to retain their wives should
not exercise their functions or enjoy the fruits of their
benefices." That Paul forthwith despatched three nuncios
entrusted with authority to do this shows not only the
disposition which then existed to relax the rigour of the
canons respectingcelibacy, but also theimportance which the
question had assumed in the religious disputes of the time,”
1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 19-25.
2 Pallavicin, Storia del Concilio di Trento, Lib. XII. c. 8. Zaccaria (Nuova
Giustificaz. pp. 145, 266), while admitting the fact, states that the original of this
document has been sought for in vain, though it had long before been published
by Dom Martene (Ampliss. Collect. VIII. 1203). In appointing, however, Jodocus,
Bishop of Lubec, as a substitute to exercise their powers, the legates require that
priests thus restored shall abandon their wives—a condition not expressed in the
original bull (Ibid. p. 1211).
Both from this and from the language of the Interim it appears that even the
THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 75
though an absolute refusal was soon afterwards returned
to the request of a German prince (supposed to be the
Duke of Bavaria) requesting for his subjects the use of the
cup, priestly marriage, and the relaxation of the obligation
of fasting."
Temporary expedients and compromises such as these
are interesting merely as they mark the progress of opinion.
Paltry makeshifts to elude the decision of that which had
to be decided, they exercised little real influence on the
history of the time. It is true that when Charles, in 1551,
at the Diet of Augsburg, issued a call for the reassembling
of the Council of Trent, he confirmed the Interim until
that council should decide all unsettled questions,” yet
this confirmation was destined to be effective for a period
ludicrously brief. A fresh treason of Maurice of Saxony
undid all that his former plotting had accomplished; and,
while Henry II. was winning at the expense of the empire
the delusive title of Conqueror, Charles found himself
reduced to the hard necessity of restoring all that his
crooked policy had for so many years been devoted to
extorting. The Transaction of Passau, signed August 2,
1552, gave full liberty of conscience to the Lutheran
states, until a national council or diet should devise
means of restoring the unity of the Church; and in case
such means could not be agreed upon, then the rights
guaranteed by the Transaction were granted in perpetuity.”
If Charles was disposed to withdraw the concessions thus
exacted of him, the miserable siege of Metz and the
increasing desire for abdication prevented him from
Catholic priesthood had begun to arrogate for themselves the right of marriage. That
such was the case to a great extent will be seen hereafter.
It indicates the tendencies of the period that, in his instructions to his three
nuncios, the Bishops of Fano, Verona, and Ferentino, Paul’s chief solicitude was to
warn them against allowing the dispensations to be sold, which would, he said
create scandal.—Lämmer, Monumenta Vaticana, Saeculi XVI. p. 395.
1 Le Plat, T. IV. p. 27.
2 Recess. ann. 1551 c. 10 (Goldast. II. 341).
3 Transac. Pataviens. Artic. de Relig. (Ibid. I. 573.)
76 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
attempting it; and, at the Diet of Augsburg, in 1555, the
states and cities of the Augsburg Confession were con-
firmed in their right to enjoy the practices of their
religion in peace.”
The long struggle thus was over. The public law of
Germany at last recognised the legality of the transactions
based upon the Reformation, and not the least in impor-
tance among those transactions were the marriages of the
ministers of Christ.
* Transac. Pataviens. Artic. de Relig. (Goldast. I. 574.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE ENGLISH CHURCH
THE abrogation of celibacy in England was a process of
far more perplexity and intricacy than in any other country
which adopted the Reformation. Perhaps this may be
partially explained by the temperament of the race, whose
spirit of independence made them quick to feel and impa-
tient to suffer the manifold evils of the sacerdotal system,
while their reverential conservatism rendered them less
disposed to adopt a radical cure than their Continental
neighbours.
In no country of Europe had the pretensions of the
papal power been more resolutely set aside. In no country
had ecclesiastical abuses been more earnestly attacked or
more persistently held up for popular odium, and the
applause which greeted all who boldly denounced the
shortcomings of priest and prelate shows how keenly the
people felt the evils to which they were exposed. William
Langlande, the monk of Malvern, was no heretic, yet he
was unsparing in his reprobation of the corruptions of the
Church :
“Right so out of holi chirche,
Alleyveles springeth,
There inparfit preesthode is,
Prechours and techeris
And prechours after silver,
Executours and Sodenes,
Somonours and hir lemmannes ;
That that with gile was geten,
Ungraciousliche is despended;
So harlotes and hores
Arn holpe with swiche goodes,
78 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
And Goddes folk, for defaute thereof,
For-faren and spillen.” 1
And he boldly prophesied the violent downfall of the
whole fabric :
“Right so, ye clerkes,
For youre coveitise, er longe,
Shal thei demen dos ecclesiae,
And youre pride depose.
Deposwit potentes de sede, etc.
Leveth it wel ye bisshopes
The lordshipe of your londes
For evere shul ye lese,
And lyven as levitici,” etc.2
But while the people greeted these assaults with the
keenest pleasure, they were attached to the old observances,
and were in no haste to see the predictions of the poet
fulfilled. A little sharp persecution was sufficient to
suppress all outward show of Lollardry, and there was no
chance in England for the fierce revolutionary enthusiasm
of the Taborites.
As the sixteenth century opened, John Colet did good
work in disturbing the stagnation of the schools by his
contempt for the petrified theological science of the
schoolmen. His endeavour to revert to the Scriptures as
the sole source of religious belief was a step in advance,
while he was unsparing in his denunciations of the corrup-
tions which were as rife in the English Church as we have
seen them elsewhere. Yet Colet, though at one time
taxed with heretical leanings, kept carefully within the
pale of orthodoxy, and seems never to have entertained
the idea that the evils which he deplored were to be
attacked save by a renewal of the fruitless iteration
of obsolete canons.” Perhaps, however, his friend and
1 Vision of Piers Ploughman, Wright’s ed., pp. 300, 303.
2 Ibid. p. 325. –According to David Buchanan, Langlande was also author of a
tract, “Pro conjugio Sacerdotum.”—(Ibid. Introduction, p. x.)
3 In a sermon before the Convocation of 1512, Colet is very severe upon the vices
of the Church—“We are troubled in these days by heretics—men mad with strange
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 79
disciple, Sir Thomas More, is the best example of this
frame of mind in England's worthiest men, the besetting
weakness of which made the English Reformation a
struggle whose vicissitudes can scarce be said to have even
yet reached their final development.
Before Luther had raised the standard of revolt, More
keenly appreciated the derelictions of the Church, and
allowed his wit to satirise its vices with a freedom which
showed the scantiest respect for the sanctity claimed by
its hierarchy." Yet when Luther came with his heresies
to sweep away all abuses, More's gentle and tender spirit
was roused to a vulgarity of vituperation which earned
for him a distinguished place among the foul-mouthed
polemics of the time, and which is absolutely unfit for
translation.” As regards ascetic observances, before the
folly—but this heresy of theirs is not so pestilential and pernicious to us and the
people as the vicious and depraved lives of the clergy”—and he urges the prelates to
revive the ancient canons, the enforcement of which would purify the Church. (See.
bohm's Oxford Reformers of 1498, p. 170. London, 1867.)
The title of this work seems to me a misnomer. Neither Colet nor Erasmus had
the aggressive spirit of martyrdom which was essential to the character of a reformer
in those fierce times. They could deplore existing evils, but lacked all practical
boldness in applying remedies, and their influence is only to be traced in the
minds which they unwittingly trained to do work from which they themselves
shrank.
1 Thus in his Epigrams he ridicules the bishops as a class:
“Tam male cantasti possis ut episcopus esse,
Tam bene legisti, ut non tamen esse queas.
Non satis esse putet, si quis vitabit utrumvis,
Sed fieri si vis praesul, utrumque cave.”
T. Mori Opp. p. 249. Francofurti, 1689.
And he addresses a parish priest :
“Quid faciant fugiantve tui, quo cernere possint,
Vita potest claro pro speculo esse tua.
Tantum opus admonitu est, utte intueantur, et ut tu
Quae facis, haec fugiant: quae fugis, haec faciant.”
Ibid. p. 247.
See also his epigrams, “In Posthumum Episcopum,” “In Episcopum illiteratum,”
“De Nautis ejicientibus Monachum,” etc.
2 Responsio ad Lutherum, passim : “Pater frater, potator Lutherus,” seems to be
a favourite expression, but is mild in comparison with others—“novum inferorum
Deum,” “Satanista Lutherus,” “pediculoso fraterculo.” Luther's friends are
“nebulonum, potatorum, scortatorum, sicariorum, senatum,” and More winds up
his theological argument with—“furiosum fraterculum et latrinarium nebulonem
80 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Lutheran movement More seems to have inclined towards
condemning all practices that were not in accordance with
human nature, though he appears willing to admit that
there may be some special sanctity, though not wisdom,
in conquering nature." After the commencement of the
Reformation, however, his views underwent a reaction,
and he not only defended monastic vows, but he even
went so far as to argue that by the recent marriages of the
Saxon reformers God had manifested his signal displeasure,
for in the old law true priests could be joined only to
the chastest virgins, while God permitted these false
pastors to take to wife none but public strumpets.” If
he accused Luther of sweeping away the venerable
traditions of man and of God,” he showed how con-
scientious was this rigid conservatism when he laid his
head upon the block in testimony for the principal creation
and bulwark of tradition—the papal supremacy.
A community thus halting between an acute percep-
tion of existing evils and a resolute determination not to
cum suis furiis et furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatumque
relinquere.”
Luther was himself a master in theological abuse, but More's admiring biographer,
Stapleton, boasts that the German was appalled at the superior vigour of the English-
man, and for the first time in his life he declined further controversy—“magismutus
factus est quam piscis.” (Stapletoni Vit. T. Mori, cap. iv.) As More, however, pub-
lished the tract under the name of William Rosse, an Englishman who had recently
died in Rome, Luther’s reticence is more easily to be accounted for.
1 In one passage More describes his Utopians as considering virtue to consist in
living according to nature. “Nempe virtutem definiumt, secundum naturam vivere:
ad id siquidem a Deo institutos esse nos. . . . Vitam ergo jucundam, inquiunt, id est
voluptatem, tanquam operationum omnium finem, ipsa nobis natura praescribit: ex cujus
praescripto vivere, virtutem definiumt” (Utopiae Lib. II. Tit, de Peregrinatione). In
another passage, however, he describes two sects or heresies, the one consisting of men
who abstained from marriage and the use of flesh, the other of those who devoted
themselves to labour, marrying as a duty and indulging in food to increase their
strength, and says of them, “Hos Utopiani prudentiores, at illos sanctiones reputant ’’
(Ibid. Tit. de Religionibus).
2 Respons. ad Lutherum Perorat.
It should be borne in mind that this was written after his friend Erasmus had
publicly given in his adhesion to marriage as the only remedy for sacerdotal cor-
ruption.
3 Ibid. Lib, I. cap. iv.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH si
remove them was exactly in the temper to render the
great movement of the sixteenth century as disastrous to
themselves as possible. How to meet the inevitable
under such conditions was a problem which might well
tax the acutest intellect, and Wolsey, whose fate it was
to undertake the task, seems to have been inspired with
more than his customary audacious ingenuity in seeking
the solution.
Wolsey himself was no ascetic, as the popular inscrip-
tion over the door of his palace—“Domus meretricium
Domini Cardinalis"—sufficiently attests. A visitation of
the religious houses undertaken in 1511 by Archbishop
Warham had revealed all the old iniquities, without calling
forth any remedy beyond an admonition." In 1518,
Wolsey himself had attempted a systematic reformation
in his diocese of York, and had revived the ancient canons
punishing concubinage among his priesthood;’ and in
1519 we find him applying to Leo X. for a bull conferring
special power to correct the enormities of the clergy.”
When, in 1523, he proposed a general visitation for the
reformation of the ecclesiastical body, Fox, Bishop of
Winchester, urged it as in the highest degree necessary,
stating that he himself had for three years been devoting
all his energies to restore discipline in his diocese, and that
his efforts had been so utterly fruitless that he had aban-
doned all hope of any change for the better." Cranmer,
indeed, in his “Confutation of Unwritten Verities,” did
not hesitate to say that “within my memory, which is
above thirty years, and also by the information of others
that be twenty years elder than I, I could never perceive
or learn that any one priest, under the Pope's kingdom,
1. Froude's England, ch. x.
2 Wilkins III. 669, 678.
8 Card. Eboracens. Epist. v. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. III. 1289).
* Strype's Eccles. Memorials, T.I. App. p. 19.
VOL. II. F
82 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
was ever punished for advoutry by his ordinary.” It may
readily be believed, therefore, that Wolsey fully recognised
the utter inefficiency of the worn-out weapons of discipline.
Yet he was too shrewd a statesman not to foresee that
reformation from within or from without must come, and,
in taking the initiative, he commenced by quietly and in-
directly attacking the monastic orders. As a munificent
patron of letters, it was natural that he should emulate
Merton and Wykeham in founding a college at Oxford;
and “Cardinal's College,” now Christ Church, became the
lever with which to topple over the vast monastic system
of England.
The development of the plan was characteristically
insidious. By a bull of 3 April, 1524 (confirmed by
Henry, May 10), Clement VII. authorised him to suppress
the priory of St. Frediswood at Oxford, and to remove the
monks, for the purpose of converting it into a “Collegium
Clericorum Seculorum.” This was followed by a bull,
dated August 21 of the same year, empowering him as
legate to make inquisition and reformation in all religious
houses throughout the kingdom, to incarcerate and punish
the inmates, and to deprive them of their property and
privileges, all grants or charters to the contrary notwith-
standing.” The real purport of this extraordinary com-
mission is shown by the speedy issue of yet another bull,
dated September 11, conceding to him the confiscation of
monasteries to the amount of 3000 ducats annual rental, for
the endowment of his college, and alleging as a reason for
the measure that many establishments had not more than
five or six inmates.”
1 Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, Bk. II. ch. v.
2 Rymer’s Foedera, XIV. 15.
3 Wilkins III. 704.—Bishop Burnet says that Wolsey’s design in procuring this
bull was to suppress all monasteries, but that he was persuaded to abandon his pur-
pose on account of opposition and dread of scandals.-Hist. Reform. Vol. I. p. 20
Ed. 1679).
4 Rymer, XIV. 24.—Confirmed by the King, January 7, 1525 (Ibid. p. 32).
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 83
The affair was now fully in train, and proceeded with
accelerating momentum. On 3 July, 1525, Henry con-
firmed the incorporation of the college; his letters-patent
of 1 May, 1526, enumerate eighteen monasteries suppressed
for its benefit, while other letters of May 10 grant seventy-
one churches or rectories for its support, and yet other
grants are alluded to as made in letters which have not
been preserved." In 1528 these were followed by various
other donations of religious houses and manors, and
during the same year Wolsey founded another Cardinal's
College at Ipswich, which became a fresh source of
absorption.”
Had Henry VIII. entertained any preconceived design
of suppressing the religious houses, his impatient temper
would scarcely have allowed him to remain so long a
witness of this spoliation without taking his share and
carrying the matter out with his accustomed boldness
and disregard of consequences. At length, however, he
claimed his portion, and procured from Clement a bull,
dated 2 November, 1528, conceding to him, for the
benefit of the old foundations of the King's Colleges at
Cambridge and Windsor, the suppression of monasteries
to the annual value of 8000 ducats.” This was followed
by another, a few days later, empowering Wolsey and
Campeggio, co-legates in the affair of Queen Katharine's
divorce, to unite to other monasteries all those containing
less than twelve inmates—thus authorising the suppression
of the latter, of which the number was very large.”
Another bull of the same date (November 12) attacked
the larger abbeys, which had thus far escaped. It ordered
1 Rymer XIV. pp. 156–6, 172–5.
2 Ibid. pp. 240–44, 250–58. See a letter of the English Ambassadors at Rome
to Wolsey, describing a conference on this subject with the Pope, wherein he
freely acknowledged the propriety of destroying those houses which were nothing
but a “scandalum religionis.”—Strype, Eccles. Memorials, I. App. 58.
3 Rymer, XIV. pp. 270–1.
4 Ibid. 272—3.
84 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
the two cardinals, under request from the King, to inquire
into the propriety of suppressing the rich monasteries
enjoying over 10,000 ducats per annum, for the purpose
of converting them into bishoprics, on the plea that the
seventeen sees of the kingdom were insufficient for the
spiritual wants of the people.” The report of the cardinals
apparently seconded the views of Henry, for Clement
granted to them, 29 May, 1529, the power of creating and
arranging bishoprics at their discretion, and of sacrificing
additional monasteries when necessary to provide adequate
revenues.” It is probable that the monks who had been
unceremoniously deprived of their possessions did not in
all cases submit without resistance, for the bull of 12
November, 1528, respecting the smaller houses, was
repeated 31 August, 1529, with the suggestive addition of
authority to call in the assistance of the secular arm.”
Wolsey was now tottering to his fall. Process against
him was commenced on 9 October, 1529, and on the
18th the Great Seal was delivered to More. His
power, however, had lasted long enough to break down
all the safeguards which had for so many centuries
grown around the sacred precincts of ecclesiastical pro-
perty; and the rich foundations which covered so large a
portion of English territory lay defenceless before the
cupidity of a despot who rarely allowed any consideration,
human or divine, to interfere with his wishes, whose ex-
travagance rendered him eager to find new sources of
supply for an exhausted treasury, and whose temper had
been aroused by the active support lent by the preaching
friars to the party of Queen Katherine in the affair of the
divorce. Yet it is creditable to Henry's self-command
1 Rymer, XIV. pp. 273–5.
2 Ibid. 291–3.
2 Ibid. 345–6. A document showing one phase of the struggle may be found in
Strype's Memorials I. Append. p. 89. It is to the credit of Wolsey that he retained
his interest in his colleges even after his fall. See his letter to Gardiner of 23 July,
1530 (Ibid. p. 92).
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 85
that the blow did not fall sooner, although it came at
last.
It is not my province to enter into the details of
Henry's miserable quarrel with Rome, which, except in
its results, is from every point of view one of the most
humiliating pages of English history. The year 1532 saw
the proclamation of the King commanding the support
of his subjects in the impending rupture, and the sub-
scription of the clergy to a paper which, with un-
paralleled servility, placed the whole ecclesiastical
constitution of the kingdom in his absolute power." The
following year his long-protracted divorce from Katherine
of Aragon was consummated; the annates were with-
drawn from the Pope, and Henry assumed the title of
Supreme Head of the Church of England.” In 1535 an
obedient Parliament confirmed the acts of the sovereign,
and forbade the promulgation of any canons by synods
or convocations without his approval. The power of the
Pope was abolished by proclamation, and universities
and prelates rivalled each other in obsequiously transferring
to Henry the reverence due to Rome.”
The greater portion of the monasteries, which had
already experienced a foretaste of the wrath to come,
hastened to proclaim their adhesion to the new theological
autocracy, and means not the most gentle were found to
persuade the remainder. The Carthusians of the Charter
House of London gave especial trouble, and the contest
between them and the King affords a vivid picture of the
times. There is something very affecting in the account
given by Strype of the humble but resolute resignation
1 Pecock's Records of the Reformation No. 276 (Vol. II. p. 259).
2 Wilkins III. 755–62.
3 Ibid. 770–82, 789.-Parliamentary Hist. of England, I. 525. In 1532 Henry had
complained to his Parliament that the clergy were but half subjects to him, in con-
sequence of their oaths to the Pope, and he desired that some remedy should be
found for this state of things (Ibid. p. 519).
86 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
with which the prior and his monks prepared themselves
for martyrdom in vindication of the papal supremacy.”
Their courage was soon put to the test. Between the
27th of April and the 4th of August, 1535, the prior and
eleven of his monks were put to death with all the horrors
of the punishment for high treason; * but neither this
nor the efforts of a new and more loyal prior were able
to produce submission. In 1536, ten of the most un-
yielding were sent to other houses, where several of them
were subsequently executed, and in 1537 ten more were
thrown into Newgate, where nine of them died almost
immediately—it is to be presumed from the rigour of their
confinement and the foulness of the gaol. In 1539, the
few that remained were expelled ; the house was seized
and used as an arsenal, until it was given to Sir Edward
North, who changed it into a residence, pulling down the
cloisters and converting the church into his parlour.” The
Observantine Franciscans were equally resolute, and,
moreover, persistently adhered to the cause of Katherine of
Aragon. After unsuccessful attempts to win them over,
some two hundred of them were sent to prison, where
they mostly perished, and in 1537, eight of them who
survived were allowed to leave England.”
The direct relations of the regular Orders with the
papacy rendered it impossible to regard them otherwise
than as a source of disaffection and danger in the new
order of things. Their destruction thus seemed to be a
political necessity, the desire for which was enhanced by
the relief promised to Henry's exhausted treasury through
the secularisation of their property. As a rule, their
establishments were not unpopular, and, little as Henry
recked of any opposition to his will, some excuse was
1 Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 195.
2 Suppression of Monasteries, p. 40 (Camden Soc.).-Strype, op. cit. p. 197.
3 Strype, op. cit. pp. 27.7–8.
4 Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, I. 156–201 (Ed. 1888).
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 87
necessary to win over public opinion to such harsh
measures. The most effective means for this was a
visitation which should expose the secret turpitude of
monasticism, and accordingly, in 1535, commissions were
issued to examine into the foundation, title, history, con-
dition of discipline, and number and character of inmates
of all religious orders." Thomas Cromwell had no difficulty
in finding visitors who should supply the material desired.
In the summer and autumn of 1535, three commissioners
—John Ap Rice and Doctors Legh and Layton—were
busily engaged with the religious houses of the south of
England. Of these, Ap Rice, to judge by his reports, was
inclined to be fair-minded, while the others were unscrupu-
lously eager to meet the wishes of their master, and their
reports were filled with descriptions of foul disorders. They
were consequently selected to continue the work in the
north, which, under pressure of limited time, was so hur-
riedly performed that the investigation must have been
merely nominal. Parliament was to meet on 4 February,
1536, and their work must be completed in time to lay
before it. Commencing December 22, in about six weeks
they reported on a hundred and fifty-five houses in the
province of York and the dioceses of Coventry, Lichfield,
and Norwich, including a few scattered ones elsewhere.
Only about forty per cent. of the houses in these districts
were visited, and of the hundred and fifty-five there were
forty-three against which nothing more serious than super-
stition was alleged—probably on account of well-timed
liberality exhibited to the visitors. The rest were described
as more or less vicious.”
The result of this visitation, exaggerated by subsequent
writers, has been to blacken unduly the memory of English
1 Wilkins, III. 787.
* Calendar of State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Vol. IX., Nos. 42,49, 139,
160, 497, 622; Vol. X., No. 364; Gairdner's Preface, p. xlv.
88 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
monasticism. No one familiar with the mendacity of
public papers of that age places confidence in their unsup-
ported statements when there was an object to be gained,
and nothing in the character of Henry's selected agents
tends to prevent a wholesome attitude of doubt. Besides,
in some cases there happens to be evidence contradicting
the statements of the visitors. Thus, in October 1535,
Layton reports to Cromwell: “The prior of Dover and his
monks are as bad as others. Sodomy there is none, for
they have no lack of women. The Abbot of Langdon is
worse than all the rest, the drunkennest knave living. His
canons are as bad as he, without a spark of virtue.” The
result of this was the immediate surrender of the houses of
Langdon, Dover, and Folkstone, but the commissioners
who received the surrender wrote to Cromwell, Novem-
ber 16: “The house of Langdon is in decay, the abbot
unthrifty, and his conventignorant. Dover is well repaired,
and the prior has reduced the debt from £180 to £100, of
whose nowe case divers of the honest inhabitants of Dover
show themselves very sorry. Folkestone is a little house,
well repaired, and the prior a good husbandman beloved of
his neighbours.”* Still more compromising is the fact
that, on 24 April, 1536, a commission was issued to some
prominent men in each county to make a new survey of
the monasteries. Reports of these commissioners, in June,
for Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Rutland, and Hunts are
extant, and they almost uniformly represent the inmates
to be of good conversation; in fact, it is especially signifi-
cant that in Leicestershire, two—Garendon and Gracedieu,
which had been the subject of particular animadversion by
Legh and Layton—were reported on favourably.
In this conflict of testimony we must therefore rely on
antecedent and circumstantial evidence, and we may not
1 Calendar, Vol. IX. Nos. 669, 829.
2 Calendar, Vol. X. No. 1191; Gairdner's Preface, xlv.-vi.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 89
accept as proven Father Gasquet's pious and laborious
rehabilitation." All contemporary authorities agree that
the pre-Reformation Church was steeped in worldliness.
The English monasteries were not likely to have improved
since Archbishop Morton described their condition, half
a century earlier, as similarly deplorable, or Wolsey at a
later period; nor is there any ground for imagining them
as better than their Continental brethren, whose lapses
were the subject of bitter reprehension by censors of their
own faith. The Franciscan, Dr. Thomas Murner, who
was subsequently one of Luther's most vituperative
opponents, in his Narrenbeschwerung assumes as a matter
of course that all parish priests kept concubines, and all
priests and monks meddle with men's wives, while in the
nunneries she who has most children is reckoned the
abbess.” A more sober witness is Abbot Trithemius,
whose description of the houses of his own Benedictine
Order we have seen above. Scarce anything, indeed, can
be conceived worse than the condition of the German
convents as detailed in a document drawn up by order of
the Emperor Ferdinand in 1562, to stimulate the Council
of Trent to action.” In Italy there is ample evidence that
the regular Orders were no better;" and as for France, it
is sufficient to refer to the description, by the Council of
Paris in 1521, of the entire absence of discipline in capi-
tular and conventual life.” In fact, the whole conventual
system was so corrupt that, as we shall see, the cardinals
whom Paul III. in 1538 charged to draw up a plan of
reform for the Church proposed to abolish all the con-
ventual Orders, in order to relieve the people of their evil
1 Gasquet's Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, Chap. Ix.
2 Th. Murner’s Narrenbeschwerung, Ed. Scheible, Stuttgart, 1846.
3 Le Plat, Monumentt. Concil. Trident. W .244–5.
4 Pastor, Geschichte den Pāpste, III. 126 (Ed. 1895).
5 Concil. Parisiens. ann. 1521, cap. 2, 3, 4 (Labbe et Coleti Supplem. W,
518–19).
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example, and to place the nunneries under episcopal juris-
diction." That public opinion in England took the same
view of the monastic establishments would appear from
the travels of Nicander Nucius, who visited England about
1545, and who, in relating the story of their suppression,
gives as damaging an account of their morality as Bishop
Burnet or any of those who have been classed as their
special defamers.” The impartial student may therefore
not unreasonably conclude that, in view of the state of
monastic morals everywhere else in Christendom, the
assertion that England was an exception requires stronger
evidence than has been produced.
That a portion at least of the people were eager for the
secularisation of the religious houses is apparent from the
virulence of the assault upon them in the notorious docu-
ment known as “The Beggars' Petition.” It calculates
that, besides the tithes, one-third of the kingdom was
ecclesiastical property, and that these vast possessions
were devoted to the support of a body of men who found
their sole serious occupation in destroying the peace of
families and corrupting the virtue of women. The
economical injury to the Commonwealth, and the inter-
ference with the royal prerogative of the ecclesiastical
system, were argued with much cogency, and the King
was entreated to destroy it by the most summary methods.
That any one should venture to publish so violent an
attack upon the existing Church, at a time when punish-
ment so prompt followed all indiscretions of this nature,
renders this production peculiarly significant both as to
k
1 Alius abusus corrigendus est in ordinibus religiosorum quod adeo multi de-
formati sunt ut magno sint scandalo Saecularibus ex emplumque plurimum noceant.
Conventuales ordines abolendos esse putamus omnes. . . . Abusus alius turbat
Christianum populum in monialibus quae sunt sub cura fratrum conventualium, ubi
plerisque monasteriis fiunt publica sacrilegia, cum maximo omnium scandalo.—Le
Plat, Monumentt. Concil. Trident. II. 601–2 (Lovanii, 1782).
2 Travels of Nicander Nucius, pp. 68–71 (Camden Soc.),
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 91
the temper of the educated portion of the people and the
presumed intentions of the King."
Whether the reports of the visitors were true or false,
they served the purpose of those who procured them.
The Parliament which met 4 February, 1536, was com-
posed almost exclusively of members selected by the court
and presumably submissive to the royal will. Yet, when
a bill was introduced suppressing all houses whose landed
revenues did not exced £200, it seems to have taken the
House by surprise. There were hesitation and delay, and
tradition relates that it required the personal urgency of
the King, accompanied by threats and the reading of the
reports of the visitors, to obtain its enactment.” To justify
1. As published in the Harleian Miscellany, “The Beggars’ Petition ” bears the date
of 1538, but internal evidence would assign it to a time anterior to the suppression
of the monasteries, and Burnet attributes it to the period under consideration, saying
that it was written by Simon Fish, of Gray’s Inn, that it took mightily with the
public, and that when it was handed to the King by Ann Boleyn, “he lik'd it well,
and would not suffer anything to be done to the author’’ (Hist. Reform. I. 160).
Froude, indeed, assigns it to the date of 1528, and states that Wolsey issued a
proclamation against it, and further, that Simon Fish, the author, died in 1528 (Hist.
Engl. Ch. VI.), while Strype (Eccles Memorials I. 165) includes it in a list of books
prohibited by Cuthbert, Bishop of London, in 1526. In the edition of 1546, the date
of 1524 is attributed to it.
The tone of that which was thus equally agreeable to the court and to the city
may be judged from the following extracts, which are by no means the plainest
spoken that might be selected.
“Ś 13. Yea, and what do they more ? Truly, nothing but apply themselves by
all the sleights they may to have to do with every man’s wife, every man’s daughter,
and every man's maid; that cuckoldry should reign over all among your subjects;
that no man should know his own child ; that their bastards might inherit the
possessions of every man, to put the right-begotten children clean beside their
inheritance, in subversion of all estates and godly order.
“$ 16. Who is she that will set her hands to work to get three-pence a day
and may have at least twenty-pence a day to sleep an hour with a friar, a monk, or a
priest? Who is he that would labour for a groat a day, and may have at least twelve-
pence a day to be a bawd to a priest, a monk, or a friar!
“S 31. Wherefore, if your grace will set their sturdy loobies abroad in the
world, to get them wives of their own, to get their living with their labour, in the
sweat of their faces, according to the commandment of God, Gen. iii., to give other
idle people, by their example, occasion to go to labour; tye these holy, idle thieves
to the carts to be whipped naked about every market-town, till they will fall to
labour, that they may, by their importunate begging, not take away the alms that
the good Christian people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people your
bedemen.”
2 Gasquet, op. cit., pp. 311–12. –Gairdner, Calendar, Vol. X. p. xlv.
92 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
it, the preamble recites that “manifest sin, vicious, carnal
and abominable living is daily used and committed
commonly in such little and small abbeys, priories and
religious houses of monks, canons and nuns, where the
congregation of such religious persons is under the number
of twelve persons,” and that this increases in spite of con-
tinual visitations during the past two hundred years, so
that the only hope of amendment is to transfer their
inmates to the “diverse and great solemn monasteries of
this realm wherein (thanks be to God) religion is right well
kept and observed.” The distinction between the “great
solemn monasteries,” which were praised, and the small
ones, which were reviled, was a trifle illogical, but probably
no one ventured to criticise the inconsistency, and the bill
was passed.
Three hundred and seventy-six houses were swept away
by this Act, and the “Court of Augmentations of the
King's Revenue" was established to take charge of the
lands and goods thus summarily escheated. The rents
which thus fell to the King were valued at £32,000 a year,
and the movable property at £100,000, while the com-
missioners were popularly supposed to have been “as
careful to enrich themselves as to increase the King's
revenue.” Stokesley, Bishop of London, remarked, con-
cerning the transaction, that “these lesser houses were as
thorns soon plucked up, but the great abbeys were like
petrified old oaks; yet they must needs follow, and so
would others do in Christendom before many years were
passed.” But Stokesley, however true a prophet in the
general scope of his observation, was mistaken as to the
extreme facility of eradicating the humble thorns. The
country was not so easily reconciled to the change as the
versatile, more intelligent, and less reverent inhabitants of
the cities. Henry, unluckily, not only had not abrogated
1 27 Henry VIII. cap. 28.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 93
Purgatory by proclamation, but had specially recommended
the continuance of prayers and masses for the dead,” and
thousands were struck with dread as to the future prospects
of themselves and their dearest kindred when there should
be few to offer the sacrifice of the Mass for the benefit of
departed souls, to say nothing of those which had been
paid for and not yet celebrated. The traveller and the
mendicant, too, missed the ever open door and the coarse
but abundant fare which smoothed the path of the humble
wayfarer. Discontent spread widely, and was soon mani-
fested openly. To meet this, most of the lands were sold
at a very moderate price to the neighbouring gentry, under
condition of exercising free hospitality to supply the wants
of those who had hitherto been dependent on conventual
charity.”
The plan was only partially successful, and soon
another element of trouble made itself apparent. Of the
monks whose houses were suppressed, those who desired
to continue a monastic life were transferred to the larger
foundations, while the rest took “capacities,” “ under
promise of a reasonable allowance for their journey home.
1 Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie, ann. 1536 (Formularies of
Faith, Oxford, 1856, p. XXXI.).
2 Burnet, I. 193—4, 222–4;—Parl. Hist. I. 526–7. To our modern notions, there
is something inexpressibly disgusting in the openness with which bribes were
tendered to Cromwell by those who were eager to obtain grants of abbey lands
(Suppression of Monasteries, passim). On the other hand, the abbots and abbesses
who feared for their houses had as little scruple in offering him large sums for his
protection. Thus the good Bishop Latimer renders himself the intermediary (16
Dec., 1536) of an offer from the Prior of Great Malvern of 500 marks to the King and
200 to Cromwell to preserve that foundation; while the Abbot of Peterboro’ tendered
the enormous sum of 2500 marks to the King and £300 to Cromwell (Ibid. 150, 179).
The liberal disposition of the latter seems to have made an impression, for, though
he could not save his abbey, he was appointed the first Bishop of Peterboro’—a see
erected upon the ruins of the house.
8 “They be very pore, and can have lytyll serves withowtt ther capacytes. The
bischoypps and curettes be very hard to them, withowtt they have ther capacytes.”
—The Bishop of Dover to Cromwell, 10 March, 1538 (Suppression of Monasteries,
p. 193). These “capacities' empowered them to perform the functions of secular
priests. The good bishop pleads that certain poor monks may obtain them without
paying the usual fee.
94 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
They received only forty shillings and a gown, and with
this slender provision it was estimated that about ten
thousand were turned adrift upon the world, in which their
previous life had incapacitated them from earning a support.
The result is visible in the Act for the punishment of
“sturdy vagabonds and beggars,” passed by Parliament in
this same year, inflicting a graduated scale of penalties,
of which hanging was the one threatened for a third
offence.”
This was a dangerous addition to society when discon-
tent was smouldering and ready to burst into flame. The
result was soon apparent. After harvest-time great dis-
turbances convulsed the kingdom. A rising, reported as
consisting of twenty thousand men, in Lincolnshire, was
put down by the Duke of Suffolk with a heavy force and
free promises of pardon. In the North matters were even
more serious. The clergy there were less tractable than
their southern brethren, and some Injunctions savouring
strongly of Protestantism aroused their susceptibilities
afresh. Unwilling to submit without a struggle, they held
a convocation, in which they denied the royal supremacy
and proclaimed their obedience to the Pope. This was
rank rebellion, especially as Paul III., on 30 August,
1535, had issued his bull of excommunication against
Henry, and self-preservation therefore demanded the im-
mediate suppression of the recalcitrants. They would
hardly, indeed, have ventured on assuming a position of
such dangerous opposition without the assurance of popular
support, nor were their expectations or labours disap-
pointed. The “Pilgrimage of Grace,” according to report,
soon numbered forty thousand men. Although Skipton
and Scarboro’ bravely resisted a desperate siege, the success
of the insurgents at York, Hull, and Pomfret Castle was
encouraging, and risings in Lancashire, Durham, and
1 27 Henry VIII. c. 25, renewed by 28 Hen. VIII. c. 6.-Parliament. Hist, I, 574.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 95
Westmoreland gave to the insurrection an aspect of the
most menacing character. Good fortune and skilful
strategy, however, saved the Duke of Norfolk and his
little army from defeat; the winter was rapidly approach-
ing, and at length a proclamation of general amnesty,
issued by the King on December 9, induced a dispersion
of the rebels. The year 1537 saw another rising in the
North, but this time it only numbered eight thousand
men. Repulsed at Carlisle, and cut to pieces by Norfolk,
the insurgents were quickly put down, and other dis-
turbances of minor importance were even more readily
suppressed."
Strengthened by these triumphs over the disaffected,
Henry proceeded, in 1537, to make the acknowledgment
of papal authority a crime liable to the penalties of a
praemunire;” and, as resistance was no longer to be
dreaded, he commenced to take possession of some of the
larger houses. These did not come within the scope of
the Act of Parliament, and therefore were made the
subject of special transactions. The abbots resigned,
either from having been implicated in the late insurrections,
or feeling that their evil lives would not bear investigation,
or doubtless, in many cases, from a clear perception of the
doom impending in the near future, which rendered it
prudent to make the best terms possible while yet there
was time. Thus in these cases the monks were generally
pensioned with eight marks a year, while some of the
abbots secured a revenue of 400 or 500 marks.” In an
agreement which has been preserved, the monks were to
1 Burnet, I. 227–34; Collect. 160.—Wilkins III. 784,792, 812.—Rymer, XIV. 549.
2 28 Henry VIII. c. 10.-Parl. Hist. I. 533.
Praemunire derives its name from the statues 27 Edward III. cap. 1, and 16 Richard
II. cap. 2, against carrying to Rome actions cognisable in the royal courts. It was
virtually equivalent to outlawry.
8 Burnet, I. 235–7. These pensions were not in all cases secured without diffi-
culty, even after promises had been made and agreements entered into (Suppression
of Monasteries, p. 126).
96 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
receive pensions varying from 53s. 4d. to £4 a year,
according to their age." In some cases, indeed, according
to Bishop Latimer, in a sermon preached before Edward
VI., the royal exchequer was relieved by finding prefer-
ment for most unworthy objects: “However bad the
reports of them were, some were made bishops and others
put into good dignities in the Church, that so the King
might save their pensions that otherwise were to be paid
them.” An effectual means, moreover, of inducing
voluntary surrenders was by stopping their source of
support, and thus starving them out. Richard, Bishop of
Dover, one of the commissioners in Wales, writes to
Cromwell, 23 May, 1588: “I thinke before the yere be owt
ther schall be very fewe howsis abill to lyve, but schall be
glade to giffe up their howseis and provide for them selvys
otherwise, for their theischall have no living.” In antici-
pation of the impending doom, many of the abbots and
priors had sold everything that was saleable, from lands
and leases down to spits and kitchen utensils, leaving their
houses completely denuded. The letters of the com-
missioners are full of complaints respecting this sharp
practice, and of their efforts to trace the property. Another
mode of compelling surrenders was by threatening the
strict enforcement of the rules of the Order. Thus, in the
official report of the surrender of the Austin Friars of
Gloucester, we find the alternative given them, when “the
Seyd freeres seyed . . . as the worlde ys nowe they war
not abull to kepe them and leffe in ther howseys, wher-
fore voluntaryly they gaffe ther howseys into the vesytores
handes to the kynges use. The vesytor seyd to them,
‘thynke nott, nor hereafter reportt nott, that ye be sup-
presseyd, for I have noo such auctoryte to suppresse yow,
but only to reforme yow, wherfor yf ye woll be reformeyd,
1 Suppression of Monasteries, p. 170.—Strype's Eccles. Memor, I. 262.
2 Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. Chap. ix.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 97
accordeyng to good order, ye may contynew for all me.’
They seyd they war nott abull to contynew,” whereupon
they were ejected." *
In the year 1538 the work proceeded with increased
rapidity, no less than 158 surrenders of the larger houses
being enrolled. Many of the abbots were attainted of
treason and executed, and the abbey lands forfeited.
Means not of the nicest kind were taken to increase the
disrepute of the monastic orders, and they retaliated in the
same way. Thus, the Abbot of Crossed-Friars, in London,
was surprised in the day time with a woman under the
worst possible circumstances, giving rise to a lawsuit more
curious than decent; * while, on the other hand, the Abbess
of Chepstow accused Dr. London, one of the visitors, of
corrupting her nuns.” Public opinion, however, did not
move fast enough for the rapacity of those in power, and
strenuous exertions were made to stimulate it. All the
foul stories that could be found or invented respecting the
abbeys were raked together; but these proving insufficient,
the impostures concerning relics and images were investi-
gated with great success, and many singular exposures
1 Suppression of Monast. pp. 194, 203.
2 A letter from John Bartelot to Cromwell shows that the abbot purchased secrecy
by distributing thirty pounds to those who detected him, and promising them thirty
more. This latter sum was subsequently reduced to six pounds, for which the holy
man gave his note. This not being paid at maturity, he was sued, when he had the
audacity to complain to Cromwell, and to threaten to prosecute the intruders for
robbery and force them to return the money paid. Bartelot relates his share in the
somewhat questionable transaction with great naïveté, and applies to Cromwell for
protection.—Suppression of Monasteries, Letter XXV.
3 This may have been true, for Dr. London was one of the miserable tools who
are the fitting representatives of the time. His desire to discover the irregularities
of the monastic orders arose from no reverence for virtue, for he underwent public
penance at Oxford for adultery with a mother and daughter (Strype, Eccles. Memor.
I. 376), and his zeal in suppressing the monasteries was complemented with equal
zeal in persecuting Protestants. In 1543 he made himself conspicuous, in conjunc-
tion with Gardiner, by having heretics burned under the provisions of the Six
Articles. His eagerness in this good work led him to commit perjury, on conviction
of which he was pilloried in Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, and thrust into the
Fleet, where he died.—Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. chap. 26, 27.
In fact, Henry's capricious despotism rendered it almost impossible that he could
be served by men of self-respect and honour.
VOL. II, G.
98 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
were made which gave the King fresh warrant for his
arbitrary measures, and placed the religious houses in a
more defenceless position than ever."
Despite all this, in the session of 1539 all the twenty-
eight parliamentary abbots had their writs, and no less
than twenty sat in the House of Lords.” Yet the influence
of the court and the progress of public opinion were shown
in an Act which confirmed the suppressions of the larger
houses not embraced in the former Act, as well as all that
might thereafter be suppressed, forfeited, or resigned,” and
9 May, 1540, by special enactment, the ancient Order of
the Knights of St. John was broken up, pensions being
granted to the grand prior and some of the principal
dignitaries.” These measures consummated the ruin of
the monastic system in England. Henceforth it was al-
together at the King's mercy, and his character was not
one to temper power with moderation. In 1539 there are
upon record fifty-seven surrenders of the great abbeys,"
1 Burnet, I. 238–43. –See also Froude's Hist. Engl. III. 285 et seq. During his
visitation (August 27, 1538) the Bishop of Dover writes to Cromwell, “I have Mal-
kow's ere that Peter stroke of, as yt ys wrytyn, and a M. as trewe as that ” (Suppres-
sion of Monasteries, p. 212). In a report of December 28, 1538, Dr. London observes,
with dry humour, “I have dyvers other propre thinges, as two heddes of seynt
Ursula, wich bycause ther ys no maner of sylver abowt them, I reserve tyll I have
another hedd of herse, wich I schall fynd in my waye within theese xiiii. days, as I
am creadably informyd” (Ibid. p. 234). Dr. Layton writes in the same spirit to
Cromwell: “Yee shall also receive a Bag of Relicks wherein ye shall see Stranger
Things as shall appear by the Scripture. As God's Coat, or Ladie's Smock; Part of
God's Supper, In coena Domini; Pars petrae super qua natus erat Jesus in Bethlehem.
Besides there is in Bethlehem plenty of Stones and sometimes Quarries, and maketh
their mangers of Stone. The scripture of every thing shall declare you all. And all
these of Mayden Bradley. Where is a holy Father Prior; and hath but six Sons and
one Daughter married yet of the goods of the Monastery. And he thanketh God,
he never meddled with married women ; but all with Maidens, the fairest could be
gotten. And always married them right well. The Pope, considering his fragility,
gave him licence to keep a w- : and hath good writing, sub Plumbo, to discharge
his conscience" (Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 253).-Nicander Nucius (op. cit. pp. 51–
62) relates some of the stories current at the time of the miracles engineered by the
monks to stave off their impending doom.
2 Parl. Hist. I. 535.
3 31 Henry VIII. c. 13 (Parl. Hist. I. 537).
4 32 Henry VIII. c. 24 (Ibid, 543–44).
5 Burnet I. 262–3.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 99
and a large number in 1540, the good house of Godstow
being the last of the great monasteries to fall. Of the old
monastic system this left only the chantries, free chapels,
collegiate churches, hospitals, &c., which were gradually
absorbed during the succeeding years,” until the necessities
of the King prompted a sweeping measure for their destruc-
tion. Accordingly in 1545 a bill was brought in placing
them all at his disposition, together with the property of
all guilds and fraternities. There were some indications
of opposition, but the King pleaded the expenditures of the
French and Scottish wars, and solemnly promised his
Parliament “that all should be done for the glory of God
and common profit of the realm,” whereupon it was passed.”
It is computed that the number of monasteries suppressed
by these various measures was 645; of colleges, 90; of
chantries and free chapels, 2374; and of hospitals, 110.”
A vast amount of property thus passed into the hands
of the court. The clear yearly rental of the suppressed
houses alone was rated at £131,607 6s. 4d.—an immense
sum in those days; but Burnet states that in reality it was
almost tenfold the amount.* Small as may have been the
good effected by these enormous possessions in the hands
of the monks, it was even more worthless under the man-
agement of its new masters. Henry admitted the heavy
responsibility which he assumed in thus seizing the wealth
which had been dedicated to pious uses, and he entertained
magnificent schemes for devoting it to the public benefit,
but his own extravagance and the grasping avarice of
needy courtiers wrought out a result ridiculously mean.
Thus he designed to set aside a rental of £18,000 for the
1 Rymer, XIV. XV.
2 37 Hen. VIII. c. 4 (Parl. Hist. I. 561).
3 Parl. Hist. I. 537.
4 This may readily be considered no exaggeration. A letter from John Freeman
to Cromwell values at £80,000 the lead alone stripped from the dismantled houses
(Suppression of Monasteries, p. 290).
I00 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
support of eighteen “Byshopprychys to be new made.”
For this purpose he obtained full power from Parliament
in 1539,” and in 1540 he established one on the remains of
the Abbey of Westminster. Those of Chester, Gloucester,
and Peterboro’ were established in 1541, and in 1543 those
of Oxford and Bristol,” and one of them, that of West-
minster, was suppressed in 1550, leaving only five as the
result. The people were quieted by assurances that taxes
would be abrogated for ever and the kingdom kept in a
most efficient state of defence; but subsidies and bene-
volences were immediately exacted with more frequency
and energy than ever." Splendid foundations were pro-
mised for institutions of learning, but little was given; a
moderate sum was expended in improving the sea-ports,
while broad manors and rich farms were granted to
favourites at almost nominal prices; and the ill-gotten
wealth abstracted from the Church disappeared without
leaving traces except in the sudden and overgrown fortunes
of those gentlemen who were fortunate or prompt enough
to make use of the golden opportunity, and who to obtain
them had no scruple in openly tendering bribes and shares
in the spoil to Cromwell, the omnipotent favourite of the
King." The complaints of the people, who found their new
masters harder than the old, may be estimated from some
specimens printed by Strype."
If it be asked what became of the “holy idle thieves”
and “sturdy loobies" whom the Beggars' Petition so
earnestly desired to be thrown upon the world, the answer
may be found in the legislation of Edward VI. It was
1 Such is the substance of a memorandum in Henry's own handwriting (Suppres-
sion of Monasteries, No. 131, p. 263).
2 31 Hen. VIII. c. 9 (Parl. Hist. I. 540).
3 Burnet I. 300.
4 Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 345.
5 See letters of the Lord Chancellor Audley and the learned Sir Thomas Elyot to
Cromwell.—Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 26.3—5.
8 op. cit. I. 392–403; II. 258–63,
*' 4 s a &
,, . "
* }
THE ENGLISH CHURCH I01
impossible that the sudden and violent overthrow of a
system on which nearly all charitable relief was based
could be effected without causing infinite misery during
the period of transition, no matter how tenderly the
interests of the poor might be guarded. In the organisa-
tion of the Catholic Church all benevolence finds its ex-
pression through ecclesiastical instrumentalities, and the
immense possessions of the mediaeval establishment had
been confided to it largely in its capacity of the universal
almoner. In seizing these possessions the State was
morally bound to assume the corresponding obligations,
but time was required for the adjustment, and the greedy
rulers, during the minority of Edward VI., were much more
intent upon increasing their acquisitions than in listening to
the demands of humanity. By his first Parliament, in
1547, an Act was passed confirming that of 1545, concern-
ing the hospitals, chantries, guilds, &c., under which all
remnants that had escaped the rapacity of the late sovereign
were placed at the mercy of the Protector Somerset and
his colleagues of the Council, who speedily absorbed not
only them, but everything that could be stripped from the
parish churches." In the preamble of this Act, one of its
objects was specified to be the “better provision for the
poor and needy,” thus recognising the responsibility of the
1 1 Edw. VI. c. 14. Dr. Augustus Jessop tells us that “the ring of the miscreants
who robbed the monasteries in the reign of Henry the Eighth was the first, but the
ring of the robbers who robbed the poor and helpless in the reign of Edward the
Sixth was ten times worse than the first. . . . The accumulated wealth of centuries,
their houses and lands, their money, their vessels of silver and their vessels of gold,
their ancient cups and goblets and salvers, even to their very chairs and tables, were
all set down in inventories and catalogues, and all swept into the great robbers'
hoard . . . every vestment and chalice, and candlestick and banner, organs and bells,
and picture and image and altar and shrine.”—“In three years it may be said that
almost all the parish churches in England had been looted ; before the end of the
king's reign there had been a clean sweep of all that was worth stealing from the
parish chests, or the church walls, or the church treasuries. In the next generation
there were churches by the score that possessed not even a surplice; there were
others that had not even a chalice, and others again, in considerable numbers, that
were described as “ruinated.’”—Before the Great Pillage, pp. 39–40, 66 (London
1901).
102 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
State to replace the assistance which had been afforded by
the Church and the guilds, but Parliament a few weeks
earlier had already taken measures, not to relieve the suf-
ferings of the poor, but to repress the vagabondage which
had necessarily resulted from the destruction of the
monasteries. In this Act the magnitude of the evil is
indicated by the rigorously inhuman measures deemed
necessary for its abatement. Every able-bodied man,
loitering in any place for three days without working or
offering to work, was held to be a vagabond; he was to be
branded on the breast with a letter V, and be adjudged as
a slave for two years to any one who would bring him be-
fore a justice of the peace." This substitute for clerical
almsgiving was deemed sufficient for the time, and it was
not until five years later, in 1552, that a practical effort
was made to alleviate the miseries of poverty by a poor-
law, the commencement of a series which has since burdened
England with ever-increasing weight.”
The monastic establishments of Ireland shared the same
fate. Rymer * gives the text of a commission for the
suppression of a nunnery of the diocese of Dublin in 1535.
The insubordination of the island, however, rendered it diffi-
cultto carry out themeasureeverywhere, and finally,in 1541,
it was accomplished by virtually granting their lands to the
native chieftains. These were good Catholics, but they
could not resist the temptation. They joined eagerly in
grasping the spoil, and the desirable political object was
effected of detaching them, for the time, from the foreign
alliances with the Catholic powers, which threatened
serious evils.”
1 1 Edw. WI. c. 3.−Parl. Hist. I. 583.
2 5–6 Edw. VI. cap. 2. For the charitable functions of the guilds destroyed
under Edward VI. see J. E. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, II.
346–8.
3 Foedera, T. XIV. p. 551.
4. Froude, Hist. Engl. IV. 543.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 103
It is a striking proof of Henry's strength of will and
intense individuality of character, that, in thus tearing up
by the roots the whole system of monachism, he did not
yield one jot to the powerful section of his supporters who
had pledged themselves to the logical sequence of his acts,
the abrogation of sacerdotal celibacy in general. While
every reason of policy and statesmanship urged him to
grant the privilege of marriage to the secular clergy, whom
he forced to transfer to him the allegiance formerly
rendered to Rome, while his chief religious advisers at
home and his Protestant allies abroad used every endeavour
to wring from him this concession, he steadily and persis-
tently refused it to the end, and we can only guess whether
his firmness arose from conscientious conviction or from
the pride of a controversialist.
Notwithstanding his immovable resolution on this point,
his power seemed ineffectual to stay the progress of the
new ideas. An assembly held by his order in May 1530,
to condemn the heretical doctrines disseminated in certain
books, shows how openly the advocates of clerical marriage
had promulgated their views while yet Wolsey was prime
minister and Henry gloried in the title of Defender of the
Faith. Numerous books were denounced in which celibacy
was ridiculed, its sanctity disproved, and its evil influences
commented upon in the most irreverent manner." These
1 Thus “An Exposition into the sevenith Chapitre of the firste Epistle to the
Corinthians” seems to have been almost entirely devoted to an argument against
celibacy, adducing all manner of reasons derived from nature, morality, necessity,
and Scripture, and describing forcibly the evils arising from the rule. The author
does not hesitate to declare that “Matrimony is as golde, the spirituall estates as
dung,” and the tenor of his writings may be understood from his triumphant ex-
clamation, after insisting that all the Apostles and their immediate successors were
married—“Seeing that ye chose not married men to bishoppes, other Criste must be
a foole or unrighteous which so did chose, or you anticristis and deceyvers.”
The “Sum of Scripture” was more moderate in its expressions: “Yf a man
vowe to lyve chaste and in povertie in a monasterie, than yf he perceyve that in
the monastery he lyveth woorse than he did before, as in fornication and theft
then he may leve the cloyster and breke his vowe without synne.”
Tyndale in “The Obedience of a Cristen Man" is most uncompromising:
“Oportet presbyterem ducere uxorem duas ob causas.” . . “If thou bind thy
I04 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
doctrines were sometimes carried into practice, and the
Orthodox clergy had little ceremony in visiting them
with the sharpest penalties of the canons. It was about
this time that Stokesley, Bishop of London, condemned
to imprisonment for life Thomas Patmore, the incumbent
of Hadlam in Hertfordshire, for encouraging his curate
to marry and permitting him subsequently to officiate;
and the unfortunate man actually lay for three years in
gaol, until released by the intercession of Cranmer.”
If the reforming polemics were thus bold while Henry
was yet orthodox, it may readily be imagined how keenly
they watched the progress of his quarrel with the Pope,
and how loud became their utterances as he gradually threw
off his allegiance to Rome and persecuted all who hesitated
to follow in his footsteps. He soon showed, however, that
he allowed none to precede him, and that all consciences
were to be measured by the royal ell-wand. Thus his pro-
ceedings against the Carthusians and Franciscans in 1534
were varied by a proclamation directed against seditious
books and priestly marriages. As we have seen, some
unions had taken place, and all who had committed the
indiscretion were deprived of their functions and reduced to
the laity, though the marriages seem to have been recognised
as valid. Future transgressions, moreover, were threatened
with the royal indignation and further punishment—words
of serious import at such a time and under such a
monarch.”
self to chastitie to obteyn that which Criste purchesed for the, surely soo art
thow an infidele.”
The “Revelation of Anticriste” carries the war into the enemy's territory in a
fashion somewhat savage : “Keping of virginitie and chastite of religion is a
devellishe thinge” (Wilkins III. 728–34).
1 Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Book III. Chapter 34,
2 Wilkins III. 778.-Strype, in his “Memorials of Cranmer,” Bk. I. Chap. 18,
gives this proclamation as dated November 16, in the 30th year of Henry VIII.,
which would place it in 1538, and Bishop Wilkins also prints (III. 696) from Harmer's
“Specimen of Errors” the same with unimportant variations, as “given this 16th
day of November, in the 13th year of our reign,” which would place it in 1521.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 105
In spite of all this, the chief advisers of Henry did not
scruple to connive at infractions of the proclamation. Both
Cranmer and Cromwell favoured the Reformation : the
former was himself secretly married, and even ventured to
urge the King to reconsider his views on priestly celibacy;"
while the latter, though, as a layman, without any such
personal motive, was disposed to relax the strictness of the
rule of celibacy. During the visitation of the monasteries,
for instance, the Abbot of Walden had little hesitation in
confessing to Ap Rice, the visitor, that he was secretly
married, and asked to be secured from molestation. The
confidence thus manifested in the friendly disposition of
the vicar-general was satisfactorily responded to. Crom-
well replied, merely warning him to “use his remedy”
without, if possible, causing scandal.” A singular petition,
addressed to him in 1536 by the secular clergy of the dio-
cese of Bangor, illustrates forcibly both the confidence felt
in his intentions and the necessity of the Abbot of Walden's
It is impossible, however, at a time when even the Lutherans of Saxony had
scarcely ventured on the innovation, that in England priestly marriage could
already have become as common as the proclamation shows it to be. The bull of
Leo X., thanking Henry for his refutation of Luther, was dated 4 November, 1521,
and we may be sure that the King's zeal for the faith would at such a moment
have prompted him to much more stringent measures of repression, if he had ven-
tured at that epoch to invade the sacred precincts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction—a
thing he would have been by no means likely to do. The date of 1521 is there-
fore evidently an error.
For the same reasons I have been forced to reject a discussion in convocation
of the same year (Wilkins III. 697), in which the question of sacerdotal marriage
was decided triumphantly in the affirmative. The proceedings are evidently those
of December 1547, in the first year of Edward VI.
1 Burnet’s Collections I. 319.
2 MS. State Paper Office (Froude, III. 65). Ap Rice's report to Cromwell is
sufficiently suggestive as to the interior life of the monastic orders to deserve
transcription. “As we were of late at Walden, the abbot there being a man of
good learning and right sincere judgment, as I examined him alone, showed me
secretly, upon stipulation of silence, but only unto you as our judge, that he had
contracted matrimony with a certain woman secretly, having present thereat but one
trusty witness; because he, not being able, as he said, to contain, though he could
not be suffered by the laws of man, saw he might do it lawfully by the laws of God;
and for the avoiding of more inconvenience, which before he was provoked unto, he
did thus, having confidence in you that this act should not be anything prejudicial
unto him.”
106 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
“remedy” in the immorality which prevailed. There had
been a visitation in which the petitioners admit that
many of them had been found in fault, and as their women
had been consequently taken away, they pray the vicar-
general to devise some means by which their consorts may
be restored. They do not venture to ask directly for
marriage, but decency forbids the supposition that they
could openly request Cromwell to authorise a system of
concubinage. Nothing can be more humiliating than their
confession of the relations existing between themselves,
as ministers of Christ, and the flocks entrusted to their
spiritual care. After pleading that without women they
cannot keep house and exercise hospitality, they add:
“We ourselves shall be driven to seek our living at ale-
houses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and
vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and sub-
stantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, knowing our
frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in no wise board us
in their houses.” "
The tendencies thus exhibited by the King's advisers
called forth the remonstrances of the conservatives. In
June 1536 the Lower House of Convocation presented a
memorial inveighing strongly against the progress of
heresy, and among the obnoxious opinions condemned was
“That it is preached and taught that all things awght to
be in comen and that Priests shuld have wiffes,” and they
added that books containing heretical opinions were printed
“cum privilegio,” were openly sold among the people, and
1 MS. State Paper Office (Froude, III. 372). It is not to be assumed, however,
that the clergy were worse than the laity. During the visitation of the monasteries,
Thomas Legh, one of the visitors, says, in writing to Cromwell, 22 August, 1536, con-
cerning the region between Coventry and Chester: “For certain of the knights
and gentlemen, and most commonly all, liveth so incontinently, having their concu-
bines openly in their houses, with five or six of their children, and putting from
them their wives, that all the country therewith be not a little offended, and taketh
evil example of them ’’ (Miscellaneous State Papers, London, 1778, I. 21). It perhaps
would not be easy to determine the exact responsibility of the clergy for this im-
morality of their flocks.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 107
were not condemned by those in authority.” Possibly it
was in consequence of this that in the following November
Henry issued a circular letter to his bishops in which he
commanded them—“Whereas we be advertised that
divers Priests have presumed to marry themselves contrary
to the custom of our Church of England, Our Pleasure is,
Ye shall make secret enquiry within your Diocess, whether
there be any such resiant within the same or not ”—and
any such offenders who had presumed to continue the
performance of their sacred functions were ordered to be
reported to him or to be arrested and sent to London.”
Curiously enough, there is no reference to the subject in
the “Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie to
stablyshe Christen Quietnes and Unitie amonge us,” issued
by Henry in this year.”
Notwithstanding the ominous threat in the letter to
the bishops, there appears about this period to have been
great uncertainty in the public mind respecting the state
of the law and the King's intentions. Two letters happen
to have been preserved, written within a few days of each
other, in June 1537, to Cromwell, which reveal the con-
dition of opinion at the time. One of these complains that
the vicar of Mendelsham, in Suffolk, has brought home a
wife and children, whom he claims to be lawfully his own,
and that it is permitted by the King. Although “thys
acte by hym done is in thys countre a monstre, and many
do growdge at it,” yet, not knowing the King's pleasure,
no proceedings can be had, and appeal is therefore made
for authority to prosecute, lest “hys ensample winpon-
nyched shall be occasion for other carnall evyll dysposed
prestes to do in lyke manner.” The other letter is from an
unfortunate priest who had recently married, supposing it
to be lawful. The “noyse of the peopull,” however, had
1 Strype, Eccles. Memorials, Vol. I. Append. p. 176.
2 Burnet’s Collect. ſ. 362.
3 Formularies of Faith, Oxford, 1856. –Wilkins III. 826.
108 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
just informed him that a royal order had commanded the
separation of such unions, and he had at once sent his wife
to her friends, three-score miles away. He therefore
hastens to make his peace, protesting he had sinned
through ignorance, though he makes bold to argue that
“yf the kyngys grace could have founde yt laufull that
presty's mught have byn maryd, they wold have byn to the
crowne dubbyll and dubbyll faythefull; furste in love,
secondly for fere that the byschoppe of Rome schuld sette
yn hys powre unto ther desolacyon.” "
It is evident from these letters that there was still a
genuine popular antipathy to clerical marriage, and yet
that the royal supremacy was so firmly established by
Henry's ruthless persecutions that this antipathy was held
subject to the pleasure of the court, and could at any
moment have been dissipated by proclamation. In fact,
the only wonder is that any convictions remained in the
minds of those who had seen the objects of their pro-
foundest veneration made the sport of avarice and derision.
Stately churches torn to pieces, the stone sold to sacrile-
gious builders, the lead put up at auction to the highest
bidder, the consecrated bells cast into cannon, the sacred
vessels melted down, the holy relics snatched from the
shrines and treated as old bones and offal, the venerated
images burned at Smithfield—all this could have left little
sentiment of respect for worn-out religious observances in
those who watched and saw the sacrilege remain un-
punished.
Notwithstanding the reforming influences with which
he was surrounded, Henry sternly adhered to the position
which he had assumed.” When, in 1538, the princes of
1 Suppression of Monasteries, pp. 160–1.
2 He made one exception. Nuns professed before the age of 21 were at liberty
to marry after the dissolution of their houses, whereat, according to Dr. London,
they “be wonderfull gladde . . . and do pray right hartely for the kinges majestie.”
(Suppression of Monasteries, p. 214).
THE ENGLISH CHURCH I09
the Schmalkaldic League offered to place him at its head,
and even to alter, if possible, the Augsburg Confession so
as to make it a common basis of union for all the elements
of opposition to Rome, Henry was well inclined to obtain
the political advantages of the position tendered him, but
hesitated to accept it until all doctrinal questions should
be settled. The three points on which the Germans
insisted were the communion in both elements, the wor-
ship in the vulgar tongue, and the marriage of the clergy.
In the Convocation of that year a series of questions was
submitted for decision embracing the contested points,
and the clergy decided in favour of celibacy, private
masses, and communion in one element.” Thus sustained,
Henry was firm, and the ambassadors of the League spent
two months in conferences with the English bishops and
doctors without result. On their departure (5 August,
1588), they addressed him a letter arguing the subjects in
debate—the refusal of the cup, private masses, and sacer-
dotal celibacy—to which Henry replied at some length,
defending his position on these topics with no little skill
and dexterity, and refusing his assent finally.” The re-
formers, however, did not yet despair, and the royal
preachers even ventured occasionally to debate the pro-
priety of clerical marriage freely before him in their
sermons, but in vain.” An epistle which Melanchthon
addressed to him in April 1539, arguing the same questions
again, had no better effect."
In the spring of 1539 Henry renewed negotiations with
the German princes, and his envoys, in soliciting another
visit from deputies of the League, held out some vague
promises of his yielding on the point of celibacy. The
1 Strype's Eccles. Memor. I. 320.
2 Burnet I. 254–55; Collect. 332, 347.
3 Nothing has yet been settled concerning the marriage of the clergy, although
some persons have very freely preached before the king upon the subject.”—John
Butler to Conrad Pellican (Froude, III. 381).
4 Burnet, Collect. I. 329.
IIO SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
Germans in turn, to show their earnest desire for union
with England, submitted a series of propositions in which
they suggested that the marriage of priests might be left
to the discretion of the Pope, and that if it were to be
prohibited only persons advanced in life should be ordained."
Both parties, however, were too firmly set in their opinions
for accord to be possible. Notwithstanding any seeming
hesitation caused by the policy of the moment, Henry's
mind was fully made up, and the consequences of en-
deavouring to persuade him against his prejudices soon
became apparent. Even while the negotiations were in
progress he had issued a series of injunctions degrading
from the priesthood all married clergy, and threatening
with imprisonment and his displeasure all who should
thereafter marry.* Argumentation confirmed his opinions,
and he proceeded to enforce them on his subjects in his
own savage manner, “for though on all other points he
had set up the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession,” yet
on these he had committed himself as a controversialist,
and the worst passions of polemical authorship—the true
“odium theologicum ”—acting through his irresponsible
despotism, rendered him the cruellest of persecutors. But
a few weeks after receiving the letter of Melanchthon, he
answered it in cruel fashion.
In May a new Parliament met, chosen under great
excitement, for the people were inflamed on the subject
of religion, and animosities ran high. The principal object
of the session was known to be a settlement of the national
Church, and as the reformers were in a minority against
the court, the temper of the Houses was not likely to be
encouraging for them.” On May 5, a week after its
1 Strype's Eccles. Memor. I. 339, 343.
2 Ibid. 344.—Wilkins III. 847.
3 Yet the moderate party ventured to submit to Parliament “A Device for extir-
pating Heresies among the People,” among the suggestions of which was a bill for
abolishing ecclesiastical celibacy, legalising all existing marriages, and permitting
THE ENGLISH CHURCH I 11
assembling, a committee was appointed, at the King's
request, to take into consideration the differences of
religious opinion, On the 16th, the Duke of Norfolk,
who was not a member of the committee, reported that
no agreement could be arrived at, and he therefore laid
before the House of Lords, for full discussion, articles
embracing — 1. Transubstantiation; 2. Communion in
both kinds; 3. Vows of Chastity; 4. Private Masses;
5. Sacerdotal Marriages; and 6. Auricular Confession.
Cranmer opposed them stoutly, arguing against them for
three days, and especially endeavouring to controvert the
third and fifth, which enjoined celibacy, but his efforts
and those of his friends were vain, when pitted against
the known wishes of the King, who himself took an active
part in the debate, and argued in favour of the articles
with much vigour. Under such circumstances, the adop-
tion of the Six Articles was a foregone conclusion. On
May 30 the Chancellor reported that the House had
agreed upon them, and that it was the King's pleasure
“that some penal statute should be enacted to compel all
his subjects who were in any way dissenters or contra-
dicters of these articles to obey them.” The framing of
such a bill was entrusted to two committees, one under
the lead of Cranmer, the other under that of the Arch-
bishop of York, and they were instructed to lay their
respective plans before the King within forty-eight hours.
Of course the report of the Archbishop of York was
adopted. Introduced on June 7, Cranmer again resisted
it gallantly, but it passed both Houses by the 14th, and
received the royal assent on the 28th. It was entitled
“An Act for abolishing Diversity of Opinions in certain
Articles concerning Christian Religion,” and it stands as a
monument of the cruel legislation of a barbarous age.
the clergy in general “to have wives and work for their living ”—Rolls House MS.
(Froude, III. 381.)
II 2 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
The Third Article was “that Priests after the Order of
Priesthood might not marry by the Law of God”; the
Fourth, “that Vows of Chastity ought to be observed by
the Law of God,” and those who obstinately preached or dis-
puted against them were adjudged felons, to suffer death
without benefit of clergy. Any opposition, either in word
or writing, subjected the offender to imprisonment during
the King's pleasure, and a repetition of the offence con-
stituted a felony, to be expiated with the life of the culprit.
Priestly marriages were declared void, and a priest persisting
in living with his wife was to be executed as a felon. Con-
cubinage was punishable with deprivation of benefice and
property, and imprisonment, for a first offence; a second
lapse was visited with a felon's death, while in all cases the
wife or concubine shared the fate of her partner in guilt,
Quarterly sessions were provided, to be held by the
bishops and other commissioners appointed by the King,
for the purpose of enforcing these laws, and the accused
were entitled to trial by jury." Vows of chastity were
only binding on those who had taken them of their own
free will when over twenty-one years of age.” According
to the Act, the wives of priests were to be put away by
1 Burnet, I. 258–9.-31 Henry VIII. c. xiv. Mr. Froude endeavours to relieve
Henry of the responsibility of this measure, and quotes Melanchthon to show that
its cruelty is attributable to Gardiner (Hist. Engl. III. 395). He admits, however,
that the bill as passed differs but slightly from that presented by the king himself,
with whom the committee which framed it must have acted in concert. According
to Strype, “The Parliament men said little against this bill, but seemed all unani-
mous for it ; neither did the Lord Chancellor Audley, no, nor the Lord Privy Seal,
Cromwel, speak against it : the reason being, no question, because they saw the king
so resolved upon it. . . . Nay, at the very same time it passed, he (Cranmer) stayed
and protested against it, though the king desired him to go out, since he could not
consent to it. Worcester (Latimer) also, as well as Sarum (Shaxton), was committed
to prison; and he, as well as the other, resigned up his bishopric upon the act.”—
(Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. Chap. 19.) This shows us how the royal influence
was used. Cranmer, indeed, in his reply to the Devonshire rebels, when in 1549
they demanded the restoration of the Six Articles, expressly asserts “that if the
king's majesty himself had not come personally into the Parliament house, those
lawes had never passed " (Ibid. App. No. XL.).
2 31 Henry VIII. c. 6 (Parl, Hist, I. 536–40),
THE ENGLISH CHURCH II3
June 24, but on that day, as the Act was not yet signed,
an order was mercifully made extending the time to
July 12.*
Cranmer argued, reasonably enough, that it was a
great hardship, in the case of the ejected monks, to insist
on the observance of the vow of chastity, when those of
poverty and obedience were dispensed with, and when the
unfortunates had been forcibly deprived of all the advan-
tages, safeguards, and protection of monastic life.” The
matter, however, was not decided by reason, but by the
whimsical perversity of a self-opinionated man, who unfor-
tunately had the power to condense his polemical notions
in the blood of his subjects.
To comprehend the full iniquity of this savage measure,
we must remember the rapid progress which the new
opinions had been making in England for twenty years;
the tacit encouragement given them by the suppression of
the religious houses, and by the influence of the King's
confidential advisers; and the hopes naturally excited by
Henry's quarrel with Rome and negotiations with the
League of Schmalkalden. In spite, therefore, of the
comparatively mild punishments hitherto imposed on
priestly marriage, which were no doubt practically almost
obsolete, such unions may safely be assumed as numerous.
Even Cranmer himself, the primate of Henry's Church,
1 Parl. Hist. I. 540.
There is a story current that soon after the passage of the Act, the Duke of Nor-
folk, who had had so much to do with it, on meeting a former chaplain of his named
Lawney, jocularly said to him, “Oh, my Lawney” (knowing him of old much to favour
priests' matrimony), “whether may priests now have wives or no?” “If it please
your grace,” replied he, “I cannot well tell whether priests may have wives or no,
but well I wot, and am sure of it, for all your Act, that wives will have priests.”—
Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, book i. chap. viii.
2 Dr. London chronicles the troubles of this class, ‘‘I percey've many of the
other sortt, monkes and chanons, whiche be yonge lustie men, allways fatt fedde,
lyving in ydelnes and at rest, be sore perplexide that now being prestes they may
nott retorn and marye’ (Suppression of Monasteries, p. 215).
Nicander Nucius asserts that many did marry openly-&\\ovs 5é yuvaikas €vvópºws
avvetºvovs elaayouévous” (op. cit. p. 71).
VOL. II. H
II.4. SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
was twice married, his second wife, then living, the niece
of Osiander, being kept under a decent veil of secrecy in
his palace." When, after his fruitless resistance to the Six
Articles, the bill was passed, he sent his wife to her friends
in Germany, until the death of his master enabled him to
bring her back and acknowledge her openly; * but vast
numbers of unfortunate pastors could not have had the
opportunity, and perhaps lacked the self-control, thus to
arrange their domestic affairs. Even the gentle Melanch-
thon was moved from his ordinary equanimity, and ven-
tured to address to his royal correspondent a remonstrance
expressing his horror of the cruelty which could condemn
to the scaffold a man whose sole guilt consisted in not
abandoning the wife to whom he had promised fidelity
through good and evil, before God and man—a cruelty
which could find no precedent in any code that man had
previously dared to frame.”
As might be expected, numerous divorces of married
priests followed this Draconian legislation, and these
divorces were held good by the Act of 1549, which under
* His first marriage was entered into while he was still quite young, and before
he had taken orders. The second, however, shows that he acted with some inde-
pendence, for it took place in 1531, before Henry’s open rupture with Rome, and
while he was ambassador to the Emperor. At that time he was King's chaplain and
Archdeacon of Taunton, and his nuptials therefore were plainly an indication of
heresy.—Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, book i. chap. iii., book iii, chap. xxvii.
2 Burnet I. 256–7. It was not until 1543 that he ventured to confess this to the
King (Ibid. p. 328). At his trial in 1556 his two marriages were one of the points of
accusation against him (Ibid. II. 339).
Saunders, in commenting upon Cranmer's time-serving disposition, which enabled
him to accommodate himself to Henry's capricious opinions, and yet to enter fully
into the reformatory ideas predominant under Edward VI., does not fail to satirise
his connubial propensities. “Unum illud molestissime tamen ferens, quod mere-
tricem quandam Suam non poterat palam uxoris loco libere habere, quia id non
laturum Henricum sciebat, sed partim domieam occultare, partim cum foras prodiret,
cista quadam ad id affabre facta inclusam, secum una circumferre cogeretur. Iste
ergo jam desiit esse Henricianus, et tam ex immatura regis Edouardi aetate quam ex
Protectoris in sectas summa propensione, suae statim simul et libidini et haeresi
habenas laxandas statuit ; nam et scorto suo mox est publice pro uxore usus, et
catechismum Edouardo dedicatum, falsae impiaeque doctrinae plenum, in lucem
edidit.”—De Orig. et Prog. Schismatis Anglicani, p. 193 (Ed. 1586).
3 Melanchthon. Epist. Ed. 1565, p. 34.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH 115
Edward VI. granted full liberty in the premises to eccle-
siastics.” Even Henry, however, began to feel that he
had gone too far, and the influence of Cromwell was suffi-
cient to prevent the harshest features of the law from
being enforced in all their odious severity, especially as the
projected marriage with Ann of Cleeves and the alliance
with the German Lutherans rendered active persecution
in the highest degree impolitic. When the comedy of
Henry's fourth marriage culminated in the tragedy of
Cromwell's ruin (June 1540), the reactionary elements
again gathered strength. There can be little doubt
that the atrocity of the law had greatly interfered with its
efficient execution and had aroused popular feeling, for now,
although the Vicar-General was removed, the Catholics
passed with speedy alacrity a bill moderating the Act of
the Six Articles, in so far as it related to marriage and
concubinage. For capital punishment was substituted the
milder penalty of confiscation to the King of all the pro-
perty and revenue of the offenders.”
The Six Articles, as thus modified,” remained the law
of England during the concluding years of Henry's reign,
nor is it likely that any one ventured to urge upon him
seriously a relaxation of the principles to which he had
committed himself thus definitely. The fall of Cromwell
and the danger to which Cranmer was exposed for several
years were sufficient to insure him against troublesome
remonstrants, even if his increasing irritability and capri-
ciousness had not made those around him daily more alive
1 2–3 Edw. VI. c. 21 (Parl. Hist. I. 586.)
2 32 Hen. VIII. c. 10. – Burnet I. 282. –Parl. Hist. I. 575.
* Richard Hilles, writing in 1541 to Henry Bullinger, assumes that this modifica-
tion of the Six Articles only applied to those who were guilty of incontinence, and
that it did not “appear to the King at all extreme still to hang those clergymen who
marry or who retain those wives whom they had married previous to the forme
statute” (Original Letters, Parker Soc. Pub. p. 205)—but both Burnet and the Par
liamentory History make no such distinction, and in the abstract of the bill as
printed in the Statutes at Large (I. 281) it is described as applicable to “priests
married or unmarried.”
II6 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
to the danger of thwarting or resisting his idlest humour.
How little progress, indeed, the Reformation had thus far
made in England is shown in a letter written in 1546 by
John Hooper, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester and Wor-
cester, during the exile into which he was forced by the
Act of the Six Articles: “Our King has destroyed the
Pope, but not popery; he has expelled all the monks and
nuns, and pulled down their monasteries; he has caused
all their possessions to be transferred into his exchequer,
and yet they are bound, even the frail female sex, by the
King's command, to perpetual chastity. England has at
this time at least ten thousand nuns, not one of whom is
allowed to marry. The impious Mass, the most shameful
celibacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular
confession, superstitious abstinence from meats, and pur-
gatory, were never before held by the people in greater
esteem than at the present moment.”
On 28 January, 1547, Henry VIII. died, and
Edward VI. succeeded to the perilous throne. Not yet
ten years of age, his government of course received its
direction from those around him, and the rivalry between
the Protector Somerset and the Chancellor Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton, threw the former into the hands of
the progressives, as the latter was the acknowledged head
of the reactionary party. The ruin of Southampton and
the triumph of Somerset, strengthened by his successful
campaign in Scotland, soon began to develop their natural
consequences on the religion of the country. Under the
auspices of Cranmer, a Convocation was assembled, which
was empowered to decide all questions in controversy.
When the primate was anxious to again enjoy the solace
of his wife's company and to relieve both her and himself
from the stigma of concubinage, it is easy to understand
that the subject of celibacy would receive early and appro-
* Hooper to Bullinger.—Original Letters, Parker Soc. Pub. p. 36.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH II.7
priate attention; and so confident were the reformers of
success that they did not hesitate to enter into matrimony
without waiting for any formal sanction." Accordingly, on
17 December, 1547, a proposition was submitted to the
effect that all canons, statutes, laws, decrees, usages, and
customs, interfering with or prohibiting marriage, should
be abrogated, and it was carried by a vote of 53 to 22.
No time was lost. Two days afterwards a bill was intro-
duced in the Commons permitting married men to be
priests and to hold benefices. It was received with so
much favour that it was read twice the same day, and on
the 21st it was sent up to the Lords; but in the Upper
House it raised debates so prolonged that, as the members
were determined to adjourn before Christmas, it was laid
aside. This might be the more readily agreed to, since on
the 23rd an Act was approved which abolished numerous
severe laws of the former reign, including the statute of
the Six Articles, and was immediately followed by another
granting the use of the cup to the laity and prohibiting
private Masses.”
The repeal of the Six Articles left the marriage of the
clergy subject to the previous laws of Henry, imposing on
it various pains and penalties, but with the votes recorded
in Convocation and Parliament, it is not likely that much
vigour was displayed in their enforcement. Those inter-
ested could thus afford to await the reassembling of the
Houses, which did not take place until 24 November, 1548,
but they claimed the reward of their patience by an early
hearing in the session. On December 3 a bill was intro-
1 Thus Dr. Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was married on June
24, 1547, within six months after Henry’s death, to Margaret, daughter of Robert
Harlston of Mattishall. As he had been in priest’s orders since 1527, he assumed a
liberty which was not even asked of Parliament until nearly eighteen months later
(see his autobiographical memoranda in his Correspondence, pp. vii., x., Parker Soc.
1853).
2 1 Edw. I. c. 1, 12 (Parl. Hist. I. 582–4).—Wilkins IV. 16.-Burnet II. 40, 41
III. 189.
II 8 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
duced, similar to that of the previous year, rendering
married men eligible to the priesthood: it passed second
reading on the 5th, and third reading on the 6th. Appa-
rently encouraged by the favourable reception accorded to
it, the friends of the measure resolved on demanding
further privileges. The bill was therefore laid aside, and
on the next day a new one was presented which granted
the additional liberty of marriage to those already in orders.
It conceded to the established opinions the fact that it
were better that the clergy should live chaste and single,
yet, “as great filthiness of living had followed on the laws
that compelled chastity and prohibited marriage,” there-
fore all laws and canons inhibiting sacerdotal matrimony
should be abolished. This bill, after full discussion, was
read a second and third time on the 10th and 12th, and
was sent up to the Lords on the 13th. Again the Upper
House was in no haste to pass it. It lay on the table
until 9 February, 1549, when it was stoutly contested, and,
after being recommitted, it finally passed on the 19th, with
the votes of nine bishops recorded against it."
Cranmer and his friends were now at full liberty to
establish the innovation by committing the clergy indivi-
dually to marriage, and by enlisting the popular feeling in
its support. During the discussion they had not been idle.
Much controversial writing had occurred on both sides, in
which Poynette, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, took an
active part, while Bale, Bishop of Ossory, distinguished
himself on the same side by raking together all the foul
stories that could be collected concerning the celibate
clergy—a scandalous material not likely to be lacking in
either quantity or quality. Burnet declares that no law
passed during the reign of Edward excited more contradic-
tion and censure, and the matrimonialists soon found that,
even with the Act of Parliament in their favour, their
1 2–3 Edw. VI. c. 21 (Parl. Hist. I. 586).—Burnet II. 88–9.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH II9
course was not wholly a smooth one. Cranmer ordered a
visitation in his province, and directed as one of the points
for inquiry and animadversion, “Whether any do contemn
married priests, and, for that they be married, will not
receive the Communion or other sacraments at their
hands,” which distinctly reveals the difficulties encountered
in eradicating the convictions of centuries from the popu-
lar mind. Sanders says, and with every appearance of
probability, that the Archbishop of York united with
Cranmer in ordering a visitation of the whole kingdom,
during which the visitors investigated particularly the
morals of the clergy, and used every argument to impel
them to marriage, not only declaring celibacy to be most
dangerous to salvation, but intimating that all who adhered
to it would be regarded as papists and enemies of the King.”
The active interest which Cranmer took in the question is
manifested by the fact that when Dr. Richard Smith, who
had fled to Scotland in consequence of having endeavoured
to stir up a tumult at Oxford against Peter Martyr, desired
to make his peace and return, the inducement which he
offered to the Archbishop of Canterbury to obtain for him
the King's pardon was that he would write a book in favour
of priestly marriage, as he had previously done against it.”
The reformers speedily found that they were not to
escape without opposition. The masses of the people
1 Wilkins IV. 26.--Cardwell's Documentary Annals, I. 59. Wilkins and Cardwell
date this in 1547, which is evidently impossible. Burnet (II. 102) alludes to it under
1549, which is much more likely to be correct.
2 Sanderi Schisma Anglic. pp. 214–5.
3 Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Bk. II. chap. 14.—Smith subsequently at
Louvain continued to urge the necessity of celibacy, and was answered by Peter
Martyr. Strype calls him a filthy fellow, notorious for lewdness, and his champion-
ship of chastity excited some merriment. There is an epigram upon him by
Lawrence Humphrey—
“Haud satis affabre tractans fabrilia Smithus
Librum de vita coelibe composuit
Dumque pudicitiam, dum vota monastica laudat,
Stuprat, sacra notans foedera conjugii.”
(Ibid. Chap. 25.)
I 20 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
throughout England were in a state of discontent. The
vast body of abbey lands acquired by the gentry and now
enclosed bore hard upon many; the raising of rents showed
that secular landlords were less charitable than the ancient
proprietors of the soil; the increase of sheep-husbandry
threw many farm labourers out of employ;" and the savage
enactments, already alluded to, against the unfortunate
expelled monks show how large an element of influential
disaffection was actively at work in the substratum of
society. Those priests who disapproved of the rapid
Protestantising process adopted by the court could hardly
fail to take advantage of opportunities so tempting, and
they accordingly fanned the spark into a flame. The en-
forcement of the new liturgy, on Whitsunday, 1549,
seemed the signal of revolt. Numerous risings took place,
which were readily quelled, until one in Devonshire as-
sumed alarming proportions. Ten thousand men in arms
made demands for relief in religious as well as temporal
matters. Lord Russel, unable to meet them in the field,
endeavoured to gain time by negotiation, and offered to
receive their complaints. These were fifteen in number,
of which several demanded the restoration of points of the
old religion, and one insisted on the revival of the Six
Articles. On their refusal, another set was drawn up, in
which not only were the Six Articles called for, but also a
special provision enforcing the celibacy of the clergy.
This was likewise rejected ; but during the delay another
rising occurred in Norfolk, reckoned at twenty thousand
men, and yet another of less formidable dimensions in
Yorkshire. Russel finally scattered the men of Devon,
while the Earl of Warwick succeeded in suppressing the
1 The vast growth of the sheep-farms had long been a subject of complaint.
Even as early as 1516, Sir Thomas More describes with indignant energy the misery
caused by the ejectment of the agricultural population in order to form enormous
sheep-walks, which were found more profitable to the landlords than ordinary farming.
He declares that the sheep “tam edaces atque indomitae esse coeperant, ut homines
devorent ipsos, agros, domos, oppida vastent ac depopulentur.”—Utopia, Lib. I.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I21
rebels of Norfolk, when the promise of an amnesty caused
the Yorkshiremen to disperse.”
The question of open resistance thus was settled.
Cranmer and his friends had now leisure to consolidate
their advantages and organise a system that should be
permanent. In 1551, he and Ridley prepared with great
care a series of forty-two articles, embodying the faith of
the Church of England, which was adopted by the Convo-
cation in 1552, and was ordered to be signed by all men in
orders and all candidates for ordination.” Burnet speaks
of it as bringing the Anglican doctrine and worship to
perfection. It remained unaltered during the rest of
Edward's reign, and under Elizabeth it was only modified
verbally in the recension which resulted in the famous
Thirty-nine Articles—the foundation-stone of the Episco-
palian edifice. Of these forty-two articles, the thirty-first
declared that “Bishops, priests, and deacons are not com-
manded by God's law to vow the estate of a single life or
to abstain from marriage.”
The canon law had thus invested the marriage of the
clergy with all the sanctity that the union of man and
wife could possess. Yet still the deep-seated conviction
of the people as to the impropriety of such proceedings
remained, troubling the repose of those who had entered
into matrimony, and doubtless operating as a restraint
upon the numbers of the imitators of Cranmer. Among
the interrogatories drawn up by John Hooper for the
visitation of his diocese of Gloucester, in 1552, is one
which inquires whether any midwife refuses to attend the
confinement of women who are married to ministers of the
Church —a suggestion which indicates how rooted was the
1 Burnet II. 117–9.
2 Strype's Eccles. Memorials, II. 420.
3 Burnet II. Collect. 217. In the Latin version, “Episcopis, presbyteris et
diaconis non est mandatum ut coelibatum voveant ; neque, jure divino coguntur
matrimonio abstinere” (Wilkins IV. 76).
4 Strype's Eccles. Memorials, II. 355.
122 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
popular aversion from such matches. If Strype's descrip-
tion of the clergy of the period indeed be correct, there
was nothing in the character of the body to overcome the
popular aversion in consideration of its purity and devotion
to its sacred duties." The Act of 1549 had to a certain ex-
tent justified these prejudices by admitting the preferable-
ness of a single life in the ministers of Christ, and it was
resolved to remove every possible stigma by a solemn
declaration of Parliament. A bill was therefore prepared
and speedily passed (10 February, 1552), which reveals
how strong was the popular opposition, and how uncertain
the position of the wives and children of the clergy. It
declares “That many took occasion, from the words in the
Act formerly made about this matter, to say that it was
only permitted, as usury and other unlawful things were,
for the avoidance of greater evils, who thereupon spoke
slanderously of such marriages, and accounted the children
begotten in them to be bastards, to the high dishonour
of the King and Parliament, and the learned clergy of the
realm, who had determined that the laws against priests’
marriages were most unlawful by the law of God; to which
they had not only given their assent in the Convocation,
but signed it with their hands. These slanders did also
occasion that the Word of God was not heard with due
reverence.” It was therefore enacted “That such mar-
riages made according to the rules prescribed in the Book
of Service should be esteemed good and valid, and that
the children begot in them should be inheritable according
to law.””
A still further confirmation of the question was
designed in a body of ecclesiastical law which was for
several years in preparation by various commissions
appointed for the purpose. In this it was proposed to
1 Strype's Eccles. Memorials, II. p. 445.-“Our curate is naught, an Assehead, a
Dodipot, a Lack-Latine, and can do nothing.”
2 5–6 Edw. VI. c. 12 (Parl. Hist. I. 594). —Burnet II. 192.
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH I23
make the abrogation of celibacy even more distinctly a
matter of faith, for in the second Title among the various
heresies condemned is that which, through the suggestion
of the Devil, asserts that admission to holy orders takes
away the right to marry. This work, however, though
completed, had not yet received the royal assent when the
death of Edward VI. caused it to pass out of sight until
1571, when it was printed by Foxe and brought to the
attention of Parliament, but was laid aside owing to the
opposition of Queen Elizabeth."
If the Protestants indulged in any day-dreams as to the
permanency of their institutions, they were not long in
finding that a change of rulers was destined to cause other
changes disastrous to their hopes. Even the funeral of
Edward, on the 8th of August, 1553, afforded them a
foretaste of what was in store. Although Cranmer insisted
that the public ceremonies in Westminster Abbey should
be conducted according to the reformed rites, Queen Mary,
still resident in the Tower, had private obsequies per-
formed with the Roman ritual, where Gardiner celebrated
mortuary Mass in presence of the Queen and some four
hundred attendants. When the incense was carried around,
after the Gospel, it chanced that the chaplain who bore it
was a married man, and the zealous Dr. Weston snatched
it from him, exclaiming, “Shamest thou not to do thine
office, having a wife as thou hast ! The Queen will not be
censed by such as thou !”
Trifling as was this incident, it foreboded the wrath to
come. Though Mary was not crowned until October 1st, she
had issued writs for a Parliament to assemble on the 10th,
1 Reform. Legg. Eccles. Tit. de Haeresibus, cap. xx. (Cardwell's Ed., Oxford,
1850, p. 20).-Cf. Tit. de Matrimonio c. ix. (p. 44).
2 Strype's Eccles. Memor. III. 20. This story derives additional piquancy from
the fact that this Dr. Weston was somewhat notorious for uncleanness, and was
subsequently deprived of the Deanery of Windsor for adultery (Ibid. pp. 111–2).
I24 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
and as an entire change in the religious institutions of the
country was intended, we may not uncharitably believe
the assertion that every means of influence and intimida-
tion was employed to secure the return of reactionary
members. These efforts were crowned with complete
Success. The Houses had not sat for three weeks, when a
bill was sent down from the Lords repealing all the Acts
of Edward's reign concerning religion, including specifically
those which permitted the marriage of priests and
legitimated their offspring ; and after a debate of six
days it passed the Commons."
The effect of this was, of course, to revive the statute
of the Six Articles, and to place all married priests at the
mercy of the Queen; and as soon as she felt that she could
safely exercise her power, she brought it to bear upon the
offenders. A day or two after the dissolution of Parlia-
ment she commenced by issuing a proclamation inhibiting
married priests from officiating.” The Spanish marriage
being agreed upon and the resultant insurrection of Sir
Thomas Wyatt being suppressed, Mary recognised her own
strength, and her Romanising tendencies, which had
previously been somewhat restrained, became openly
manifested. On the 4th of March 1554 she issued a
letter to her bishops, of which the object was to restore
the condition of affairs under Henry VIII., except that
the royal prerogatives as head of the Church were expressly
disavowed. It contained eighteen articles, to be strictly
enforced throughout all dioceses. Of these the seventh
ordered that the bishops should by summary process
remove and deprive all priests who had been married or
had lived scandalously, sequestrating their revenues during
the proceedings. Article VIII. provided that widowers,
or those who promised to live in the strictest chastity,
1 1 Mary c. 2 (Parl. Hist. I. 609–10). —Burnet II. 255.
2 Strype's Eccles. Memorials, III. 52.
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH I25
should be treated with leniency, and receive livings at some
distance from their previous abode, being properly supported
meanwhile; while Article IX. directed that those who
suffered deprivation should not on that account be allowed
to live with their wives, and that due punishment should
be inflicted for all contumacy."
No time was lost in carrying out these regulations. By
the 9th of the same month a commission was already in
session at York, which cited the clergy to appear before it
on the 12th. From an appeal which is extant, by one
Simon Pope, rector of Warmington, it appears that men
were deprived without citation or opportunity for defence;”
and that this was not infrequent is probable from the pro-
ceedings commenced against offenders of the highest class,
designed and well fitted to strike terror into the hearts
of the humbler parsons. On the 16th a commission was
issued to the Bishops of Winchester (Stephen Gardiner),
London (Bonner), Durham, St. Asaph's, Chichester, and
Llandaff, to investigate the cases of the Archbishop of York
and the Bishops of St. Davids, Chester, and Bristol, who,
according to report, had given a most pernicious example
by taking wives, in contempt of God, to the damage
of their own souls, and to the scandal of all men. Any
three of the commissioners were empowered to summon
the accused before them, and to ascertain the truth of the
1 Burnet II. Append. 264. According to Strype, Bonner's impatience did not
wait for the royal injunctions, for in February he deprived of their livings all the
married priests in his diocese of London, and commanded them to bring all their
wives within a fortnight, in order that they might be divorced.—Memorials of
Cranmer, Bk. III, chap. 8.
Julius III. issued a bull, 8 March, 1554, defining Cardinal Pole's legatine powers,
among which was that of removing the excommunication from married clerks and
legitimating their children, the fathers being removed from function and benefice,
separated from their wives, and subjected to penance (Cardwell's Documentary
Annals, I. 131). This was the course adopted for a time, but as the kingdom
was not yet formally reconciled to Rome, the action had was under the local
authorities.
2 Strype's Eccles. Memor. III. Append. 33.-In the same place (p. 31) may be
found a copy of the summons served upon offenders of this class.
126 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
report without legal delays or unnecessary circumlocution.
If it were found correct, then they were authorised to
remove the offenders at once and for ever from their
dignities, and also to impose penance at discretion. This
was scant measure of justice, considering that the marriage
of these prelates had been contracted under sanction of law,
and, if that law had recently been repealed, that at least
the option of conforming to the new order of things could
not decently be denied ; yet even this mockery of a trial
was apparently withheld, for the congé d'élire for their
successors is dated March 18th, only two days after the
commission was appointed." Neither party, in fact, had
much ceremony in dealing with bishops. Five had been
deprived under Edward VI. ; under Mary there were
fourteen deprivations, and under Elizabeth fifteen.”
During the summer the bishops went on their visita-
tions. The articles prepared by Bonner for his diocese are
extant, among which we find directions to inquire parti-
cularly of the people whether their pastors are married,
and, if separated, whether any communication or inter-
course takes place between them and their wives; also
whether any one, lay or clerical, ventures to defend
sacerdotal matrimony.” Few of the weaker brethren
could escape an inquisition so searching as this, and though
some controversy arose, and a few tracts were printed in
defence of priestly marriage,” such men as Bonner were not
1 Burnet II. 275 and Append. 256.-Rymer (T. XV. pp. 376–77) gives a similar
commission dated March 9, issued to Stephen Gardiner to eject the canons and pre-
bendaries of Westminster in the same summary manner. The proceedings through-
out England were doubtless framed on these models.
2 W. H. Frere, The Marian Reaction in its relation to the English Clergy,
p. 24 (London, 1896).
Bishop Bird, of Chester, who was deprived March 20, 1554, repudiated his wife,
became vicar of Dunmow, and then suffragan of Bishop Bonner, of London.—
Ibid. p. 23.
3 Burnet II. Append. 260.
4 Bishop Poynette wrote a book entitled “An Apologie on the Godly Marriadge
of Priestes,” in rejoinder to Martin’s “Traictise declaryng and plainly prouying
that the pretensed marriage of priestes and professed persones is no marriage,”
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH 127
likely to shrink from the thorough prosecution of the work
which whey had undertaken.
When the Convocation assembled in this year, it was
therefore to be expected that only orthodox opinions would
find expression. Accordingly, the Lower House presented
to the bishops an humble petition praying for the restora-
tion of the old usages, among the points of which are
requests that married priests be forcibly separated from
their wives, and that those who endeavour to abandon
their order be subjected to special animadversion. This
clause shows that many unfortunates preferred to give
up their positions and lose the means of livelihood, rather
than quit the wives to whom they had sworn fidelity,
demanding, as we shall see, much subsequent conflicting
legislation. The social complications resulting from the
change of religion are also indicated in the request that
married nuns may be divorced, and that the pretended
wives of priests have full liberty to marry again.
Everything being thus prepared, the purification of the
Church from married heretics was prosecuted with vigour.
Archbishop Parker states that there were in England some
16,000 clergymen, of whom 12,000 were deprived on this
account, many of them most summarily ; Some on common
report, without trial, others without being summoned to
appear before their judges, and others again while lying in
jail for not obeying the summons. Some renounced their
wives, and were yet deprived, while those who were
deprived were also, as we have seen, forced to part with
their wives. We can readily believe that the most ordinary
forms of justice were set aside, in view of the illegal and
indecorous haste of the proceedings against the married
bishops described above, but Parker's estimate of the
which was a reply to Poynette's previous work. Bale also issued a bitter attack
on Bonner's Articles (Cardwell's Documentary Annals, I. 135), and Dr. Parker, after-
wards Archbishop of Canterbury, published a voluminous rejoinder to Martin.
1 Wilkins IV. 96–7.
128 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
number of sufferers is greatly exaggerated. According to
the latest investigator, Mr. Frere, the number of beneficed
clergy deprived in London was 150, to whom perhaps about
half as many unbeneficed may be added. At Canterbury,
where the records seem complete, the number was 68; in
Norfolk, 343. The registers elsewhere are mostly too
imperfect to allow of satisfactory estimates, but the general
conclusion is drawn that throughout the kingdom about
one in every five or six beneficed priests was deprived,
substantially all for marriage, and of these a certain pro-
portion succeeded in being reconciled and restored." It is
probable, therefore, that the list throughout England would
not exceed three thousand ; but this is sufficient to indicate
that the privilege of wedlock had been embraced with
considerable eagerness.
The proceedings in the case of John Turner, rector of
St. Leonard's, London, would seem to show that the
extremity of humiliation was inflicted on these unfor-
tunates. Cited on March 16 to answer to the charge of
being a married man, he confessed the accusation, and we
find him on March 19 condemned to lose his benefice and
be suspended from all priestly functions, to be divorced
from his wife, and to undergo such further punishment as
the canons required. The sentence of divorce soon fol-
lowed, and on May 14 he was obliged to do penance in his
late church in Eastcheap, holding a lighted candle in his
hand and solemnly declaring to the assembled congregation
—“Good people, I am come hither, at this present time,
1 Burnet II. 276; III. 225–6.-Frere, op. cit., pp. 47, 49, 53, 77, 78.
A specimen of the form of restitution subscribed by those who were restored on
profession of amendment and repentance has been preserved : “Whereas . . . I the
said Robert do now lament and bewail my life past, and the offence by me com-
mitted ; intending firmly by God’s grace hereafter to lead a pure, chaste, and con-
tinent life . . . and do here before my competent judge and ordinary most humbly
require absolution of and from all such censures and pains of the laws as by my
said offence and ungodly behaviour I have incurred and deserved: promising firmly
. . . never to return to the said Agnes Staunton as to my wife or concubine,” &c.—
(Wilkins IV. 104.)
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH 129
to declare unto you my sorrowful and penitent heart, for
that, being a priest, I have presumed to marry One Amy
German, widow ; and, under pretence of that matrimony,
contrary to the canons and custom of the Universal Church,
have kept her as my wife, and lived contrary to the canons
and ordinances of the Church, and to the evil example of
good Christian people; whereby now, being ashamed of
my former wicked living here, I ask Almighty God mercy
and forgiveness, and the whole Church, and am sorry and
penitent even from the bottom of my heart therefor.
And in token hereof, I am here, as you see, to declare and
show unto you my repentance: that before God, on the
latter day, you may testify with me of the same. And I
most heartily and humbly pray and desire you all, whom
by this evil example doing I have greatly offended, that for
your part you will forgive me, and remember me in your
prayers, that God may give me grace, that hereafter I may
live a continent life, according to His laws and the godly
ordinances of our mother the holy Catholic Church,
through and by His grace. And do here, before you all,
openly promise for to do during my life.”" Such scenes as
these were well calculated to produce the effect desired
upon the people, but we can only guess at the terrorism
which was requisite to force educated and respectable men
to submit to such degradation. **
All this was done by the royal authority wielding the
ecclesiastical power usurped by Henry VIII. Strictly
speaking, it was highly irregular and uncanonical, but as
the papal supremacy was yet in abeyance, it could not be
accomplished otherwise. At last, however, the kingdom
was ripe for reconciliation with Rome. In calling the
Parliament of 1554, the Queen issued a circular letter to
1 Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, Bk. III. chap. 8.—Nov. 14, 1554, we find a
record of four priests doing penance in white shirts and holding candles at Paul’s
Cross, London, while Harpsfield preached a sermon.—Strype's Eccles. Memor. III.
VOL. II. I
203.
130 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the sheriffs commanding them to admonish the people to
return members “of the wise, grave, and Catholic sort.”
Her wishes were fulfilled, and ere the year was out Car-
dinal Pole was installed with full legatine powers, and
Julius III. had issued his bull of indulgence, reuniting
England to the Church from which she had been violently
severed. An obedient Parliament lost no time in repeal-
ing all statutes adverse to the claims of the Holy See, but
its subserviency had limits, and one class largely inte-
rested in the reforms of Henry had sufficient influence to
maintain its heretical rights. The Church lands granted or
sold to laymen were not restored. Indeed, the Queen,
in her call for the Parliament, had felt it necessary to
contradict the rumour that she and Philip intended the
“alteration of any particular man's possessions.” Though
the transactions by which they had been acquired were
wholly illegal, though no duration of possession could bar
the imprescriptible rights of the Church, yet the nobles and
country gentlemen enriched by the spoliation were too
numerous and powerful, and the reclamation of the king-
dom was too important, to incur any peril by unseasonably
insisting on reparation for Henry's injustice. The abbatial
manors and rich priories, the chantries, hospitals, and
colleges, were therefore left in the impious hands of those
who had been fortunate enough to secure them,” and the
miserable remnants of the religious orders were left to the
conscience of the Queen, who made haste to get rid of
1 Parl. Hist. I. 616.
2 The bull is dated 24 December, 1554 (Wilkins IV. 111).—Parliament repealed
the attainder of Cardinal Pole, November 22, and on the 24th he arrived in London
as legate (Burnet II. 261–2).
8 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary c. 8 (Parl. Hist. I. 624). The title of the bill shows
that, though the Parliament was almost exclusively Catholic, it was disposed to
make its obedience to Rome the price for obtaining confirmation of the abbey lands
—“A Bill for repealing all statutes, articles, and provisoes made against the See
Apostolique of Rome, since the 20th of Henry VIII., and for the establishment
of all spiritual and ecclesiastical possessions and hereditaments conveyed to the
laity.”
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH I31
such fragments of the spoil as had been retained by the
Crown.” - tº
Whatever tacit understanding there may have been on
this delicate subject between Queen Mary and Pope
Julius was not assented to by the imperious Caraffa, who
shortly afterwards ascended the chair of St. Peter.
Elected 23 May, 1555, he lost no time in proclaiming the
imprescriptible rights of the Church, and by his bull “in-
junctum nobis,” issued June 21, he pronounced null and
void “de apostolicae potestatis plenitudine’’ all transactions
by which ecclesiastical possessions had passed into the
hands of laymen, who were duly threatened with excom-
munication for prolonged attempts to hold their un-
hallowed acquisitions.” The effort of course was fruitless,
but the spirit in which the English Protestants watched
the apparent opening of a breach between England and
Rome is well expressed in a letter of 23 August, 1555, from
Sir Richard Morrison to Henry Bullinger: “This anti-Paul,
Paul of the apostasy, the servant of the devil, this anti-
christ newly created at Rome, thinks it but a very small
plunder that is offered to him, that he is again permitted
in England to tyrannise over our consciences, unless the
revenues be restored to the monasteries, that is, the pig-
sties; the patrimony, as he calls it, of the souls that are
now serving in the filth of purgatory. Our ambassadors,
who went to Rome for the purpose of bringing back the
wolf upon the sheep of Christ, are now with the Emperor,
and bring us these demands of the chief pontiff: God
grant that he may urge them in every possible way.”
The hopes of the reformers, however, were disappointed,
for Paul IV. gave way, and on the reassembling of Parlia-
ment, 23 October, 1555, a bull was read by which the
1 2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 4 (Parl. Hist. pp. 626–8).
2 Mag. Bull. Roman. T. I. p. 809.
3 Original Letters, Parker Soc. Pub. p. 149.
132 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
Pope assented to the arrangement agreed to by Cardinal
Pole, confirming the Church lands to their new possessors."
Cardinal Pole, indeed, was not remiss in giving the
sanction of the papal authority to all that had been
done. Convoking a synod, he issued in 1555 his Lega-
tine Constitutions, by which all marriages of those included
in the prohibited orders were declared null and void. Such
apostates were ordered to be separated by ecclesiastical
censures and by whatever legal processes might be re-
quired ; all who dared to justify such marriages or to
remain obstinately in their unholy bonds were to be prose-
cuted rigorously and punished according to the ancient
canons, which were revived and declared to be in full force
in order to prevent similar scandals for the future.” As the
Queen by special warrant had decreed that all canons
adopted by synods should have the full effect of laws
binding on the clergy, these constitutions at once restored
matters to their pristine condition. It was doubtless in
order to mark in the most conspicuous manner his detesta-
tion of clerical marriage that Pole descended to the petti-
ness of ordering the body of Peter Martyr's wife to be dug
up from its resting-place, near the tomb of St. Frideswide
in Christ's Church, Oxford, and to be buried in a dung-
hill.”
It was easy to pass decrees; it was doubtless gratifying
to eject married priests by the thousand and to grant their
livings to hungry reactionaries or to the crowd of needy
1 Parl Hist. I. 626 ; II. 342.
2 Card. Poli Constit. Legat. Decret. v. (Wilkins IV. 800).
3 Strype's Parker, Book II. chap. vi. In 1561 the remains were exhumed from
the stables of Dr. Marshall, the previous dean of Christ's Church, and reburied in
the church, the precaution being taken of mingling them with the bones of St.
Frideswide, so as to prevent any future profanation in case of another revolution
of religion. The affair excited considerable attention at the time, and produced the
following epigram :
“Femineum sexum Romani semper amarunt :
Projiciunt corpus cur muliebre foras 7
Hoc situ quaeras, facilis responsio danda est:
Corpora non curant mortua, viva petunt.”
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH 188
Churchmen whom Italy had ever ready to supply the
spiritual wants and collect the tithes of the faithful. All
this was readily accomplished, but the difficulty lay in
overcoming the eternal instincts of human nature. The
struggle to effect this commenced at once.
It was, indeed, hardly to be expected that those who
had entered into matrimony with the full conviction of its
sanctity would willingly abandon all intercourse with their
wives, although they might yield a forced assent to the
pressure of the laws, the prospect of poverty, and the cer-
tainty of infamous punishment. Accordingly, we find that
the necessity at once arose of watching the “reconciled”
priests, who continued to do in secret what they could no
longer practise openly. Some, indeed, found the restric-
tions so onerous that they endeavoured to release them-
selves from the bonds of the Church rather than to submit
longer to the separation from their wives; and this appa-
rently threatened so great a dearth in the ranks of the
clergy that Cardinal Pole, as Archbishop of Canterbury,
in 1556 forbade the withdrawal of any one from the mys-
teries and functions of the altar, under pain of the law."
Notwithstanding all this legislation, royal, parliamen-
tary, and ecclesiastical, the question refused to settle
itself, and the Convocation which assembled on the 1st of
January 1557 was obliged to publish an elaborate series
of articles, which demonstrated that previous enactments
had either not been properly observed, or that they had
failed in effecting their purpose. Thus the prohibition of
marriage to those in priests’ orders was formally renewed.
Such of the married clergy, who had undergone penance
and had been restored, as still persisted in holding inter-
1 “That none of those priests that were, under the pretence of lawfull matri-
mony, married, and now reconciled, do privilie resorte to their pretensed wives, or
suffer the same to resorte unto them. And that those priests do in no wise hence-
forth withdrawe themselves from the mynisterie and office of priesthodde under
the paine of the lawes'—Pole's Injunctions in Diocese of Gloucester (Wilkins
IV. 146).
I34 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
course with their separated wives, were to be deprived
irrevocably of their office, and only to be admitted to
lay communion—thus reversing the policy of Cardinal
Pole's injunctions. As all priests who had been married
were obnoxious to the people, they were to be removed
from the priesthood; or at least, on account of the
scarcity of ministers, to act only as curates, and to be
incapable of holding benefices until a proper course of
penance should have washed away their sins. Even
then, in no case were they to officiate in the dioceses
wherein they had been married, but were to be removed
to a distance of at least sixty miles; and if detected in
any intercourse with their wives, they were to incur severe
punishment, a single interchange of words being sufficient
to call down the penalty. To ensure the observance of
these rules, all synods were directed to make special inquiry
into the lives of these unfortunates, who were thus to
exist under a perpetual surveillance, at the mercy of
inimical spies and informers.” This may, perhaps, be
considered a moderate expiation for men who, in those
days of fierce religious convictions, possessed that flexi-
bility of faith which enabled them to change their belief
with every dynastic accident.
If the rigid rules now introduced were successful in
nothing else, they at all events succeeded in restoring the
old troubles with the old canons. Denied the lawful
gratification of human instincts, the clergy immediately
returned to the habits which had acquired for them so
much odium in times past, and the rulers of the Church
at once found themselves embarked in the sempiternal
struggle with immorality in all its shapes and disguises.
1 Wilkins IV. 157. Thus in the visitation of the diocese of Lincoln, the vicar
of Spaldwick was presented for scandalising his flock by carrying in his arms his
child by a wife from whom he had been separated. At the same time a priest of
Caisho named Nix was subjected to penance for consorting with his former wife, but
was permitted to resume his functions.—Strype's Eccles. Memor. III. 293.
THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH I35
If the scandalous chronicles of the period be worthy of
credit, neither Gardiner nor Bonner, nor other active
promoters of the canons, were without the visible evidences
of the frailty of the flesh;" and though they were above
the reach of correction, the minor clergy were not so
fortunate. The Convocation of 1557, which issued the
stringent regulations just quoted, was also obliged to
promulgate articles concerning the residence of women
with priests, and the punishment of licentiousness, similar
to those which we have seen reproduced so regularly for
ten centuries. Cardinal Pole, too, in his visitation of the
same year, directed inquiries to be made on these points in
a manner which shows that they were existing and not
merely anticipated evils.”
Fortunately for the character of the Anglican clergy,
the reign of reaction was short. On 17 November, 1558,
Queen Mary closed her unhappy life, and Cardinal Pole
followed her within sixteen hours. The Marian persecu-
tion had been long enough and sharp enough to give to
heresy all the attractions of martyrdom, thus increasing
its fervour and enlarging its circle of earnest disciples; and
the sudden termination of that persecution, before it had
time to accomplish its work of extirpation, left the re-
formers more zealous and dangerous than ever. Heresy
had likewise been favoured by the discontent of the people
arising from the disastrous and expensive war with France,
which aided the improvident restoration of the Church
lands in impoverishing the exchequer and in rendering
necessary heavy subsidies from the nation, repaid only
by cruelty and misfortune. Dread of Spanish influence
also had a firm hold of the imagination of the masses,
while the Church itself was especially unpopular, as the
1 Strype's Eccles. Memor. III. 111–12.
2 Wilkins IV. 169.
I36 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
conviction was general that the ill-success of Mary's
administration was attributable to the control exercised by
ecclesiastics over the public affairs. Under such auspices
the royal power passed into the hands of a princess who,
though by nature leaning to the Catholic faith and dis-
posed to tread in the footsteps of her father, was yet
placed by the circumstances of her birth in implacable
hostility to Rome, and who held her throne only on the
tenure of waging eternal warfare with reaction. The
reformers felt that the doom of Catholicism was sealed.
Emerging from their hiding-places and hastening back
from exile, the religious refugees proceeded at once to
practise the rites of Edward VI. Elizabeth, however,
after ordering some changes in the Roman observances,
forbade, on December 27, all further innovations until
the meeting of Parliament, which was convoked for
23 January, 1559.
Parliament assembled on the appointed day, and sat
until May 8. It at once passed Acts resuming the eccle-
siastical crown lands and restoring the royal Supremacy in
ecclesiastical matters, and it repealed all of Mary's legisla-
tion concerning the power of the papacy. Several other
bills were adopted modifying the religion of the kingdom,
with a view of discovering some middle term which should
unite the people in a common form of belief and worship."
Anxious to avoid all extremes, it negatived the measures
introduced by the ardent friends of the Reformation, and
among the unsuccessful attempts was one which proposed
to restore all priests who had been deprived on account of
marriage. This, indeed, was laid aside by the special
command of the Queen herself.”
The question of clerical marriage was thus left in a most
perplexed and unsatisfactory condition. The Six Articles
1 1 Eliz. c. 1, 2, 4 (Parl. Hist. I. 646–76).
2 Burnet, II. 386–95.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I37
had been repealed by Edward VI., and had been virtually
revived by Mary; but Mary's efforts had been to restore
the independent jurisdiction of the Church, and she had
therefore not continued to regard the Six Articles as in
force, the canons of synods and the legatine constitutions
of Pole being the law of her ecclesiastical establishment.
This was now all swept away; a statute to fill the void
was refused, and men were left to draw their own deduc-
tions and act at their own peril. Elizabeth refused the
sanction of law to sacerdotal marriage, and would not
restore the deprived priests, yet she did not enforce any
prohibitory regulations, and even promoted many married
men. Dr. Parker, the religious adviser of Ann Boleyn,
who had left him in charge of her daughter's spiritual
education, was married, and one of Elizabeth's earliest
acts was to nominate him for the vacant primacy of
Canterbury, which after long resistance he was forced to
accept. The uncertainty of the situation and the anxiety
of those interested are well illustrated by a letter to Dr.
Parker, dated April 30, just before the rising of Parlia-
ment, from Dr. Sandys, afterwards Bishop of Worcester:
“The bill is in hand to restore men to their livings; how
it will speed I know not . . . Nihil est statutum de con-
jugio Sacerdotum, sed tanquam relictum in medio. Lever
was married now of late. The Queen's majesty will wink
at it, but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but
to bastard our children.” In this Dr. Sandys spoke
1 Parker's Correspondence, p. 66.-Sanders does not fail to make the most of
this refusal to legalise priestly marriage by Act of Parliament, and of the hesitation
which rendered the final decision a mere toleration and not an approval. “Clerus
enim in Anglia novus, partim ex apostatis nostris, partim ex hominibus
mere laicis factus, ut est valde spiritualis, primo quoque tempore de nuptiis cogi-
tabat ; multumque sategit, ut conjugia Episcoporum Canonicorum et cæterorum
ministorum legibus approbarentur ; sed obtineri non potuit, quia vel turpe
videbatur ministerio, vel reipublicae perniciosum. Edovardus quidem sextus
omnes canonicas et humanas prohibitiones circa clericorum aut etiam religiosorum
connubia lege comitiali seu parlamentaria sustulerat ; eam legem mox abrogavit
Maria, nunc restituendam ac renovandam clamitant isti, sed non exaudiuntur : omnes
tamen per totum fere regnum quia de dono [castitatis] (ut loquuntur) non sunt certi
I38 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
nothing but truth, and those who were married were
obliged formally to have their children legitimated, as
even Dr. Parker found it necessary to do this in the case
of his son Matthew.” -
At length Elizabeth made up her mind, and in the
exercise of her royal supremacy she asked for no Act of
Parliament to confirm her decree. Archbishop Parker
has the credit of being the most efficient agent in over-
coming her repugnance to the measure, and the ungracious
manner in which she finally accorded the permission shows
how strong were the prejudices which he had to encounter.
In June 1559 she issued a series of “Injunctions to the
Clergy and Laity” which restored the national religion to
nearly the same position as that adopted by Edward VI.,
and it is curious to observe that when she comes to speak
of sacerdotal matrimony she carefully avoids the responsi-
bility of sanctioning it herself, but assumes that the law of
Edward is still in force. All that she does, therefore, is
to surround it with such limitations and restrictions as
shall prevent its abuse, and although this form had perhaps
the advantage of establishing the legality of all pre-
existing marriages, yet the regulations promulgated were
degrading in the highest degree, and the reason assigned
for permitting it could only be regarded as affixing a
stigma on every pastor who confessed the weakness of
his flesh by seeking a wife.”
non secundum leges, sed secundum indulgentiam ; vel (ut illi dicunt) secundum
scripturas, sed ad libidinem suam compositas, ineunt prima, secunda, vel etiam
tertia conjugia, contra canones et morem non solum Latinorum sedetiam Graecorum;
et prole ita abundant, ut ad illam sustentandam opibusque augendam, et populus
supra modum gravetur, et ipsi misere beneficia sua expilent.”—(De Schismate
Anglicano, Lib. III. Ingoldstatii, 1586, p. 299.)
1 Strype's Annals, I. 81.
* Royal Injunctions of 1559, Art. XXXIX. “Although there be no prohibition by
the word of God, nor any example of the primitive Church, but that the priests and
ministers of the Church may lawfully, for the avoiding of fornication, have an honest
and sober wife, and that for the same purpose the same was by Act of Parliament in
the time of our dear brother King Edward the Sixth made lawful, whereupon a
great number of the clergy of this realm were married and so continue; yet, because
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I39
From the temper of these regulations it is manifest
that if Elizabeth yielded to the advice of her counsellors
and to the pressure of the times, she did not give up her
private convictions or prejudices, and that she desired to
make the marriage of her clergy as unpopular and dis-
agreeable as possible. It was probably for the purpose of
meeting her objections that the order for a return of the
clergy, issued by Archbishop Parker, 1 October, 1561,
contained in the blanks issued the unusual entry classify-
ing them as married or unmarried," and Strype informs us
that in the Archdeaconry of London the returns show
the ministry for the most part to have been filled with
married men.” Even the haughty spirit of the Tudor
thus could not restrain the progress which had now fairly
set in. Those around her who controlled the public affairs
were all committed to the Reformation, and were resolved
that every point gained should be made secure. When,
there hath grown offence and some slander to the Church, by lack of discreet and
sober behaviour in many ministers of the Church, both in Chusing of their wives and
undiscreet living with them, the remedy whereof is necessary to be sought ; it is
thought therefore very necessary that no manner of priest or deacon shall hereafter
take to his wife any manner of woman without the advice and allowance first had
upon good examination by the bishop of the same diocese and two justices of the
peace of the same shire dwelling next to the place where the same woman hath made
her most abode before her marriage ; nor without the goodwill of the parents of the
said woman if she have any living, or two of the next of her kinsfolks, or for lack of
the knowledge of such, of her master or mistress where she serveth. And before she
shall be contracted in any place, he shall make a good and certain proof thereof to
the minister or to the congregation assembled for that purpose, which shall be upon
some holyday where divers may be present. And if any shall do otherwise, that
then they shall not be permitted to minister either the word or the sacraments of
the Church, nor shall be capable of any ecclesiastical benefice. And for the mar-
riages of any bishops, the same shall be allowed and approved by the metropolitan
of the province and also by such commissioners as the Queen’s Majesty thereunto
shall appoint. And if any master or dean or any head of any college shall purpose
to marry, the same shall not be allowed but by such to whom the visitation of the
same doth properly belong, who shall in any wise provide that the same turn not to
the hindrance of their house.”—(Wilkins IV. 186.)
See also a letter of Theodore Beza, Zurich Letters, p. 247 (Parker Soc. Publica-
tions).
1 Cardwell’s Documentary Annals, I. 309. .
2 Strype's Parker, Book II. chap. v.–In 1569 the returns for the Archdeaconry of
Canterbury show 135 married clergymen to 34 licensed preachers, and there is no
mention of any unmarried men (Ibid. III. xxiv.).
I40 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
therefore, in 1563, there was published a recension of the
Forty-two Articles issued by Edward VI. in 1552, result-
ing in the well-known Thirty-nine Articles of the Church
of England, care was taken that the one relating to the
liberty of marriage should be made more emphatic than
before. Not content with the simple proposition of the
original that “Bishops, priests, and deacons are not
commanded by God’s law either to vow the estate of a
single life, or to abstain from marriage,” the emphatic
corollary was added, “Therefore it is lawful for them as
for all other Christian men to marry at their own dis-
cretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to
godliness” —such as we find it preserved to the present
day. This specific declaration in a special article marks
the necessity which was felt to place the matter beyond
controversy, as a rule of practice. The articles on justi-
fication and works of supererogation (Arts xi. and xix.)
would have sufficed, so far as principle was concerned.
This was not an empty form. Not only the right to
marry at their own discretion, thus expressly declared,
did much to relieve them from the degrading conditions
laid down by the Queen, but the revival and strengthening
of the article marked a victory gained over the reaction.
When in 1559 the Queen appointed a commission to
visit all the churches of England and enforce compliance
with the order of things then existing, the articles pre-
pared for its guidance enjoin no investigation into opinions
respecting priestly marriage, showing that to be an open
question, concerning which every man might hold his
private belief.” After the adoption of the Thirty-nine
Articles, however, this latitude was no longer allowed. In
1 In the English version, as given by Burnet (Vol. II. Append. 217), there are 42
articles, of which this is the 31st. In the Latin edition (Wilkins IV. 236), there are
but 39 articles, this being the 32nd, which is the arrangement according to the
standard of the Anglican Church.
* Wilkins IV. 189–91. –This commission was the commencement of the Court of
High Commission, which played so lamentable a part in the troubles of the succeeding
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH 141
1567 Archbishop Parker's articles of instruction for the
visitation of that year enumerate, among the heretical
doctrines to be inquired after, the assertion that the Word
of God commands abstinence from marriage on the part
of ministers of the Church." As we shall see, it was about
the same time that the Council of Trent likewise erected
the question of clerical marriage into a point of belief.
Yet Elizabeth never overcame her repugnance to the
marriage of the clergy, nor is it, perhaps, to be wondered
at when we consider the contempt in which she held the
Church of which she was the head,” and her general aversion
from sanctioning in others the matrimony which she was
herself always toying with and never contracting. When
she made her favourites of both sexes suffer for any legalised
indiscretions of the kind, it is scarcely surprising that she
always looked with disfavour on those of the clergy who
availed themselves of the privilege which circumstances
had extorted from her, and which she would fain have
withheld. When Archbishop Parker ventured to remon-
strate with her on her popish tendencies, she sharply told
him that “she repented of having made any married
bishops.” This was a cutting rejoinder, but even more
pointed was the insolence from which his life-long services
could not protect his wife. The first time the Queen
visited the archiepiscopal palace, on her departure she
turned to thank Mrs. Parker: “And you—madam I
may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to call you, so I
reigns. The result of its visitation in 1559 shows how little real conviction
existed among the clergy who had been exposed to the capricious persecutions of
alternating rulers. Out of 9400 beneficiaries in England under Mary, but 14 bishops,
6 abbots, 12 deans, 12 archdeacons, 15 heads of colleges, 50 prebendaries, and 80
rectors of parishes had abandoned their preferment on account of Protestantism
(Burnet Vol. II. Append. 217), and of these it is fair to assume that the higher dig"
nitaries at least had not been allowed to retain their positions.
1 Wilkins IV. 253.−Strype's Parker, App. liii.
2 In 1576 she declared to Grindal, then Archbishop of Canterbury, “that it was
good for the Church to have few preachers, and that three or four might suffice for a
county; and that the reading of the Homilies to the people was enough.”—Strype's
Life of Grindal, p. 221,–See also Strype's Parker, Book II. chap. xx.
I42 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
know not what to call you—but, howsoever, I thank you.”
So, in Ipswich, in August 1561, she found great fault with
the marriage of the clergy, and especially with the number
of wives and children in cathedrals and colleges—a feeling
possibly justified by occasional disorders not unlikely to
occur. In 1563 we find Sir John Bourne complaining to
the Privy Council that the Dean and Chapter of Worcester
had broken up the large organ, the pride of the cathedral,
which had cost £200; the metal pipes whereof were melted
into dishes and divided among the wives of the prebendaries,
and the case used to make bedsteads for them ; the copes
and ornaments, he added, would likewise have been dis-
tributed had not some of the unmarried men prevented it,
“ and as by their Habit and Apparel you might know the
Priests wives, and by their Gate in the Market and the
Streets from an hundred other Women : so in the Con-
gregation and Cathedral Church they were easy to be
known by placing themselves above all other of the most
ancient and honest Calling of the said City.” “ There was
no lack of persons to pour such stories into the Queen's ear,
and, with her well-known tendencies, it is no wonder that
her counsellors found it difficult to restrain her to the
simple order which she issued from Ipswich, declaring
“that no manner of person, being either the head or
member of any college or cathedral church within this
realm, shall, from the time of the notification hereof in the
same college, have, or be permitted to have, within the
precinct of any such college, his wife, or other woman,
to abide and dwell in the same, or to frequent and haunt
any lodging within the same college, upon pain that who-
soever shall do to the contrary shall forfeit all ecclesiastical
promotions in any cathedral or collegiate church within
the realm.” Burghley, in sending this royal mandate to
1 Strickland, Life of Queen Elizabeth, chap. Iv.
2 Strype's Annals, I. 364–5.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I43
Parker, remarks, “Her Majesty continueth very evil
affected to the state of matrimony in the clergy. And if
[I] were not therein very stiff, her Majesty would openly
and utterly condemn and forbid it. In the end, for her
satisfaction, this injunction now sent to your Grace is
devised. The good order thereof shall do no harm.
I have devised to send it in this sort to your Grace for
your province; and to the Archbishop of York for his ;
so as it shall not be promulgated to be popular.” “ It is
doubtless to this occurrence that we may attribute the last
relic of clerical celibacy enforced among Protestants, that
of the fellows of the English universities.
This injunction of Queen Elizabeth caused no little
excitement. Though Burghley had prudently endeavoured
to prevent its becoming “popular,” yet Cox, Bishop of
Ely, in remonstrating against its cruelty to those whom it
affected in his cathedral seat, shows that it was speedily
known to all men, and that it gave exceeding comfort to
the reactionaries: “What rejoicing and jeering the adver-
saries make How the godly ministers are discouraged, I
will pass over.”” In the universities, where crowds of
young men were collected, there might be some colourable
excuse for the regulation, but in the splendid and spacious
buildings connected with the cathedrals some milder
remedy might easily have been found, and the mandate
was particularly unpalatable to married bishops, Parker
himself, who was individually interested in the matter,
made a personal appeal to the Queen, the result of which
was to wound him deeply, as well as to show him how
extreme were her prejudices on the subject. He pours
forth his feelings in a letter to Burghley describing the
interview : “I was in an horror to hear such words to
come from her mild nature and Christianly learned con-
* Parker's Correspondence, pp. 146–8.
2 Ibid. p. 152.
144 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
science, as she spake of God's holy ordinance and institution
of matrimony. I marvel that our states in that behalf
cannot please her Highness, which we doubt nothing at all
to please God's sacred Majesty.” He deplores the effect
which it must produce on the people: “We alone of our
time openly brought in hatred, shamed and traduced before
the malicious and ignorant people, as beasts without know-
ledge to Godward, in using this liberty of his word, as men
of effrenate intemperency, without discretion or any godly
disposition worthy to serve in our state. Insomuch that
the Queen's Highness expressed to me a repentance that
we were thus appointed in office, wishing it had been
otherwise.” The interview had evidently been stormy,
and Parker had been made to feel the full force of Eliza-
beth's perverseness—“I have neither joy of house, land, or
name, so abased by my natural sovereign good lady, for
whose service and honour I would not think it cost to
spend my life’—and he even goes so far as to threaten
resistance: “I would be sorry that the clergy should have
cause to show disobedience, with oportet Deo obedire magis
quam hominibus. And what instillers soever there be,
there be enough of this contemned flock which will not
shrink to offer their blood to the defence of Christ's verity,
if it be either openly impugned or secretly suggilled.”
Evidently, before Parker could have been driven to such
scarcely covered threats, there must have been an intima-
tion by the angry Queen that she would recall the permis-
sion to marry, which, in the existing state of the law, she
could readily have done.
The same spirit which rendered the marriage of a pastor
dependent on the approbation of the neighbouring squires
caused the retention of ancient rules, which prove the
profound distrust still entertained as to the discretion
and morality of the clergy, and the difficulty with which
1 Parker’s Correspondence, pp. 156–8.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH 145
the Anglican Church threw off the traditions of Catholicism.
Thus, even in 1571, Grindal, Archbishop of York, pro-
mulgates a modification of the canon of Nicaea, forbid-
ding the residence with unmarried ministers of women
under the age of sixty, except relatives closely connected
by blood." Indeed, in some remote corners of the kingdom
the old licence was kept up. Archbishop Parker, about
the year 1565, in speaking of the diocese of Bangor, states:
“I hear that diocese to be much out of order, both having
no preaching there and pensionary concubinary openly
continued, notwithstanding liberty of marriage granted.”
It evidently required time to accustom the clergy to the
substitution of the new privileges for the old.
Although sacerdotal marriage was now fully sanctioned
by the organic canon law of the Church, yet it was still
exposed to serious impediments of a worldly character.
When thus frowned upon by her who was in reality, if not
in name, supreme head of the Church ; when the wife of
the primate himself could be exposed to such indelible
impertinence; when the marriage of every unfortunate
parson was subjected to degrading conditions, and when it
was assumed that his bride must be a woman at service,
the influences affecting the matrimonial alliances of the
clergy must have been of the worst description. The
higherclasses of society would naturally model their opinions
on those of the sovereign, while the lower orders had not
as yet shaken off the prejudices in favour of celibacy
implanted in them by the custom of centuries. Making
due allowance for polemical bitterness, there is therefore
no doubt much truth in the sarcastic account which
Sanders gives of the wives of the Elizabethan clergy.
Taking advantage of the refusal of Parliament to formally
legalise such marriages—a refusal which could not but
1 Wilkins IV. 269.
2 Parker's Correspondence, p. 259.
VOL. II, K
146 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
greatly affect the minds of the people-he assumes that the
wives were concubines and the children illegitimate in the
eyes of the law ; consequently decent women refused to
undergo the obloquy attached to a union with a minister
of the Church, who was therefore forced to take as his
spouse any one who would consent to accept him. The
wives of prelates were ostracised; not received at court,
and sharing in no way the dignities of their husbands, they
were kept closely at home for the mere gratification of
animal passion. The members of universities had been
wholly unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain the same
licence, which was only granted to the heads of colleges.
under condition that their wives should reside elsewhere,
and should rarely pollute with their presence the learned
precincts.º s
i Qui autem istis darent filias suas, ne protestantes quidem fere inveniebantur,
nedum Catholici: primum quia existimant id esse per se infame, ut sint vel dicantur
uxores presbyterorum. Secundo, quia juxta leges regni non sunt adhuc vera sed
adulterina conjugia, ac proinde proles illegitima. Tertio quia non accrescit his
uxoribus aut liberis suis ex maritorum loco aut honore in Republica ulla dignitas aut
existimatio, quod est contra naturamveri matrimonii. Non enim Archiepiscopus, Epis-
copus, aliusve hodie praelatusin Anglia si sit conjugatus, tribuit quicquam exeo honoris
vel praeeminentia uxori suae, non magis quam si esset ejus tantum concubina. Hinc
sit ut nec eas Elizabetha in aulam, nec principum uxores in consortium ullo modo
admittant, ne Archiepiscoporum quidem vocatas conjuges; sed debent eas mariti
domi continere, provasis tantem libidinis aut necessitatis suae. Quae istis ergo con-
ditionibus, ve summis praelatis conjungerentur, cum honestiores paucae aut nulla
reperiebantur, quas poterant habere accipere fuit necesse. Sed et aliis modis
utcumque istorum hominum cupiditati per magistratum civilem impositum est
fraenum. Nam et Collegiorum alumni qui in Anglicanis universitatibus admodum
multi erant, otioque ac saturitate panis abundabant, ac admodum provecti aetate
erant, cupiebant et ipsi habere uxores; sed videbatur inconveniens, et id privilegii
Collegiorum tantum Rectoribus concessum est, cum hac tamen exceptione, ut con-
juges seorsim plerumque extra Collegia constituant, rariusque eas intromittant. –De
Schismate Anglicano Lib. III. (Ingoldstat. 1586, p. 300.)
See also Florimund. Raemund. Histor. Memoral. Lib. VI. cap. Xii.
Of course, much allowance must be made for the statements of so keen a partisan
as Sanders, and one who had suffered so much from those whom he satirised ; yet he
was a man of too much shrewdness to make statements which his contemporaries
could recognise as entirely destitute of foundation.
Even to this day the position of the wives of the Anglican prelates is made a
subject of ridicule by Catholic polemics. A recent Italian tract entitled “Il Celibato
del sacerdozio Cattolico” remarks: “Osservate piuttosto le mogli de vescovi e degli
arcivescovi Anglicani, tenute esse in conto di concubine non hanno posto alcuno
nella civile società.”–Panzini, Confessione di un Prigioniero, p. 472.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH 147
The accuracy of this sarcastic description is confirmed
by a statement made by Percival Wiburn for the benefit
of his friends in Zurich, subsequent to the adoption of the
Thirty-nine Articles. He asserts that “The marriage of
priests was counted unlawful in the times of Queen Mary,
and was also forbidden by a public statute of the realm,
which is also in force at this day; although by permission
of Queen Elizabeth clergymen may have their wives, pro-
vided only they marry by the advice and assent of the
bishop and two justices of the peace, as they call them.
The lords bishops are forbidden to have their wives with
them in their palaces; as are also the deans, canons,
presbyters, and other ministers of the Church, within
colleges, or the precincts of cathedral churches.” It is
not a little curious, indeed, to observe that, in spite of the
formal declaration in the Thirty-nine Articles, the absence
of a special Act of Parliament long caused the question to
remain a doubtful one in the public mind. As late as
July 1566, Lawrence Humphrey and Thomas Sampson,
two zealous Protestants, in denouncing “some straws and
chips of the popish religion " which still defaced the
Anglican Church, state that “the marriage of the clergy is
now allowed and sanctioned by the public laws of the
kingdom, but their children are by some persons regarded
as illegitimate ’’; in answer to which, Bishops Grindal and
Horn rejoined that “the wives of the clergy are not
separated from their husbands, and their marriage is
esteemed honourable by all, the papists always excepted.”
The matter evidently was still regarded as a subjeet of
controversy, not yet decided beyond appeal; and the
experience of the previous quarter of a century had
accustomed men to too many vicissitudes for them to feel
Zurich Letters, Second Series, p. 359 (Parker Society, 1845). Wiburn was de-
prived for non-conformity in 1564, so that this must have been written subsequently
(Strype's Life of Grindal, p. 98).
2 Zurich Letters, First Series, pp. 164, 179.
I48 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
safe with so slender a guarantee as the Articles afforded.
The Catholics still constituted a very large proportion of
the population, and they scarcely concealed their feelings
towards the innovation. When Sir John Bourne quarrelled
with Dr. Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, among the formal
articles of accusation which he presented to the Privy
Council was the assertion that the Bishop in a sermon had
ridiculed celibacy and had decried the virtue of unmarried
priests." The knight apparently believed that this would
be damaging to the bishop, and the latter seems likewise
to have thought so, for in his answer he emphatically
denied it, retorting that his adversary was a papist who had
Mass celebrated in his house and who was in the habit of
applying the most opprobrious epithets to the wives of
priests.” So when in 1569 the Catholics of the North rose
in insurrection under the Earls of Westmoreland and
Northumberland, one of the grievances of which they com-
plained was the marriage of the ministers of Christ.” During
the whole of this transition period the question was evidently
one which occupied largely the public mind, and in the
diversity of opinion it was not easy to see what the ultimate
1 “That, concerning Virginity and the Single Life, he handled the case so finely
that to his thinking, if he should have believed him, he could not find three good
Virgins since Christ's time. And that so he left the Matter with an Exhortation to
all to Mary, Mary. Further, That he said in that Sermon that single-living Men,
that is to say unmaried, and especially unmaried priests, lived naught. And that
there in that City were lately presented five or six unmaried priests that kept five or
six whores apiece; though there were not above four unmaried priests in the City in
all.”—Strype's Annals, I. 349.
2 “Where he alledgeth that he never called Priests Wives Whores, it is untrue.
For three Women going through his Park, wherein is a path for footmen, he sup-
posing they had been Priests Wives called unto them, Ye shall not come through my
Park and no such Priests Whores.”—Ibid. p. 358.
3 See a tract published against the rebels, attributed by Strype to Sir Thomas
Smith, which ridicules the advocates of celibacy with a vigour reminding us of the
Beggars' Petition.—“This is a quarrel wholly like the old Rebels Complaint of En-
closing of Commons. Many of your Disordered and evil disposed Wives are much
agrieved that Priests, which were wont to be Common be now made Several. Hinc
illoe lachrymae. There is Grief indeed, and Truth it is, and so shall you find it.
Few Women storm against the marriage of priests, calling it unlawful and incensing
Men against it, but such as have been Priests Harlots or fain would be. Content
your Wives yourselves and let Priests have their own,”—Strype's Annals, I. 558.
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH I49
decision might be. When an irrevocable step such as
marriage was legal only during the pleasure of a capricious
woman, whose assent was known to have been extorted
from her, it is no wonder that it should be looked upon
with disfavour by all prudent relatives of women inclined
to venture on it.
Such a state of feeling could not but react most injuri-
ously on the character of the great body of the clergy.
It deprived them of the respect due to their sacred calling,
and consequently reduced them to the level of such scant
respect as was accorded to them. How long this lasted,
and how materially it degraded the ministers of Christ as
a body, cannot be questioned by any one who recalls the
description of the rural clergy in the brilliant third chapter
of Macaulay's History of England. In 1686 an author
complains that the rector is an object of contempt and
ridicule for all above the rank of the neighbouring peasants;
that gentle blood would be held polluted by any connec-
tion with the Church, and that girls of good family were
taught with equal earnestness not to marry clergymen, nor
to sacrifice their reputation by amorous indiscretions—
two misfortunes which were commonly regarded as equal."
Thus eagerly accepted and grudgingly bestowed, the
privilege of marriage established itself in the Church of
England by connivance rather than as a right; and the
evil influences of the prejudices thus fostered were not
extinguished for generations.
1 A causidico, medicastra, ipsaque artificum farragine, ecclesiae rector aut
vicarius contemnitur et fit ludibrio. Gentis et familiae nitor sacris ordinibus pol-
lutus censetur: foeminisque natalitio insignibus unicum inculcatur saepius praecep-
tum, ne modestiae naufragium faciant, aut (quod idem auribus tam delicatulis
sonat) ne clerico se nuptas dari patiantur.—T. Wood, Angliae Notitia (Macaulay’s
Hist. Engl. Chap. III.).
Lord Macaulay attributes the degraded position of the clergy to their indigence
and want of influence. These causes doubtless had their effect, but the peculiar
repugnance towards clerical marriage ascribed to all respectable women had a deeper
origin than simply the beggarly stipends attached to the majority of English livings.
~.
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CHAPTER XXVII
CALVINISM
IN the easy toleration which preceded the Reformation,
Luther's precursor, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, in 1512
published his Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles.
The work was a significant portent of the era about to
open. For the first time the traditional scholastic exe-
gesis was cast aside for a treatment in which tradition was
rejected and independent judgment was exercised as a
matter of right. As in so much else, the full import of
this was not recognised until the Lutheran revolt showed
the necessity of strict adherence to the ancient ways and of
shackling human thought with additional rigour. It was
not until after Luther's condemnation by the Sorbonne,
in 1521, that the Commentaries were censured and twenty-
five heretical errors were discovered in them ; even then
the favour of Francis I. protected their author from the
prosecution commenced against him in 1528. Many a
hardy thinker had been burnt for less. Lefèvre denied
justification by either faith or works, for God alone
justifies; religious Orders only awaken pride and imperil
Christian love—it would be better that there were none,
but, while they exist, monks should work with their hands,
as did the apostles; confession and forgiveness of sins
were originally mutual between brethren—the modern
custom is due to the absence of faith, but Christ may
accept it ; celibacy in itself is better than marriage, but
priests and deacons were permitted to marry until the
sy ºr *** *
.2.
CALVINISM = }. 4ae ºf:
the apostolic custom of marriage, while–the other-Churches
adopted celibacy, whereby many, through-ineontinence,
fall into the snares of the devil.”
"The seed thus scattered fell into fruitful soil, and
as early as 1525, Clement VII., in a brief addressed to
the Regent Louise of Savoy, enumerates among the
“Lutheran’ errors spreading through France the stigma-
tising of the canons enjoining clerical celibacy as Satanic.”
By the time when Jean Calvin formulated the system of
theology which bears his name, sacerdotal marriage had
thus everywhere become recognised as one of the inevit-
able incidents of the revolt against Rome, and that the
French Huguenots should accept it was therefore a matter
of course.
Calvin himself manifested his contempt for all the
ancient prejudices by marrying, in 1539, Idelette de Bure,
the widow of the Anabaptist Jean Stordeur, whom he
had converted.” The Huguenot Confession of Faith was
drawn up by him, and was adopted by the first national
synod, held at Paris in 1559. Of course the Genevan
views of justification swept away all the accumulated
observances of sacerdotalism, and ascetic celibacy shared
the fate of the rest." The discipline of the Calvinist
1 Karl Heinrich Graf, Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, pp. 37, 45, 46, 48, 165–7
(Strassburg, 1842).
2 Clement PP. VII. Breve Cwm ad nihil (Isambert. Anciennes Loix Françaises,
XII. 233).
3 Rahlenbeck, L'Eglise de Liége, p. 49. The stern and self-centred soul which
won for Idelette the hand of Calvin was unshaken to the last, as may be seen by
his curious account of her death-bed, in a letter to Farel (Calvini Epistolae, p. 111.
Genevae, 1617). His grief was doubtless sincere, but his friends were able to com-
pliment him on his not allowing domestic affliction to interfere with his customary
routine of labour (Ibid. p. 116).
4 I have not access to the original, but quote the following from Quick’s
“Synodicon in Gallia Reformata,” London, 1692—" Art. XXIV. . . . We do also
reject those means which men presumed they had, whereby they might be redeemed
before God ; for they derogate from the satisfaction of the Death and Passion of
Jesus Christ. Finally, We hold Purgatory to be none other than a cheat, which came
out of the same shop : from which also proceeded monastical vows, pilgrimages,
prohibition of marriage and the use of meats a ceremonious observation of days
I52 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
|Church with regard to the morality of its ministers was
necessarily severe. The peculiar purity expected of a
pastor's household was shown by the rule which enjoined
any Church officer whose wife was convicted of adultery to
dismiss her absolutely, under pain of deposition, while
laymen, under such circumstances, were exhorted to be
reconciled to their guilty partners." Any lapse from
virtue on the part of a minister was visited with peremp-
tory deposition; * nor was this a mere idle threat, such as
were too many of the innumerable decrees of the Catholic
councils quoted above, for the proceedings of various
synods show that it was carried sternly into execution.
A list of such vagrant and deposed ministers was even
kept and published to the churches, with personal descrip-
tions of the individuals, that they might not be able to
impose on the unwary. Indeed, the national synod of|
Lyons, in 1563, went so far as to punish those ministers
who brought contempt upon the Church by unfitting
marriages ; * and, though this was omitted from the final
code of discipline, it shows the exceeding strietness with
which the internal economy of the ecclesiastical establish-
"ment of the Huguenots was regulated.
The relations of the Catholic Church with its apostates
were somewhat confused, and they varied with the political
exigencies of the situation. Ecclesiastics who left the
Catholic communion did not hesitate to enter into matri-
mony; * and when the desolation of civil war rendered
auricular confession, indulgences, and all other such matters, by which Grace and
Salvation may be supposed to be deserved. Which things we reject, not only for
the false opinion of merit which was affixed to them, but also because they
are the inventions of men, and are a yoke laid by their sole authority upon con-
science" (Quick, I. xi.).—See also the Confession written by Calvin in 1562, to
be laid before the Emperor Ferdinand (Calvini Epist. pp. 564–66).
1 Discip. Chap. XIII. can. xxviii. (Quick, I. iii.)
2 Ibid. Chap. I. can. xlvii.
3 Chap. IV. Art. xii., Chap. XVI, Art. xiv. (Quick, I. 32, 38.)
4 Prelates of high position were not wanting to the list of married men.
Carracioli, Bishop of Troyes, and Spifame, Bishop of Nevers, were of the number.
Jean de Monluc, Bishop of Valence (brother of the celebrated Marshal Blaise de
t’
#
* *
-$
CALVINISM I53
a forced tolerance of the new religion necessary, their
position was a source of considerable debate, varying with
the fluctuations of the tangled politics of the time. The
Edict of Pacification of Amboise, in March 1562, was
held by the Huguenots to legalise the marriages of these
apostates, but the explanatory declaration of August 1568
ordered their reclamation by the Church under pain of
exile. When the Spanish alliance gave fresh assurances
of triumph to the Catholics this was enforced with increased
severity. The Edict of Roussillon, in 1564, commands
that all priests, monks, and nuns who had abandoned their
profession and entered into matrimony shall sunder their
unhallowed bonds and return to their duties. Recalci-
trants were required to leave the kingdom within two
months, under pain, in the case of men, of condemnation
to the galleys for life, and in that of women, of perpetual
imprisonment." As most of the Calvinist ministers neces-
sarily belonged to the class thus assailed, the effect of this
legislation in stimulating the troubles of the kingdom can
readily be perceived. *
The dismal strife of the succeeding ten years at length
showed that, in spite of the Tridentine canons, the tolera-
tion of this iniquity was a necessity. Thus in the Edicts
of Pacification issued by Henry III. in 1576 and 1577
there is a provision which admits as valid the marriages
theretofore contracted by all priests or religious persons of
either sex. The issue of such unions was declared com-
petent to inherit the personalty of the parents and such
Monluc, whose cruelties to the Huguenots were so notorious), married without
openly apostatising, and died in the Catholic faith. Cardinal Odet de Châtillon,
Bishop of Beauvais, and brother of the Admiral, became a declared Calvinist,
married; Mlle. de Hauteville, and called himself Comte de Beauvais. He seems to
have retained his benefices, and was still called by the Catholics M. le Cardinal
“Car il nous estoit fort à coeur,” says Brantôme (Discours 48), “ de luy changer le
nom qui luy avoit esté si bien seant.”
1 Edit de Roussillon, Art. 7 (Isambert XV. 172). This edict was cited in
the proceedings of the case of Dumonteil, about the year 1830, of which more
hereafter.
154 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
realty as either parent might have acquired, but was
incapable of other inheritance, direct or collateral.”
The Church was obliged to submit to this temporising
tolerance of evil, and condescended to entreaty since force
was no longer permitted. In 1581 the Council of Rouen,
while deploring the number of monks and nuns who had left
their convents, apostatised, and married, directs that they
shall be tempted back, treated with kindness, and pardon be
sought for them from the Holy See.” In the final settle-
ment of the religious troubles, the concessions made by
Henry III. were renewed and somewhat amplified by the
Edict of Nantes in 1598.” When the reaction came,
however, these provisions were held to be only retro-
spective in their action, and were not admitted as legalising
subsequent marriages. Thus in 1628 a knight of Malta,
in 1630 a nun, and in 1640 a priest of Nevers, who had
embraced Calvinism, ventured on matrimony, but were
separated from their spouses and the marriages were
pronounced null.” These decisions were based on the
principle that the celibacy of ecclesiastics was prescribed
by municipal as well as by canon law, and that a priest in
abjuring his religion did not escape from the obligations
imposed upon him by the laws of the kingdom."
In Scotland, as in France, the question of sacerdotal
marriage may be considered as having virtually been
settled in advance. Lollardry had not been confined to
the southern portion of Great Britain. It had penetrated
1 Edit de 1576, Art. 9.--Edit de Poitiers, Art. Secrets, No. 8 (Isambert, T. XV.
pp. 283, 331).
2 Concil Rotomag. ann. 1581 cap. de Monasteriis $ 32 (Harduin. X. 1253).
3 Edit de Nantes, Art. Secrets, No. 39 (Isambert, T. XVI. p. 206).
4 Grégoire, Hist. du Mariage des Prêtres en France, pp. 58–9.
5 A decision rendered on the argument of the distinguished avocat-général Omer
Talon expressly states “que la prohibition du mariage des personnes constituées
dans les ordres etant une loi de l’Etat aussi bien que de l'Eglise, un prêtre malgré
sa profession de Calvinisme, était demeuré sujet aux lois de l’Etat, et dês lors n’avait
pas pu valablement contracter mariage.”—Bouhier de l’Ecluse, de l’Etat des Prêtres
en France, Paris, 1842, p. 12.
CALVINISM 155
into Scotland, and had received the countenance of those
whose position and influence were well calculated to aid in
its dissemination among the people. In 1494, thirty of
these heretics, known as “the Lollards of Kyle,” were
prosecuted before James IV. by Robert Blacater, Arch-
bishop of Glasgow. Their station may be estimated from
the fact that they escaped the punishment due to their
sins by the favour of the monarch, “for divers of them
were his great familiars.” The thirty-four articles of
accusation brought against them are mostly Wickliffite in
tendency, and their views on the question of celibacy are
manifested in the twenty-second article, which accuses
them of asserting “That Priests may have wives according
to the constitution of the Law and of the Primitive
Christian Church.””
The soil was thus ready for the plough of the Reforma-
tion; while the temper of the Scottish race gave warrant
that when the mighty movement should reach them, it
would be marked by that stern and uncompromising spirit
which alone could satisfy conscientious and fiery bigots,
who would regard all half-measures as pacts with Satan.
Nor was there lacking ample cause to excite in the minds
of all men the desire for a sweeping and effectual reform.
Corruption had extended through every fibre of the Scot-
tish Church as all-pervading as that which we have traced
throughout the rest of Christendom.
Not long after the year 1530, and before the new heresy
had obtained a foothold, William Arith, a Dominican,
ventured to assail the vices of his fellow churchmen. In
a sermon preached at St. Andrews, with the approbation
of the heads of the universities, he alluded to the false
miracles with which the people were deceived, and the
abuses practised at shrines to which credulous devotion
was invited. “As of late dayes,” he proceeded, “our Lady
1 Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland, p. 3 (ed. 1609).
I56 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of Karsgreng hath hopped from one green hillock to
another: But, honest men of St. Andrewes, if ye love your
wives and daughters, hold them at home, or else send them
in good honest company; for if ye knew what miracles
were wrought there, ye would thank neither God nor our
Lady.” In another sermon, arguing that the disorders of
the clergy should be subjected to the jurisdiction of the
civil authorities, he introduced an anecdote respecting
Prior Patrick Hepburn, afterwards Bishop of Murray.
That prelate once, in merry discourse with his gentlemen,
asked of them the number of their mistresses, and what
proportion of the fair dames were married. The first who
answered confessed to five, of whom two were bound in
wedlock; the next boasted of seven, with three married
women among them; and so on until the turn came to
Hepburn himself, who, proud of his bonnes fortunes,
declared that although he was the youngest man there, his
mistresses numbered twelve, of whom seven were men's
wives.” Yet Arith was a good Catholic, who, on being
driven from Scotland for his plain speaking, suffered im-
prisonment in England under Henry VIII. for maintaining
the supremacy of the Pope.
How little concealment was thought requisite with
regard to these scandals is exemplified in the case of
Alexander Ferrers, which occurred about the same time.
Taken prisoner by the English and immured for seven
years in the Tower of London, he returned home to find
that his wife had been consoled and his substance dissipated
in his absence by a neighbouring priest, for the which cause
he not unnaturally “spake more liberally of priests than
they could bear.” By this time heresy was spreading, and
severe measures of repression were considered necessary.
It therefore was not difficult to have the man's disrespect-
1 Knox, pp. 15–16. —Calderwood's Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, I. 83–5
(Wodrow Soc.).
CALVINISM 157
ful remarks construed as savouring of Lutheranism, and
he was accordingly brought up for trial at St. Andrews.
The first article of accusation read to him was that he
despised the Mass, whereto he answered, “I heare more
Masses in eight dayes than three bishops there sitting say
in a yeare.” The next article accused him of contemning
the sacraments. “The priests,” replied he, “were the
most contemnors of the sacraments, especially of matri-
mony.” “And that he witnessed by many of the priests
there present, and named the man's wife with whom they
had meddled, and especially Sir John Dungwaill, who had
seven years together abused his own wife and consumed
his substance, and said: because I complain of such injuries,
I am here summoned and accused as one that is worthy to
be burnt: For God's sake, said he, will ye take wives of
your own, that I and others whom ye have abused may be
revenged on you.” Old Gawain Dunbar, Bishop of Aber-
deen, not relishing this public accusation, sought to justify
himself, exclaiming, “Carle, thou shalt not know my wife”;
but the prisoner turned the tables on him, “My lord, ye
are too old, but by the grace of God I shall drink with
your daughter or I depart.” “And thereat there was
smiling of the best and loud laughter of some, for the
bishop had a daughter married with Andrew Balfour in
that town.” The prelates who sat in judgment found that
they were exchanging places with the accused, and, fearful
of further revelations from the reckless Alexander, com-
manded him to depart; but he refused, unless each one
should contribute something to replace the goods which
his wife's paramour had consumed, and finally, to stop his
evil tongue, they paid him and bade him be gone."
All prelates, however, were not so sensitive. When
Cardinal Beatoun, Archbishop of St. Andrews, primate of
Scotland, and virtual governor of the realm, about the
1 Knox, pp. 16–17.
I58 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
year 1546 married his eldest daughter to the eldest son of
the Earl of Crawford, he caused the nuptials to be cele-
brated with regal magnificence, and in the marriage articles,
signed with his own hand, he did not hesitate to call her
“my daughter.” It is not difficult, therefore, to credit the
story that the night before his assassination was passed
with his mistress, Marion Ogilby, who was seen leaving
his chamber not long before Norman Leslie and Kirkaldy
of Grange forced their way into his castle." His successor
in the see of St. Andrews, John Hamilton, was equally
notorious for his licentiousness; and men wondered, not
at his immorality, but at his taste in preferring to all his
other concubines one whose only attraction seemed to be
the zest given to sin by the fact that she was the wife of
one of his kindred.”
This is testimony from hostile witnesses, and we might
perhaps impugn their evidence on that ground, were it not
that the Catholic Church of Scotland itself admitted the
abandoned morals of its members when the rapid progress
of Calvinism at length drove it in self-defence to attempt
a reform which was its only chance of salvation. In the
last Parliament held by James V. before his death in 1542,
an Act was passed exhorting the prelates and ecclesiastics
in general to take measures “for reforming of their lyvis,
and for avoyding of the opin sclander that is gevin to the
haill estates throucht the spirituale mens ungodly and
dissolut lyves.” Nothing was then done, in spite of this
solemn warning, though the countenance afforded to the
Reformers by the Regent Arran, strengthened by his
alliance with Henry VIII., was daily causing the heresy to
assume more dangerous proportions. When, therefore,
the Catholic party, rallying after the murder of Cardinal
1 Buchanan. Rer. Scot. Hist. Lib. xv.–Robertson, Hist. of Scot. B. II.—Knox
71–2.—Calderwood I. 222,
2 Buchanan, Lib. xv.
3 Wilkins IV. 207.
CALVINISM I 59
Beatoun, at length triumphed with the aid of France, and
sent the young Queen of Scots to marry Francis II., they
seemed to recognise that they could only maintain their
advantage by meeting public opinion in endeavouring to
reform the Church. Accordingly, in November 1549, a
council was convoked at Edinburgh, of which the first
canon declares that the licentiousness of the clergy had
given rise to the gravest scandals, to repress which the
rules enjoined by the Council of Basle must be strictly en-
forced and universally obeyed. The second canon is no
less significant in ordering that prelates and other eccle-
siastics shall not live with their illegitimate children, nor
provide for them or promote them in the paternal churches,
nor marry their daughters to barons by endowing them
with the patrimony of Christ, nor cause their sons to be
made barons by the same means.”
This was of small avail. Ten years afterwards, the -
progress of heresy becoming ever more alarming, another
council was held, in March 1559, to devise means to put
a stop to the encroachments of the enemy. To this
assembly the Catholic nobles addressed an earnest prayer
for reformation. After alluding to the proceedings of the
Parliament of 1542, they add, “And siclyk remembring in
diverss of the lait provinciale counsales haldin within this
realm, that poynt has been treittet of, and sindrie statutis
synodale maid therupon, of the quhilks nevertheless thar
hes folowit man or litill fruitt as yitt, bot rathare the said
estate is deteriorate . . . it is maist expedient therefore
that thai presentlie condescend to seik reformation of thir
lyvis . . . and naymlie that oppin and manifest sins and
notor offencis be forborn and abstenit fra in tyme to cum.”
In this request they had been anticipated by the Reformers,
who the previous year, in a supplication addressed to the
Queen-regent, included among their demands “That the
1 Concil. Edinburgens. ann, 1549 can. 1, 2 (Wilkins IV. 48).
N
I60 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
wicked, slanderous, and detestable life of Prelats and of the
State Ecclesiasticall may be reformed, that the people by
them have not occasion (as of many dayes they have had)
to contemne their Ministrie and the Preaching whereof
they should be Messengers.”
The council, thus urged by friend and foe, recognised
the extreme necessity of the case, and did its best to cure
the immedicable disease. Its first canon reaffirmed the
observance of the Basilian regulations, and appointed a
commission empowered to enforce them ; and, that nothing
should interfere with its efficiency, the Archbishops of St.
Andrews and Glasgow made a special renunciation of their
exemption from the jurisdiction of the council. The
second canon, in forbidding the residence of illegitimate
children with their clerical fathers, endeavoured to procure
obedience to the rule ordered by the council of 1549, by
permitting it for four days in each quarter, and by a penalty
for infractions of £200 in the case of an archbishop, £100
in that of a bishop, and leaving the mulct to be imposed
on inferior ecclesiastics at the discretion of the officials.
The third canon prohibited the promotion of children in
their fathers' benefices, and supplicated the Queen-regent to
obtain of the Pope that no dispensations should be granted
to evade the rule. The fourth canon inhibited ecclesiastics
from marrying their daughters to barons and lairds, and
endowing them with Church lands, or making their sons
barons or lairds with more than £100 annual income, under
pain of fine to the amount of the dowry or lands abstracted
from the Church ; and all grants of Church lands or tithes
to concubines or children were pronounced null and void."
1 Wilkins IV. 207–10. –Knox, p. 129. It should be borne in mind in estimating
these penalties that they are expressed in pounds Scots, which were about one-twelfth
of the pound sterling. These canons, it appears, were not adopted without opposition.
According to Knox, “But herefrom appealed the Bishop of Murray and other pre-
lates, saying That they would abide the canon law. And so they might well enough
do, so long as they remained Interpretors, Dispensators, Makers and Disannullers of
the law” (op. cit, 119). It was doubtless on Some such considerations that the
CALVINISM I61
When such legislation was necessary, the disorders
which it was intended to repress are acknowledged in terms
admitting neither of palliation nor excuse. The extent of
the evil especially alluded to in the latter canons is further
exemplified by the fact that during the thirty years
immediately following the establishment of the Reforma-
tion in Scotland, more letters of legitimation were taken
out than were issued in the two subsequent centuries.
These were given to the sons of the clergy who were
allowed to retain their benefices, and who then made over
the property to their natural children."
Such being the state of morals among the ministers
of the old religion, it is easy to appreciate the immense
advantage enjoyed by the Reformers. They made good
use of it. Knox loses no opportunity of stigmatising the
“pestilent Papists and Masse-mongers ” as “adulterers and
whoremasters,” who were thus perpetually held up to the
people for execration, while the individual wrongs from
which so many suffered were noised about and made the
subject of constantly increasing popular indignation.” Yet
Archbishop of St. Andrews relied when he consented to waive his exemption in this
matter. His personal reputation may be estimated from the remark of Queen
Mary when, in December 1566, he performed the rite of baptism on James VI.
She forbade him to use the popular ceremony of employing his saliva, giving a
reason which was in the highest degree derogatory to his moral character (Sir
J. Y. Simpson, in Proceedings of Epidemiological Society of London, November 5,
1860).
1 Robertson, Hist. Scot. Bk. II.
2 Thus the Parliament of 1560, which effected a settlement of the Reformed
Religion, was urged to its duty by a Supplication presented in the name of “The
Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, and other true Subjects of this Realm, professing
the Lord Jesus within the same,” which, among its arguments against Catholicism,
does not hesitate to assert: “Secondarily, seeing that the Sacraments of Jesus Christ
are most shamefully abused and profaned by that Romane Harlot and her sworne
vassals, and also because that the true Discipline of the Ancient Church is utterly
now among that Sect extinguished : For who within the Realme are more corrupt in
life and manners than are they that are called the Clergie, living in whoredom and
adultery, deflouring Virgins, corrupting Matrons, and doing all abomination without
fear of punishment. We humbly, therefore, desire your Honors to finde remedy
against the one and the other.”—Knox, p. 255.
VOL. II. L
I62 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the abrogation of celibacy occupies less space in the history
of the Scottish Reformation than in that of any other
people who threw off the allegiance to Rome.
The remote position of Scotland and its comparative
barbarism rendered it in some degree inaccessible to the
early doctrines of Luther and Zwingli. Before it began
to show a trace of the new ideas, clerical marriage had long
passed out of the region of disputation with the Reformers,
and was firmly established as one of the inseparable results
of the doctrine of justification professed by all the reformed
Churches." Not only was it thus accepted as a matter of
course by all the converts to the new faith, but that faith,
when once introduced, spread in Scotland with a rapidity
proportioned to the earnest character of the people. The
permission to read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue,
granted by Parliament in 1543, doubtless had much to do
with this; the leaning of the Regent Arran to the same
side gave it additional impetus, and the savage fierceness
with which the Reformers were prepared to vindicate their
belief is shown by the murder of Cardinal Beatoun, which
was countenanced and justified by Knox himself. Power-
ful nobles soon saw in it the means of emancipating them-
selves from the vacillating control of the Regent; nor was
the central authority strengthened when, in 1554, the reins
of power were wrested from the feeble Arran and confided
to the Queen-dowager, Mary of Guise, who found herself
obliged to encourage each party by turns, and to balance
one against the other, to prevent either Catholic or Calvinist
from obtaining control over the state. Then too, as in
1 This doctrine bore its full share in the history of the Scottish Reformation. Two
years after the execution of the protomartyr, Patrick Hamilton, in 1528, his sister
Catharine was arraigned on account of her belief in justification through Christ.
Learned divines urged upon her with prolix earnestness of disputation the neces-
sity of works, until her patience gave way, and she rudely exclaimed, “Work here
and work there, what kind of working is all this 7 No work can save me but the
work of Christ my Saviour.”—By the connivance of the King she was enabled to
escape to England.-Calderwood's Historie, I. 109.
CALVINISM 163
Germany and England, the temporal possessions of the
Church were a powerful temptation to its destruction.
From the great Duke of Chatelleraut to the laird of some
insignificant peel, all were needy and all eager for a share
in the spoil. When, in 1560, an assembly of the nobles at
Edinburgh listened to a disputation on the Mass, and the
Catholic doctors were unable to defend it as a propitiatory
sacrifice, the first exclamation of the lords revealed the
secret tendencies of their thoughts : “We have been
miserably deceived heretofore ; for if the Mass may not
obtain remission of sins to the quick and to the dead,
wherefore were all the Abbies so richly doted and
endowed with our Temporall lands !”.'
Of course, less selfish purposes were put forward to
enlist the support of the people. On the 1st January 1559,
when the storm was gathering, but before it had burst, the
inmates of the religious houses found affixed to their gates
a proclamation in the name of “The Blinde, Crooked,
Lame, Widows, Orphans, and all other Poor, so visited by
the hand of God as cannot work,” ordering the monks to leave
the patrimony intended to relieve the suffering, but usurped
by indolent shavelings, giving them until Whit-Sunday to
make their exit, after which they would be ejected by force,
and ending with the significant warning : “Let him, there-
fore, that hath before stolen, steal no more, but rather let him
work with his hands that he may be helpfull to the poore,” “
Such a cry could hardly fail to be popular, but when
the threat was carried into execution, the blind and the
crooked, the widow and Orphan received so small a share
of the spoil that they were worse off than before. As we
have already seen in England, the destruction of the
Scottish monasteries was the commencement of the
necessity of making some public provision for paupers.”
1 Knox, p. 283,
2 Knox, p. 119.—Calderwood, I. 423.
3 Thus the Assembly of the Church in 1562 drew up a remonstrance to the Queen,
164 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
The nobles seized the lion's share; the rest fell to the
crown, subject to the payment of the very moderate
stipends assigned to the comparatively few ministers
required by the new establishment, and these stipends
were so irregularly paid that the unfortunate ministers were
frequently in danger of starvation, and were constantly
besieging the court with their dolorous complaints. Where
the lands and revenues went is indicated with grim humour
by Knox, in describing the resistance offered in 1560 to the
adoption of his Book of Discipline by those who had pro-
fessed great zeal for the Lord Jesus. Lord Erskine had
been One of the first and most consistent of the “Lords of
the Congregation,” yet he also refused to sign the book—
“And no wonder, for besides that he had a very evill
woman to his wife, if the Poore, the Schooles, and the
Ministerie of the Church had their owne, his Kitchin
would lack two parts and more of that which he unjustly
now possesseth.”
Yet, when compared with the rich abbatial manors of
England or the princely foundations of Germany, the spoil
of the Church was mean indeed. Knox had resided much
abroad, and had seen the vast wealth which the piety of
ages had showered upon the Church in the most opulent
lands of Europe, yet his simplicity or fanaticism finds
source of wondering comment in the homespun luxury of
the unfortunate monks whom he assisted in dispossessing.
When the destruction of the monasteries 1559 commenced
by a brawlin Perth, caused by a sermon preached by Knox,
and three prominent convents were broken up, he expatiates
in which they requested that “in every Parish some of the Tythes may be assigned
to the sustentation and maintenance of the poor within the same : And likewise
that some publike relief may be provided for the poor within Burroughs.”—Knox,
. 339.
p 1 Ibid. p. 278. The Book was signed at Edinburgh, 27 January, 1561, but only
after the adoption of a proviso: “Provided that the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and
other Prelates and Beneficed men, which else have adjoyned themselves to us,
brooke the revenues of their Benefices during their lifetimes.”—Worldly wisdom
certainly was not lost sight of in the ardour of a new and purer religion.
CALVINISM I65
on the extravagance revealed to sight: “And in very deed
the Grey-Friers was a place so well provided that unlesse
honest men had seen the same, we would have feared to
have reported what provision they had, their sheets,
blankets, beds and coverlets were such that no Earle in
Scotland had better: Their naperie was fine; they were
but 8 persons in the Convent, and yet they had 8 puncheons
of salt beef (consider the time of the yeere, the eleventh
of May), wine, beere, and ale, beside store of victuals
belonging thereto.” Imagine an abbot of St. Albans or
an abbess of Poissy reduced to the coverlets and salt beef
which the stern Calvinist deemed an indulgence so great as
to be incredible !
Still, in so impoverished a country as the Scotland of
that period, even these poor spoils were a motive sufficient
to prove a powerful aid to the conquering party in the
struggle. And yet, amid all the miserable ambitions of
the Erskines and Murrays, the Huntleys and Bothwells,
who occupied the prominent places in the court and camp,
we should do grievous wrong to the spirit which triumphed
at last over the force and fraud of the Guises, if we attri-
buted to temporal motives alone the movement which
expelled licentious prelates and drove Queen Mary to the
fateful refuge of Fotheringay. The selfish aims of the
nobles would have been fruitless but for the zealous
earnestness of the people, led by men of iron nature, who
doubted themselves as little as they doubted their God,
and who, in the death-struggle with Antichrist, were as
ready to suffer as they were ruthless to inflict. Nor can
the disorders of the Catholic clergy be rightly imputed to
the temperament of the race, for the Reformers, who
carried with them so large a portion of the middle and
lower classes, preached a system of rigid morality to which
the world had been a stranger since the virtues of the
1 Knox, 136.
I66 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Germanic tribes had been lost in the overthrow of the
Empire; and they not merely preached it, but obtained
its embodiment in a code of repressive laws which their
vigilant authority strictly enforced.
I have said above that the question of celibacy appears
but rarely in the course of the contest, yet, notwithstand-
ing the causes which rendered it a less prominent subject
of debate than elsewhere, it occasionally rises to view. The
first instance of clerical marriage that I find recorded
occurred in 1538, when Thomas Coklaw, parish priest of
Tillibodie, married a widow of the same village named
Margaret Jameson. This, however, was not done openly
and defiantly, as in Germany, but in secret, and the
married couple continued to dwell apart. That the
infraction of the canons was not without danger was shown
by the result, for, when it became known, Coklaw was
tried by the Bishop of Dunblane and condemned to per-
petual imprisonment; but his relatives broke open his
dungeon, and he escaped to England. When, early in the
following year, a group of Reformers, including Dean
Thomas Forret, Friar John Killore, Friar John Beverege,
and others, were put on trial, their presence at this
wedding was one of the crimes for which they were exe-
cuted upon Castle Hill at Edinburgh." In fact, the
abrogation of the rule of celibacy, in Scotland as elsewhere,
was necessarily one of the leading points at issue between
the Reformers and the Catholics. Thus, when George
Wishart, one of the early heretics who ventured openly to
preach the Lord Jesus, was seized, in spite of powerful
protectors, and after a prolonged captivity was brought
for trial before Cardinal Beatoun in 1545, in the accu-
sation against him article 14 asserted, “Thou false Here-
ticke hast taught plainly against the Vows of Monks,
Friers, Nuns, and Priests, saying, That whosoever was
1 Calderwood's Historie, I. 123-4.
CALVINISM 167
bound to such like Vows, they vowed themselves to the
state of damnation. Moreover, That it was lawfull for
Priests to marry wives and not to live sole.” Wishart
tacitly confessed the truth of this impeachment by rejoin-
ing, “But as many as have not the gift of chastity, nor
yet for the Gospel have overcome the concupiscence of the
flesh, and have vowed chastity; ye have experience,
although I should hold my tongue, to what inconveniences
they have exposed themselves.” He was accordingly
condemned as an incorrigible heretic, and promptly burnt.
Yet when, in 1547, John Knox held his disputation with
Dean Wynrame and Friar Arbuckle, though the nine
articles drawn up for discussion ranged from the Supre-
macy of the Pope and the existence of purgatory to the
payment of tithes, the subject of vows of chastity was not
even mentioned.”
Still, as late as 1558 the trial of Walter Mill shows that
the question was even yet agitated in the controversies
between the polemics of the two parties. Mill had been
a priest, and had married, and the first of the articles of
accusation against him was that he asserted the lawful-
ness of sacerdotal marriage. To this he boldly assented,
declaring that he regarded matrimony as a blessed bond,
open for all men to enter, and that it were better for priests
to marry than to vow chastity and not preserve it, as they
were wont to do. Condemned to the stake, the unfortu-
nate old man commanded the sympathies of the people,
even in the archiepiscopal town of St. Andrews. No one
could be found to act as executioner, until at length one
of the servants of the archbishop consented to fill the
abhorrent office; but when a rope was sought with
which to bind the wretched sufferer to the stake, no one
1 Knox, p. 65.—Knox's characteristic comment on this is—“When he had said
these words, they were all dumb, thinking it better to have ten concubines than
one wife.”
2 Calderwood, I. 231 sqq.
I68 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
R
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\
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\
would furnish it, and the tragedy was necessarily post-
poned. Equally unsuccessful was the next day's search,
until the archbishop, fearing to lose his victim, gave the
cords of his own pavilion, and the sentence was carried into
effect. Even after the sacrifice, the popular feeling was
manifested by raising a pile of stones as a monument on
the place of torture, and as often as these were cast aside
by the priests they were replaced by the people, until the
followers of the archbishop carried them off by night, and
used them for building."
These incidents show us that the question received its
share of attention in the controversy by which each side
endeavoured to secure the support of the nation, but it
makes no appearance in public negotiations and declara-
tions. Thus, in 1558, when the growing strength of the
Lords of the Congregation led the Catholics to offer con-
cessions, which were rejected by the conscious power of
the Reformers, there was no allusion to celibacy on either
side. In fact, between the respective leaders the questions
were almost purely personal and political, while among
the conscientiously religious supporters of either party
opinions were too rigidly defined for argument. Convic-
tions were too divergent and too firm for compromise or
concession to be possible, and Catholic and Calvinist grimly
recognised, as by a tacit understanding, the alternative of
extermination. When the English alliance at last drove
the Catholics to the wall, and in July 1560 there assembled
the Parliament to which by the Articles of Leith was
referred the duty of effecting a settlement of the kingdom,
the vanquished party made no struggle against their fate.
Such Catholic prelates and lords as took their seats re-
frained from all debate, and allowed the victors to arrange
the temporal and spiritual affairs of the kingdom at their
pleasure.
1 Knox, p. 130.—Calderwood, I. 337 sqq.-Burnet, Vol. II.
CALVINISM 169
In this settlement, our subject affords a curious com-
parison between the English and Scotch Churches. In the
former, at a period even later than this, it was considered
necessary to embody a renunciation of celibacy in the
organic law, which has been maintained to the present day.
In the latter, ecclesiastical marriage had become already so
firmly established in the minds of the Reformers that it
was accepted as a matter of course, which needed no special
confirmation. Although laws were passed prohibiting the
Mass and abolishing the supremacy of the Pope, none were
thought necessary to legalise the marriages of the clergy.
Even in Knox's Confession of Faith, adopted by the Par-
liament on July 17, there is no direct allusion to the
matter. The only passage which can be construed as
having any bearing upon it occurs in Chapter XIV., when
considering “What works are reputed good before God”:
“And evill works we affirme not onely those that are ex-
pressly done against God's commandment, but those also
that in matters of religion and worshipping of God have
no assurance, but the invention and opinion of man, which
God from the beginning hath ever rejected, as by the
prophet Isaiah and by our Master Christ Jesus we are
taught in these words—In vain do they worship me, teach-
ing doctrines which are precepts of Men."
Nothing more, in fact, was needed when the triumph of
the new ideas was so complete that Knox could exultingly
exclaim, “For what Adulterer, what Fornicator, what known
Masse-monger or pestilent Papist durst have been seen in
publike within any Reformed Town within this Realme
before that the Queen arrived ? . . . . For while the
Papists were so confounded that none within the Realme
durst avow the hearing or saying of Masse then the thieves
of Tiddisdale durst avow their stouth or stealing in the
presence of any upright judge.” When persecution thus
Knox, p. 263. 2 Ibid. p. 304.
-
§f
I70 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
had changed sides, no minister could feel that his nuptials
required special authorisation. How thoroughly indeed
they were legitimated is shown by a curious little incident
occurring in 1563. A minister named Baron made com-
plaint to the General Assembly that his wife, an English
woman named Anne Goodacre, “after great rebellions by
her committed,” had left him and taken refuge in England,
whereupon he requested the Assembly to have her brought
back to him. Spotswood, the Superintendent of Lothian,
with Knox and Craig, actually wrote to Archbishop
Parker officially asking him to have the woman sought for
and sent to Scotland; but Parker, considering it to be an
international question and beyond his sphere, prudently
referred the request to Secretary Cecil." -
It were foreign to our object to enter into the dark
details of Mary's short and disastrous reign. The intrigues
of the camarilla, the boyish weakness of Darnley, the
subtlety of Rizzio, and the coarse ambition of Huntley and
Bothwell, were alike harmless against the earnest reverence
of the people for the new faith; and the expiring struggles
of Catholicism were too feeble to give any practical impor-
tance to the vain attempts at reaction.
1 Strype's Parker, Book II. ch. xviii.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
IT has already been observed that the dissolute and un-
Christian life of the priesthood was one of the efficient
causes which led to the success of the Reformation. At
an early period in the movement, the Catholic Church felt
the necessity of purifying itself, if it was to retain the
veneration of the people; and the veneration of the people
was now not merely a source of revenue, but a condition
of the very existence of the stupendous structure of Latin
Christianity. As soon as it became clearly apparent that
Lutheranism was not to be suppressed by the ordinary
machinery, and that it was spreading with a rapidity which
portended the worst results, an effort was made to remove
the reproach which incorrigible immorality had entailed
upon the Church. Allusion has been made above to the
stringent measures of reform proclaimed by the legate
Campeggio at Ratisbon in 1524, in which he acknowledged
that the new heresy had no little excuse in the detestable
morals and abandoned lives of the clergy—a truth re-
peatedly admitted by the ecclesiastical authorities." His
1 The orator of the Council of Cologne in 1527 sharply reminded the assembled
prelates that they must set the example of obeying their own statutes, and that they
could not expect the people to reverence the true Church so long as it notoriously
bade defiance to the laws of God and man. “Quasi praescribatur lex cujus sancitor
voluerit esse exlex. Parendum enim est legi quam quisque sancit . . . Audis
praeterea non licere plurimas habere uxores, quae animum tuum alliciant ; non
decere domi alere tot scorta tot Veneres, quae te continue exedunt, tuamgue sub-
stantiam disperdunt. . . . His et aliis datur Scandalum populo; praebetur offer-
diculum vulgo, cui hac tempestate vilet et contemptui est ordo quilibet sacer.
Wilis plebs te sacerdotem nunc cachinnis atque ludibriis incissit et odit, qui calum-
niandi ansam ultro praebueris. Dicit namque : tot hic, aut ille, scorta domi suae ex
I72 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
well-meant endeavours had little result, and we have seen
that, some years later, Erasmus still urged the abolition of
the rule of celibacy as the only practicable mode of remov-
ing the scandal.
Not long afterwards the Gallican Church made a
strenuous effort of the same nature to check the spread of
Lutheranism. In 1521, before it had to encounter a hos-
tile heresy, the Council of Paris had deplored the pervading
corruptions with exceeding candour. The condition of
conventual discipline was such as to threaten the very
existence of the system, and the customary denunciations
of ineradicable abuses were freely published." In 1528
the Cardinal-legate Duprat, Chancellor of France, held a
council in Paris, where he condemned, seriatim, the new
doctrines as heresies, and elevated the rule of celibacy to
the dignity of a point of faith.” He also caused the adop-
tion of a series of canons designed to remove from the
Church the disgrace caused by the laxity of clerical morals
and manners. The bishops were instructed to enforce the
decrees of the councils and of the fathers until concubinage
and incontinence should be completely exterminated, and
a rule was laid down which would have been eventually
effectual if conscientiously carried out. No one was there-
patrimonio Crucifixi nutrit, quo non sordida scorta, sed pauperes Christi forent sus-
tentandi.”—Concil. Colon. ann. 1527 (Hartzheim VI. 210–213).
So at the Council of Augsburg, in 1548, the orator dwelt upon the advantage
which the heretics derived from the sins of the clergy: “Non estis nescii, quemad-
modum nos haeretici apud populum perpetuo traducant : nos scortatores, nos ambi-
tiosos, nos avaros, nos ignavos, et rudes esse, nos otio semper, luxui et ventri servire,
identidem vociferantur . . . Superbe itaque illi : sed utinam non mimium saepe
vere : nam si vera potius hoc loco, quam plausibilia, dicenda sint ; negare certe non
possumus, quin maximam ad nos accusandos occasionem Sæpe dederimus.”—Concil.
Augustan. ann. 1548 (Hartzheim VI. 388).
1 Concil. Parisiens. ann. 1521 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 1018).
2 Quisquis igitur contra sacrorum conciliorum et patrum decreta, sacerdotes,
diaconos aut subdiaconos lege coelibatus non teneri docuerit aut liberas illis con-
cesserit nuptias, inter haereticos, omni tergiversatione rejecta numeretur.—Concil.
Paris. ann. 1528, Decret. 8.
This I think is the first authoritative promulgation of Damiani’s doctrine, which,
as we shall hereafter see, was adopted and extended by the Council of Trent.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 173
after to be admitted to holy orders without written
testimony as to his age and moral character from his
parish priest, substantiated by the oaths of two or three
approved witnesses." At the same time similar councils
were held at Bourges by the Cardinal Archbishop Tournon,
and at Lyons by Claude, Bishop of Macon. To what
extent these excellent rules were put in force may be
guessed by a description of the French clergy in 1560, as
portrayed by Monluc, Bishop of Valence, in a speech
before the Royal Council. The parish priests were for the
most part engrossed in worldly pursuits, and had obtained
their preferment by illicit means, nor did there seem much
prospect of an improvement so long as the prelates were
in the habit of bestowing the benefices within their gift on
their lackeys, barbers, cooks, and other serving men,
rendering the ecclesiastics as a body an object of contempt
to the people.” We need, therefore, not be surprised to
find in the councils of the period a repetition of all the old
injunctions, showing that the maintenance of improper
consorts and the disgrace of priestly families were un-
diminished evils.” This description of the French clergy
is most emphatically extended to the whole Church in the
project for reformation drawn up by order of Paul III. in
1538, and to these evils are attributed the innumerable
scandals which afflicted the faithful, as well as the con-
tempt in which the ecclesiastical body was held and the
virtual extinction of all reverence for the services of
religion.” No improvement, however, was to be expected
as long as a concubinary priest could obtain from the papal
chancery for seven gros tournois letters of absolution and
1 Concil. Paris. ann. 1528, Decret. 8.
2 Pierre de la Place, Estat de Rel. et Rep. Liv. III.
3 Concil. Narbonnens. ann. 1551 can. 22 (Harduin. X. 468).
4 Consilium de Emend. Eccles. (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. II.
598).
174 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
dispensation which specially set aside the decrees of
bishops and local councils."
In 1530 Clement VII. addressed himself vigorously to
the task of putting an end to the scandalous practice of
hereditary transmission of benefices, which he describes as
almost universal. A special bull was issued, prohibiting the
children of priests or monks from enjoying any preferment
in their father's benefices, and, recognising that the Roman
Curia was one of the chief obstacles to all reform, he pro-
vided that if he or his successors should grant dispensations
permitting such infraction of the canons, they should be
considered as issued unwittingly, and be held null and
void.” Like so many others, this bull seems to have been
forgotten almost as soon as issued, and the pecuniary
needs of the Roman court rendered it unable to abandon
so lucrative a source of revenue. Even as soon as 1538
the cardinals to whom Paul III. committed the task of
drawing up the project of reformation cautiously intimate
that they hear of such dispensations being granted, and to
this they attribute a large share of the troubles of the
Church and the enmity felt towards the Holy See.” This
warning passed unheeded, and, as we have seen, in 1559
a Scottish council prayed the Queen-regent to use her
influence with the Pope to prevent dispensations being
granted to enable illegitimate children to hold preferment
in their fathers' benefices,” while in 1562 the frequency
and readiness with which such dispensations were still
1 Pro concubinario absoluto et dispensatio super irregularitate : et hoc contra
provinciales et synodales constitutiones, g. vii.-Libellus Taxarum super quibusdam
in Cancellaria Apostolica impetrandis, fol. 17a (White, Historical Library, Cornell
University, A. 6124).
2 Bull. ad Canonum (Mag. Pull. Roman. Ed. 1692, I. 682).
Alexander III., in prohibiting the sons of priests from enjoying their fathers'
benefices, had permitted it if a third party intervened and a dispensation for the
irregularity were obtained. The letter of this law was frequently observed, but its
spirit eluded by nominally passing the preferment through the hands of a man of
straw, and it was this abuse which Clement desired to eradicate.
3 Consilium de Emend. Eccles. (Le Plat, Monument, Concil. Trident. II. 599.)
4 Wilkins IV. 209.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 175
obtained are enumerated in a list of abuses laid before the
Council of Trent by Sebastian, King of Portugal, as one
of the matters requiring reformation by the supreme power
of the council." To this and other similar appeals the
papal legates loftily replied that laws were not to be pre-
scribed to the Holy See; * and the motive for the refusal
is easily comprehended when we see that in the “Taxes of
the Penitentiary” the price for a dispensation admitting
the bastard of a priest to holy orders was a ducat and a
carlino.”
In Spain, Ribadeneira, the disciple of Ignatius Loyola,
tells us that the priestly concubines were accustomed to
pledge their faith to their consorts as if united in wedlock,
and that they wore the distinguishing costume of married
women, as though glorying in their shame, which so
scandalised St. Ignatius, on his return, in 1535, to his
native land, that he exerted his influence with the
temporal authorities to procure the enactment and en-
forcement of sundry laws which relieved the Spanish
Church of so great an opprobrium.” We may reasonably,
however, doubt the success of his efforts. Some ten years
later, Alphonso de Castro asserts that the priesthood was
one of the efficient causes of the spread of heresy, and that
1 Le Plat, W. 88. The opinion which was held of the venality of the Roman
court in such matters is forcibly expressed in the instructions given to Laussac,
the French ambassador at Trent. He is ordered to press the abolition of the
papal power of dispensation “attendu que nul n'en est refusé s'il a argent.”—
Ibid. p. 153.
2 Ejus sanctitati lex non sit praescribenda. —Ibid. p. 385.
8 Tax. Sac. Poenitent. Ed. Gibbings, p. 13,-This was only one carlino (the
tenth part of a ducat, equal to about fourpence) more than the charge for the bastard
of a layman.
4 Ribadeneira, Wit. Ignat. Loyolae, Lib. II. cap. v. From this it would appear
that the ‘custom of permanent unions, described by Bishop Pelayo two centuries
earlier, was still flourishing. As stated above (p. 17), Ferdinand and Isabella, in
repeated edicts, from 1480 to 1503, had endeavoured to put an end to notorious con-
cubimage, by fining, scourging, and banishing the women (Novisima Recopilacion,
Lib. XII. Tit. xxvi. leyes 3–5.-Coleccion de Cidulas, III. 113, Madrid, 1829), for the
men were beyond their jurisdiction. Possibly it was these laws that Loyola sought
to revive.
176 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
it would be difficult for orthodoxy to maintain itself
without the direct interposition of God, in view of the
scandalous lives and general worthlessness of all orders
of ecclesiastics, whose excessive numbers, turpitude, and
ignorance exposed them to contempt." His contemporary,
the canon lawyer Bernardius Déaz de Luzo, indeed, finds
in the universality of concubinage a reason for its partial
condonation, for, while deploring its frequency, he warns
judges not to be over severe in its repression, since so few
are found guiltless, and there is danger that those who are
restrained from it may be forced into darker sins.” How
difficult, under such circumstances, was any reform may
be gathered from a memorial presented in 1556 to
Philip II. by Inquisitor-General Valdés. He relates that
when he became Archbishop of Seville, in 1546, he found
the clergy and the dignitaries of the cathedral so demo-
ralised that they had no shame in their children and
grandchildren: their women lived with them openly as
though married, and accompanied them to church, while
many kept in their houses public gaming tables, which
were the resort of disorderly characters. To remedy these
evils he instituted vigorous measures of reform, but in this
he was greatly impeded and put to much expense by
appeals and suits in Rome and in Granada, and in the
Royal Council and before apostolic judges.” In view of
the facility with which absolutions and dispensations could
be procured, it is easy to see how readily a persistent
reformer could be embroiled with the Holy See.
About the same time Herman von Wied, Archbishop
of Cologne, undertook the reformation of his extensive
diocese. He assembled a council, which issued a series
of 275 canons, prescribing minutely the functions, duties,
1 Alphonside Castro de justa Haereticorum Punitione, Lib. III. cap. 5.
2 Díaz de Luco, Practica criminalis canonica, cap. lxxiii. (Venetiis, 1543.)
3 Archivo general de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Legajo unico
fol. 76.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 177
and obligations of all grades of the clergy. As regards the
delicate subject of concubinage, he contented himself with
quoting the Nicene canon prohibiting the residence of
women not nearly connected by blood, and added that if
the degeneracy of the times prevented the enforcement
of a regulation so strict, at all events he forbade the
companionship of females obnoxious to suspicion." The
good archbishop himself could hardly have expected that
so mild an allocution would have much effect upon a
perverse and hardened generation, but custom had so
established itself that even the loftiest prelates shrank
from encountering the risk attendant upon an attempt to
enforce the canons. This is seen when, in 1537, Matthew,
Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled his provincial synod,
which, recognising the urgent necessity of preserving the
Church and protecting the people, adopted a series of
reformatory decrees. Afraid of promulgating them, it
was resolved to suppress them for the present, under the
pretext that the approaching General Council would
regulate the discipline of the Church at large; and the
archbishop contented himself with a pastoral letter
addressed to his suffragans, in which he urged upon them
to consider the contamination to which the laity were
exposed through the vices of their pastors, and timidly
suggested that, if the clergy could not restrain their
passions, they should at all events indulge them secretly,
so that scandal might be avoided and the punishment of
their transgressions be left to an avenging God.”
This timidity finds its explanation in the report by the
papal nuncio Morone of an interview, in 1542, with the
Archbishop of Mainz, on the subject of the reform of
1 Concil. Coloniens. ann. 1536, P. II. c. 28. Six years later, in 1542, Bishop
Hermann embraced Lutheranism, married, and in 1546 was driven from his see
and retired to his county of Wied, where he died some years afterwards, at the ripe
age of 80 years.
2 Concil. Salisburg. XLI. (Dalham, Concil. Salisburgens. pp. 296–322.)
WOL. II, M
I78 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
the clergy, which was acknowledged to be the pressing
question of the hour. The archbishop flatly admitted his
impotence; until the Council should be held no refor-
mation was possible. Priestly concubinage, he said, could
not be suppressed without great scandals—in fact, per-
Suasion was the only course open, for the clergy of Mainz,
Trèves, and Cologne had formed so strong an organisation
for mutual defence that they would all rise in resistance if
the least of them were prosecuted."
In the Council of Trent itself, the Bishop of St. Mark,
in opening its proceedings with a speech, 6 January, 1546,
drew a fearful picture of the corruption of the world,
which had reached a degree that posterity might possibly
equal but not exceed. This he assured the assembled
fathers was attributable solely to the wickedness of the
pastors, who drew their flocks with them into the abyss of
sin. The Lutheran heresy had been provoked by their
own guilt, and its suppression was only to be hoped for by
their own reformation.” At a later session, the Bavarian
orator, August Baumgartner, told the assembled fathers
that the progress of the Reformation was attributable to
the scandalous lives of the clergy, whose excesses he
could not describe without offending the chaste ears of his
auditory. He even asserted that out of a hundred priests
there were not more than three or four who were not
either married or concubinarians”—a statement repeated
in a consultation on the subject of ecclesiastical reform
drawn up in 1562 by order of the Emperor Ferdinand,
with the addition that the clergy would rather see the
whole structure of the Church destroyed than submit to
even the most moderate measure of reform.”
1 Lämmer, Monumenta Vaticana Saeculi XVI. p. 412.
2 Acta Concil. Trident. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 1063–9.)
3 Sarpi, Istor. del Concilio Trident. Lib. VI. (Ed. Helmstad. II. 140). —Cſ. Le
Plat, V. 337–8.
4 Le Plat, W. 235.
*. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 179
It is not to be wondered therefore that the Christian
world had long and earnestly demanded the convocation
of an OEcumenic council which should represent all parties,
should have full powers to reconcile all differences, and
should give to the ancient Church the purification thus
recognised as the only efficient means of healing the
schism. This was a remedy to the last degree distasteful
to the Holy See. The recollections of Constance and
Basle were full of pregnant warnings as to the almost
inevitable antagonism between the Vicegerent of Christ
and an independent representative body, believing itself to
act under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, claim-
ing autocratic Supremacy in the Church, and convoked for
the special purpose of reforming abuses the most of which
were fruitful sources of revenue to the papal court. Such
a body, if assembled in Germany, would be the Pope's
master; if in Italy, his tool; and it behoved him to act
warily if he desired to meet the unanimous demand of
Christendom without risking the sacrifice of his most
cherished prerogatives. Had the council been called in
the early days of the Reformation, it could hardly have
prevented the separation of the Churches; yet, in the
temper which then existed, it would probably have effected
as thorough a purification of the ecclesiastical establish-
ment as was possible in so corrupt an age. By delaying
it until the reactionary movement had fairly set in, the
chances of troublesome puritans gaining the ascendency
were greatly diminished, and the papal court exposed itself
to little danger when, under the urgent pressure of the
Emperor, it at length, in 1536, proposed to convoke the
long desired assembly at Mantua."
A place so completely under papal influence was not
1 Charles was careful to put on record his ceaseless endeavours with Clement
and Paul to obtain the convocation of a council and the numberless promises made
to him, for the evasion of which reasons were always found.—Commentaires de
Charles-Quint, pp. 96–7 (Paris, 1862).
I 80 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
likely to meet the views of the opposition, and it is not
surprising that both the Lutherans and Henry VIII.
refused to connect themselves with such a council. The
latter, indeed, in his epistle of 8 April, 1538, to Charles V.,
expressed himself more forcibly than elegantly:-‘‘Nowe,
if he [the Pope] calle us to one of his owne townes, we be
afraid to be at suche an hostes table. We saye, Better to
ryse a hungred, then to goo thense with oure bellyes fulle.” "
The formality of its opening, 17 May, 1537, was therefore
an empty ceremony; its transfer to Vicenza was little
more; and, as no delegates presented themselves up to
1 May, 1538, it was prorogued until Easter 1539, with
the promise of selecting a satisfactory place for the meet-
ing. The pressure still continued until, in May 1542,
Paul finally convoked it to assemble at Trent. The
Reformers were no better satisfied than before. They had
so long professed their readiness to submit all the questions
in dispute to a free and unbiassed general council, that
they could not refuse absolutely to countenance it; but
they were now so completely established as a separate
organisation that they had little to hope and everything
to fear from the appeal which they had themselves pro-
voked, and nothing which Rome could now offer would
have brought them into willing attendance upon such a
body.” They accordingly kept aloof, and on the assembling
of the council, 22 November, 1542, its numbers were so
scanty that it could accomplish nothing, and it was accord-
ingly suspended in July 1543. When again convoked,
15 March, 1545, but twenty bishops and a few ambassadors
were present; these waited with what patience they might
command for accessions, which were so tardy in arriving
1 Select. Harl. Miscell., London, 1793, p. 137.
2 The temper with which the Protestants now viewed the council is well expressed
in a letter from Aonio Paleario written in 1542 or 1545, from Rome to Luther,
Melanchthon, Bucer, and Calvin, urging them by no means to sanction the assembly
with their presence—(Published by Illgen, 4to, Leipzig, 1833.)
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 181
that when at length the assembly was formally opened, on
December 13, the number had increased by only five.
For fifteen months the council continued its sessions,
completely under the control of the Pope, and occupied for
the most part with formulating as Catholic doctrine the
speculations of the schoolmen, which thus far had been
generally accepted without authoritative confirmation save
incidentally at the Council of Florence in 1439. As these
constituted the principal dogmas against which the Refor-
mation was a protest, the labours of the fathers were
directed, not to effect a reunion of the Church, but to
erect an impassable barrier between Latin and Reformed
Christianity.
The appeals of the German bishops and of the imperial
ambassadors for some effective efforts at reform became at
length too pressing, and to evade them, in March 1547,
the council was transferred to Bologna, against the earnest
protest of the Emperor and the Spaniards, who refused to
follow." At Bologna little was done except to dispute
over the sharp protests of the Emperor and to adjourn the
council from time to time, until, after falling into universal
contempt, it was suspended in 1549. Julius III., who
received the tiara on 22 February, 1550, signalised his
accession by convoking it again at Trent; and there it
once more assembled on 1 May, 1551.
At that time Lutheranism in Germany was under the
heel of Charles V. ; Maurice of Saxony was ripening his
schemes of revolt, and concealing them with the dexterity in
which he was unrivalled ; it was the policy of both that
Protestant theologians should take part in the discussions
—of the one, that they should there receive their sentence;
of the other, that their presence might assist in cloaking his
1 There is something very amusingly suggestive in the guarded manner in which
Charles alludes to the translation of the Council : “O ditto Papa Paulo por respeitos,
que o moveram (os quaes Deus permitta que forsem bons) tratton de avocar e trans-
ferir a Bolonha '’—(Commentaires, p. 98.)
I 82 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
designs. The flight from Innsbruck, followed by the
Transaction of Passau, changed the face of affairs. The
Lutheran doctors rejoicingly shook the dust from their
feet as they departed from Trent, complaining that they
had been treated as criminals on trial, not as venerable
members of a body assembled to decide the gravest
questions relating to this life and that to come. Other
symptoms of revolt among the Catholic nations were
visible, and on 28 April, 1552, the council again broke
up."
Ten years passed away; the faithful impatiently
demanded the continuation of the work which had only
been commenced, and at last the pressure became so strong
that Pius IV. was obliged to reassemble the council.” His
bull bears date November 1560, but it was not until
twenty years after Trent had witnessed the first convoca-
tion that the holy men again gathered within its walls,
and on 18 January, 1562, the council resumed its oft-
interrupted sessions. The states of the Augsburg Con-
fession had been politely invited to participate in the
proceedings, but they declined with the scantest of
courtesy.”
During these long-protracted preliminaries there were
times when those who sincerely desired the restoration of
1 That the complaints of the Protestants were well founded is evident from the
secret instructions given, 20 February, 1552, by Julius III. to the Bishop of Monte
Fiascone, when sending him as legate to Charles V. He was to explain to the
Emperor that the council would not discuss the propositions of the heretics
“nimirum quod judex non respondet parti, ne ex judice se partem constituat”; and
he is further to explain that “petentes commune concilium haeretici et schismatici
repellendi sunt a conciliis universalibus . . . nullo modo communicandum esse
concilium cum haereticis et schismaticis, qui sunt extra ecclesiam . . . sed bene pos-
sunt admitti, ut possint interesse pro convincendis etiam pluries eorum erroribus.”
—Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. T. IV. p. 534–5.
2 The feeling entertained by Pius towards the council is shown by his remark,
in December 1561, to M. de Lisle, the French ambassador, that it had been called
simply for the benefit of France : “dautant que ledit concile, qui est de peu de
besoin pour le reste de la chrestienté, superflu aux Catholiques et non desiré des
papes” (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 742).
3 The characteristic correspondence is in Le Plat, IV. 678–87.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 183
the Church could not restrain their impatience. In 1536,
Paul III., who earnestly admitted the necessity of some
reform, called to his aid nine of his prelates most eminent
for virtue and piety, as a commission to prepare a scheme
for internal reformation.” According to a papal historian,
his object in this was to stop the mouths of the heretics
who found in the Roman court an inexhaustible subject
of declamation.” For two years the commission laboured
at its work, and finally produced the “Consilium de
emendanda ecclesia,” to which allusion has been made
above.
The stern and unbending Cardinal Caraffa was head of
the commission, assisted by such men as Contarini, Sado-
leto, and Reginald Pole. They seem to have been inspired
with a sincere desire to root out the chief abuses which
gave such power to the assaults of the Protestants, and the
result of their labours affords us a picture of ecclesiastical
corruptions almost as damaging to the Church as the
complaints of the Diet of Nürnberg. As regards celibacy,
they were disposed to make no concession; indeed, they
protest against the facility with which men in holy orders
were able to purchase from the Roman Curia dispensations
to marry. It is significant, however, that they had so
little confidence in the possibility of purifying the con-
ventual religious Orders that they actually recommended
their abolition. To prevent individual cases of suffering
they proposed that the convents should not be immediately
abolished, but that all novices should be discharged and no
1 Charles declares that at the commencement of his pontificate Paul was
earnestly desirous of reforming the abuses of the Church, but that his zeal rapidly
diminished, and he followed the example of Clement in contenting himself with
empty promises.—“Com tudo despois com o tempo aquellas mostrase ardor primeiro
se foi esfriando, e seguindo os passos e exemplo do Papa Clemente, com boas
palavras prolongon e entretene sempre a convogáð e ajuntamento do concilio "
(Commentaires, p. 97).
* Per serrar la bocca agl’ heretici i quali non facevano altro in voce et in scritto
che dir male della corte di Roma.—Carraciolo, Vita di Paolo III. MS. Br. Mus.
(Young, Life and Times of Aonio Paleario, I. 261.)
184 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
more be admitted, thus allowing the Orders to die out
gradually, as had been done in Saxony; and meanwhile
they urged that, to prevent further scandals, all nunneries
should be removed from the supervision and direction of
monks, and be handed over to the ordinaries." The
“Consilium,” in fact, was so candid a confession of most
of the abuses charged upon the Church by the reformers
that Luther forthwith translated it and published it with
a commentary, as an effective pamphlet in aid of his cause.
Caraffa himself, after he had attained the papacy, under
the name of Paul IV., quietly put his own work, in 1559,
into the lindex Librorum Prohibitorum.”
However earnest Paul may have been, the changes
recommended in the “Consilium ” attacked too many
vested interests for even the papal power to give it effect.
The project therefore was dropped, and only resulted in
rendering still more clamorous the call for a reform in the
head and members of the Church. As, moreover, it had
shown the powerlessness of the papacy to overcome
acknowledged abuses, the only hope of a radical change,
such as was needful, was seen to lie in the untrammelled
debates of a great assembly, which should meet as a
parliament of the nations; and the prospect of this grew
more and more distant. While the project of transferring
the council from Trent was being matured, it occurred to
the papal court that possibly the objections to that measure
and the pressure on the council for a thorough reformation
1 Concilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. II.
601, 602).
2 It has been customarily stated by Catholic writers that this proceeding of
Paul IV. was directed not against his own work, but against the heretically com-
mentated editions, but in the Index of 1559 the entry is simply “Liber inscrip. :
Consilium de emendanda ecclesia.”—Reusch, Die Indices Librorum Prohibitorum,
p. 194 (Tübingen, 1886).
Father Catalani, in his work on the Congregation of the Index, gives a detailed
account of the affair. He does not pretend that the prohibition of the Consilium
was directed against the heretic editions, and justifies it as the prudent suppression
of matter that was dangerous.-Catalani de Secretario Congr. Indicis, pp. 45–50
(Roma, 1751).
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I85
might be averted by showing a disposition on the part
of Rome to undertake the task of cleansing the Augean
stable. It was also recognised as an important gain if the
council could be confined to the harmless task of defining
questions of faith, while the substantial powers involved in
reforming the corruptions of the Church could be claimed
and exercised by the Pope. Accordingly Pius III. drew
up an elaborate bull designed to limit some of the more
flagrant pecuniary abuses which existed, and exhorting the
bishops to correct the morals of their subordinates. This
was sent to the legates at Trent, but they and their con-
fidants unanimously agreed that, in the existing temper of
the council, the promulgation of such a document would be
in the highest degree imprudent. It was accordingly sup-
pressed, and only saw the light in the nineteenth century."
In its failure the Church lost but little, for it touched the
evils of the time with a tender and hesitating hand, and
would have proved utterly inefficacious.
At length, when shortly afterwards the unmannerly
urgency of the Germans, clamouring for decided measures of
reform, was met by the translation of the council to Bologna
in 1547, and men despaired of further results from it,
Charles V. resolved to take the matter into his own hands,
and to effect, for his own dominions at least, that which
had been vainly expected of the council for Christendom.
The “Interim,” which has already been alluded to, was
intended to answer this purpose, as far as Lutheranism was
concerned, in healing the breach of religion. The other
great object of the council, the restoration of the neglected
discipline of the Church, he attempted to effect by means
of the secular authority of the empire acting on the regular
machinery of the Teutonic ecclesiastical establishment.
How utterly neglected that discipline had become is
inferable from an expression in the important and carefully
1 Published by Clausen, Copenhagen, 1829.
186 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
drawn project which had been laid by Charles before the
Diet of Ratisbon in 1541, to the effect that if the canon
requiring celibacy was to be enforced, it would be necessary
also to revive those canons which punished incontinence,
thus admitting that there existed no check whatever upon
either priestly marriage or immorality.”
To accomplish this desirable revival of discipline he
accordingly caused the adoption by the Diet of Augsburg
of a code of reformation, well adapted, if enforced, to
restore the long-forgotten purity of the Church, while at
the same time it acknowledged that the degeneracy of the
times rendered impossible the resuscitation of the ancient
canons in their strictness. Thus, after reciting the canon
of Neocaesarea (see Vol I.), it adds, that as such severity
was now impracticable, those in holy orders convicted of
impurity should be separated from their concubines, and
visited with suspension from function and benefice pro-
portioned to the gravity of the offence. A repetition of
the fault was punishable with increased severity, and
incorrigible sinners who were found to be incapable of
reformation were finally to be deprived of their benefices.
As concubines were threatened with immediate excommuni-
cation, it is evident that a severity was designed towards
them which was not ventured on with respect to their more
guilty partners. Relaxation of the rules is also observable
in the section which, despite the Nicene canon, permitted
the residence of women over forty years of age, whose
character and conduct relieved them from suspicion.” The
imperative injunctions of chastity laid upon the regular
clergy, canons, and nuns show not only the determination
to remove the prevailing scandals, but also the magnitude
and extent of the evil.”
Nor was this all. Local councils were ordered for the
1 Lib. ad Ration. Concord, ineundam Art. XXII Š 13 (Goldast. II. 199).
2 Formul. Reformat. cap. XVII. § 4 (Goldast II. 335).
3 Ibid. cap. III. § 1, cap. V. §§ 7, 9.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 187
purpose of embodying these decrees in their statutes and
of carrying out with energy the reformation so earnestly
desired. Thus, in November 1548, about five months after
the diet, a synod assembled at Augsburg, which inveighed
bitterly against the unclerical dress and pomp of the clergy,
their habits of drunkenness, gluttony, licentiousness, tavern-
lounging, and general disregard of discipline; and adopted
a canon embracing the regulations enacted by the Emperor."
The Archbishop of Trèves did not wait for his synod, but
issued, October 30th, a mandate especially directed against
concubinary priests, in which he announced his intention
of carrying out the reform commanded by Charles. He
could find no reason more self-evident for the dislike and
contempt felt by the people for so many of the clergy than
the immorality of their lives, differing little, except in
legality, from open marriage. “This vice, existing every-
where throughout our diocese, in consequence of the
licence of the times and the neglect of the officials, we
must eradicate. Therefore all of you, of what grade
soever, shall dismiss your concubines within nine days,
removing them beyond the bounds of your parishes, and
be no longer seen to associate with loose and wanton
women. Those who neglect this order shall be suspended
from office and benefice, their concubines shall be excom-
municated, and they themselves be brought before our
synod to be presently held.””
These were brave words, but when some three weeks
later the synod had assembled, and the malefactors
perchance brought before it, the good bishop found
apparently that his flock was not disposed to submit
quietly to the curtailment of privileges which had almost
become imprescriptible. His tone accordingly was softened,
for though he deprecated their immorality more strongly
1 Synod. Augustan. ann. 1548 c. 10.
2 Synod. Trevirens, ann. 1548.
188 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
than ever, and asserted his intention of enforcing his mandate,
he condescended to argue at much length on the propriety
of chastity, and even descended to entreaty, beseeching
them to preserve the purity so essential to the character
of the Church, the absence of which had drawn upon the
clergy an odium which could scarce be described in words.”
How slender was his success may be inferred from the fact
that the next year he felt it necessary to hold another
synod, in which he renewed and confirmed the proceedings
of the former one, and endeavoured to reduce the monks
and nuns of his diocese into some kind of subjection to the
rules of discipline.”
The Archbishop of Cologne was as energetic as his
brother of Trèves, with about equal success. On Septem-
ber 1st he issued the Augsburg Formula of Reformation,
with a call for a synod to be held on October 2nd. At the
same time he manifested his sense of the primary import-
ance of correcting clerical immorality by promulgating a
special mandate respecting concubinage. He asserted this
to be the chief cause of the contempt popularly felt for the
Church,” and he ordered all ecclesiastics to send their
women beyond the bounds of their parishes within nine
days, under the penalties provided in the imperial decree.
The synod was held at the time indicated, and, though it
adopted no regular canons, it accepted the Augsburg
Formula and the mandate of the archbishop, with a trifling
alteration.*
This proved utterly ineffectual, for in March 1549 he
assembled a provincial council, in which he deplored
the licence of the times, which rendered the strictness of
1 Synod. Trevirens, ann. 1548 cap. ii.
2 Synod. Trevirens. II. ann. 1549 cap. xi., xix.
3 Mandat. de abjic. Concub. (Hartzheim VI. 353.)
4 Ibid. p. 358. A diocesan synod was also held at Liége, November 15,
which gave offending clerks fifteen days to part with their concubines (Ibid
VI. 395).
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I89
the ancient canons unadvisable, and he announced that it
had been decided to proceed gradually with the intended
reforms. As to the morals of the clergy, he stated that
everywhere the cure of souls was delegated to improper
persons, many of them living in the foulness of concubinage,
in perpetual drunkenness, and in other infamous vices,
encouraged by the negligence of bishops and the thirst
of archdeacons for unhallowed gains. The unions of those
who, infected by the new heresies, did not hesitate to enter
into matrimony, were of course pronounced illicit and
impious, their offspring illegitimate, and the parents
anathematised; but for those who remained in the Church,
yet submitted to no restraint upon their passions, a more
merciful spirit was shown, for the punishments ordered by
the Diet of Augsburg were somewhat lightened in their
favour. The extreme licence of the period may be under-
stood from another canon directed against the comedians,
who, not content with the ordinary theatres, were in the
habit of visiting the nunneries, where their profane plays
and amatory acting excited to unholy desires the virgins
dedicated to God." No one acquainted with the coarse-
ness of the drama of that rude age can doubt the propriety
of the archbishop's reproof. Supplementary synods were
also held, in October 1549 and February 1550, to perfect
the details of a very thorough inquisitorial visitation of
the whole province.
This visitation, so pompously heralded, did not take
place. At a synod held in October 1550 the archbishop
made sundry lame excuses for its postponement. Another
synod was assembled in February 1551, at which we hear
nothing more of it; but the prelates of the diocese were
requested to collect such ancient and forgotten canons
as they could find, which might be deemed advantageous
1 Concil. Coloniens. ann. 1549 cap. Quibus possint, —Cap. de Monach. conjugat.
Cap. de Concub, Monach,-Cap. Comoedias.
I90 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
in the future; * and with this the work of reformation in
the province of Cologne appears to end.
In 1549, Ernest, Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled the
synod of his extensive province, but when his clergy
understood that it was intended to confirm the reformatory
edict of the Emperor, they had the audacity to present a
petition praying that the clause ordering the removal of
their concubines should not be enforced. They declared
that the attempt to do so would be attended with serious
difficulty, and that it would lead to greater evils than it
sought to remove, and they asked that the consideration
of the matter should be referred to the general council,
whose reassembling was no longer dreaded. The synod,
with a proper sense of its dignity, refused to receive the
shameless petition, and listened rather to those of its
members who complained of the practice of the officials in
receiving bribes for permitting illicit indulgences, and the
representations of Duke William, of Bavaria, who asserted
that the Lutheran heresy had been caused by the scan-
dalous corruption of the Church. A canon was accord-
ingly adopted which renewed the regulations of Basle and
ordered the speedy removal of all recognised and notorious
concubines.”
In October and November 1548, and April 1549, the
Bishops of Paderborn, Wurzburg, and Strassburg held
synods which adopted the reformatory measures decreed at
Augsburg.” These were preparatory to the metropolitan
synod of Mainz, assembled in May 1549, which com-
manded that no one should be thereafter admitted to
1 Hartzheim VI. 767, 781.
2 Dalham; Concil. Salisburg. pp. 328, 337 (Concil. Salisburg. XLIV. can. vii.).
3 Gropp, Collect. Script. Wirceburg. I. 311. —Hartzheim VI. 359, 417. In the
epistle convoking his council, Bishop Melchior of Wurzburg alluded passionately to
the evils everywhere existing : “Widetis percussum pastorem ; videtis oves dis-
persas ; videtis impudentempeccandi licentiam ; videtis adversus pietatem audaciam
tum loquendi tum disputandi impiissimam, et indies scelerata gliscere schismata.”
(Ibid. X, 753).
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I91
orders without a preliminary examination by his bishop on
the subject of doctrine, and testimonials from the people
as to purity of character. After thus wisely providing for
the future, attention was directed to the present. It was
declared intolerable that, in spite of the reiterated prohibi-
tions of the fathers and councils, concubines should be
universally kept; the Basilian canon was therefore revived,
and its enforcement strictly enjoined on the ordinaries,
who were forbidden in any manner to connive at these
disorders for the sake of profit."
The pressure was continued, for when Cambrai, which
owed temporal obedience to the Emperor, while ecclesi-
astically it formed part of the province of Rheims, neg-
lected to adopt the Formula of Augsburg for two years,
it was not allowed to escape. In October 1550 a synod
was finally assembled there under stringent orders from
Charles, and the Formula was published, together with an
elaborate series of canons which would have been well
adapted to correct abuses that were not incorrigible.”
Charles had thus exerted all the resources of his imperial
supremacy, and, whether willingly or not, the powerful
prelates who ruled the German Church had united in
carrying out his views. The temporal and spiritual
authorities had thus been concentrated upon the vices of
the Church, and if its reformation had been possible, in
the existing condition of its organisation, some improve-
ment must have resulted from these combined and per-
sistent efforts. How nugatory were the results may be
guessed from a memorial presented in 1558, by the
University of Louvain, to Philip II., exhorting him to
grant no toleration to the heretics, but at the same time
urging upon him the absolute necessity of some compre-
1 Concil. Mogunt. ann, 1549 c. 82, 102.
2 Synod. Camerac. ann. 1550 (Hartzheim VI, 654).
I92 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
hensive system of reform to purify the Church, all the
orders of which were given over utterly to the twin vices
of avarice and licentiousness." The same testimony is
borne by a consultation drawn up in 1562 by order of the
Emperor Ferdinand. After alluding to the efforts at
reform made by Paul III. and Charles V., it declares that
their only result has been to make the condition of clerical
morality worse than before, exciting the hatred of the
people for their priests to an incredible pitch, and doing
more to inflame the ardour of heresy than all the teaching
of Christian truth can do to restrain it.”
As the failure of all efforts to improve clerical morality
under the existing rules of discipline was thus found to be
complete, there arose in the minds of thinking men a
conviction, such as Erasmus had already declared, that,
since all other measures had proved fruitless, the only
mode of securing a virtuous clergy was to remove the
prohibition of marriage. At the Polish Diet of 1552
petitions praying for sacerdotal matrimony were presented,
and, though they failed in their object, the Diet of 1556
authorised King Sigismund Augustus to address Paul IV.
with a request, in the name of the nation, to grant it as
well as communion in both elements.”
The dissension thus existing within the Church is
exhibited in a volume published in 1558 by Stanislas
Hosius, Bishop of Ermeland, earnestly arguing against
communion in both elements, clerical marriage, and the
use of the vulgar tongue in worship. As regards celibacy,
he assumes that it had been maintained unbrokenly for
1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 611.
2 Consult. Imp. Ferdinand (Le Plat, W. 235). It would be impossible to conceive
a darker picture of clerical life than is given in this document. “Ejici autem nunc
clerum, conculcari pedibus, pro nihilo haberi et tanquam publicum offendiculum
devoveri diris aut paulo plus, tam verum est quam minime falsum, cleri mores in-
sulsos esse, Vanos esse, turpes esse, aeque ecclesiae perniciosos ac Deo execrabiles”—
Ibid. p. 237.
3 Krasinski, Reformation in Poland, I. 190, 285,
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I93
fifteen hundred years, and was not now to be abandoned
to gratify a few disorderly monks. The example of the
Greek Church he meets by pointing out that the Greeks
were suffered to be persecuted by the Turks; the argument
that marriage would purify the Church he silences with
the observation that many married men are adulterers;
and he holds it to be a doubting of God to suppose that
the gift of continence would be denied to those who
properly seek it." In spite of the logic of polemics such
as Hosius, the opinions of the innovators continued to gain
ground, until at length they won even the highest digni-
taries of the empire, and in 1560 the Emperor Ferdinand
himself undertook their advocacy with the Pope, after
having for some years countenanced the practice within
his own territories.
Almost immediately on the consecration of Pius IV., in
addressing to him an argument for the reassembling of
the Council of Trent, or the convocation of a new council,
Ferdinand seized the opportunity to ask especially for the
communication of the cup to the laity, and permission for
the clergy to marry. The latter of these points he con-
sidered to be the only remedy for the fearful immorality
of the Church, for, though all flesh was corrupt, the
corruption of the priesthood surpassed that of all other
men.” That he had not waited for the papal assent to
1 Hosii Dialogus de ea num Calicem Laicis et Uxores Sacerdotibus permitti, etc.
Dilingae, 1558.
2 Pallavicini, Storia del Concil. di Trento, Lib. XIV. c. 13.
Twelve years before, his uncle, the Bishop of Liége, in promulgating the Augs-
burg formula of reformation, had made a similar assertion :1"Preterquam quod hoc
infoelici saeculo, quo omnis caro corrupit viam Suam, praesertimdue ordo clericorum
et ecclesiasticorum, nimium degenerant, plus quam unquam est necessaria "-Concil.
Leodiens. ann. 1548 (Hartzheim VI. 392). The increased emphasis of Ferdinand is a
measure of the success which had attended the reformatory movements of Charles W.
during the interval.
In such a condition of ecclesiastical morality it is no wonder that even in
orthodox Vienna the most popular theme on which preachers could expatiate was
the corruption of the Church. —See the Emperor Ferdinand’s secret instructions
to his envoy in Rome, March 6, 1560, in Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident.
IV. 622.
VOL. II. N
194 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
favour these innovations within his own dominions is
shown by his statement that the Archbishop of Salzburg
had recently, in a synod, earnestly called upon him to put
a stop to the progress which they were making, but, he
added, his long experience in such matters had shown him
what was possible and what impossible, and he had
accordingly set forth the difficulties of the task in a paper
addressed to the archbishop, a copy of which he enclosed
to the Pope."
The nuncio Commendone, in transmitting this document
to Rome, accompanied it with a letter from the Cardinal
Bishop of Augsburg, recommending the postponement
of the question until the reassembling of the Council of
Trent, and, as Pius answered it in this sense, no further
action was taken, though Ferdinand made haste to repeat
his demand, in view of the impatience of both clergy and
people, who could ill brook the delays inseparable from
the discussion of the subject in so unwieldy a body.”
When Commendone, moreover, passed through Cleves on
his way to the council, then about to be reopened, the
Duke of Cleves earnestly besought him to lend his in-
fluence to the accomplishment of the measure, urging as a
reason that in the whole of his dominions—and he was
sovereign of three populous duchies—there could not be
found five priests who did not keep concubines. In order
to secure his favour for the approaching council, Com-
mendone did not scruple to hold out expectations that the
concessions would be granted.”
During the progress of the Reformation, when the fate
of the Catholic Church of Germany had sometimes seemed
1 Pallavicini, loc. cit. That the Catholic Church of Germany had become widely
infected with this Lutheran heresy is also shown by the fact that in 1548 the Arch-
bishop of Cologne had found it necessary to prohibit throughout his province all
marriages of priests, monks, and nuns, and had pronounced illegitimate the offspring
of such unions.—Hartzheim VI. 357.
2 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. IV. 644.
3 Pallavicini, Lib. XV. c. 5.-The duke, though no bigot, was a good Catholic.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I95
to hang in the balance, no princes had earned a larger title
to the gratitude of Rome than the powerful Dukes of
Bavaria, who were the leaders of the reaction. Yet now
the influence of that important region was thrown in
favour of the abrogation of celibacy, and Duke Albert was
the first who boldly brought the matter before the council
by a demand for ecclesiastical marriage, presented on
27 June, 1562. To this the evasive answer was returned
that the council would take such action as would be found
to redound to the glory of God and to the benefit of the
Church." During the same year the Emperor Ferdinand
also repeatedly urged its consideration. A plan for the
reform of the Church presented by his delegates not only
called attention to the necessity of purifying the morals of
the regular and secular clergy, but demanded that, to some
nations at least, the privilege of sacerdotal marriage should
be conceded.” Another elaborate paper argued the ques-
tion with much temperate force, and declared that many
priests had already married for the purpose of escaping the
corruptions of celibacy, while studiously preserving them-
selves from the errors of Lutheranism. Out of a hundred
parish priests scarcely one could be found who was not
either openly or secretly married, and it was necessary to
tolerate them to prevent the utter destruction of the
Church.”
A third document is extant, without date, which was
laid before the cardinals of the papal court by the Emperor,
in which the question was argued at considerable length
and with much vehemence. After asserting that, from the
records of the primitive Church, celibacy was not then
recognised as imperative, it proceeded to declare that if
1 Pallavicini, Lib. XVII. c. 4. At the request of Duke Albert, the question was
also mooted at the provincial synod of Salzburg, held in 1562 for the purpose of
sending delegates to Trent.—Hartzheim VII. 230.
2 Articuli de Reform. Eccles. No. 14, 15, 18. –Goldast. II. 376.
3 Consultat. Imp. Ferdinandi (Le Plat, W. 249, 252).
196 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
marriage ever were permissible, the present carnal and
licentious age rendered it a necessity, for not one Catholic
priest out of fifty could be found who lived chastely. All
were asserted to be notoriously dissolute, scandalising the
people and inflicting great damage on the Church. The
request was made not so much to satisfy the priests who
desired marriage as to meet the wishes of the laity, for
many patrons of livings refused presentation to all but
married men. However preferable a single life might be
for the clergy, it therefore was thought better to give it up
than to leave open the door to the scandalous impurities
traceable to celibacy. Another weighty reason was alleged
in the great scarcity of priests, caused alone by the pro-
hibition of marriage, in proof of which it was urged that
the Catholic schools of divinity were all but empty and the
episcopal function of ordination nearly disused, while the
Lutheran colleges were crowded by those who subsequently
obtained admission into the true Church, where they worked
incredible mischief. The argument that the temporal
possessions of the Church would be imperilled by sacerdotal
matrimony was met by indignantly denouncing the worldly
wisdom which would protect such perishable interests at
the cost of innumerable souls sacrificed by the existing
condition of affairs. For these and other reasons it asked
that marriage should in future be allowed to all the priest-
hood, whether already in orders or to be subsequently
admitted: that married men of good character and educa-
tion should be ordained to supply the want of pastors: that
those who had contracted matrimony, incontravention of the
canons, should no longer be ejected, seeing that it was most
absurd to turn out men because they were married, while
retaining notorious concubinarians, and that if, with equal
justice, both classes should be dismissed, the people would
be left almost, if not entirely, destitute of spiritual guides.
The paper concluded by asserting that if the prayer be
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 197
granted the clergy could be retained in the Church and in
the faith, to the great benefit of their flocks, and that the
scandal of promiscuous licentiousness, which had involved’
the Church in so much disgrace, would be removed.”
This vivid sketch of the condition of the church, with
the evils which were everywhere felt, and the remedies
which suggested themselves to clear-sighted and im-
partial men, was as ineffectual as other similar efforts had
been, for to all such arguments the Council of Trent was
deaf. France, too, was more than willing to see celibacy
abolished. M. de Lanssac, the French ambassador, was
ordered to place himself in close relations with the repre-
sentatives of the Emperor, and to unite with them in
seeking the relaxation of all regulations which tended to
prevent the reunion of the Protestants, while the Gallican
bishops were commanded to show themselves reasonable
and yielding in such matters: and when Lanssac reported
the demands of the Emperor, comprehending clerical mar-
riage among other changes, Charles IX. assented to them
in terms of warm commendation.* The Cardinal of
Lorraine, moreover, was instructed to urge some measures
efficient to reform the licentious lives of the ecclesiastics,
which spread corruption and debauchery among the people,
while permission for priestly marriage was recommended
as one of the means essential to recall the heretics to the
bosom of the true Church.” As a compromise, however,
the French prelates contented themselves with suggesting
that none but elderly men should be eligible to the priest-
hood, and that the testimony of the people in favour of
1 Considerat. Caesar. Majest. sup. Matrim. Sacerd. Nos. 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15,
16, 17 (Goldast. II. 382–3—Le Plat, WI. 315).
The scarcity of priests in Germany, with resulting neglect of religion, was no
new thing, and had been strongly represented in 1542 by the nuncio Morone. He
attributed it to the popular contempt felt for ecclesiastics, and said that, although
some bishops maintained training seminaries, the scholars, when they acquired a
little learning, mostly became Lutherans.—Lämmer, Monumentt. Vaticana p. 398,
2 Le Plat, W. 154, 208, 211.
3 Ibid. 562–3,
I98 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
their moral character should be a prerequisite to ordination,
in hopes that by such means the necessary purification of
the clergy at least could be effected, while the sharpest
measures should be adopted to punish their licentiousness."
All this was useless, and, in fact, it is difficult to ima-
gine how any one could expect a reform of this nature
from a body composed of prelates all of whom were obliged
by Pius IV., in a decree of 4 September, 1560, to solemnly
swear to a profession of faith containing a specific declara-
tion that the vows of chastity inferred on entering into
holy orders, or assumed in embracing monastic life, were
to be strictly observed and enforced.” The question thus
was prejudged, and the council was more likely to listen to
Bartholomew a Martyribus, the Archbishop of Bracara,
who laid before them a paper containing the points which,
in his opinion, required reformation, among which were the
revival of the canons respecting concubinary bishops and
priests, the prohibition of sons succeeding to their fathers'
benefices, and the excommunication of confessors who de-
bauched their fair penitents”—though when the sturdy
archbishop in a stormy debate declared that “illustrissimi
cardinales egent illustrissima reformatione,” he doubtless
was held to be a most uncourtly and impracticable re-
former.
Despite all the urgency from without, it was not until
8 February, 1563, after the council had been in session for
more than a year, that the theologians at last arranged for
disputation the articles on matrimony, and laid them before
the council for discussion. They were divided into five
1 Capi dati da" Francesi cap. 1.-(Baluz. et Mansi IV. 374) Comp. Zaccaria,
pp. 133–4.
2 Votum castitatis sacris ordinibus conjunctum, atque vota quae in probatis
religionibus emittuntur, et alia quaecunque rite suscepta, fideliter sunt observanda.—
Le Plat, IV. 649.
3 Ibid. Iv. 756, 760, 761, 765.-The 182 articles which, according to Archbishop
Bartholomew, required reform in the internal discipline of the Church form as
damaging a commentary upon its condition as any of the attacks of the Protestants.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT I99
classes, of which the fourth was devoted to the bearing of
the subject on the clergy, consisting of two propositions—
the fifth and sixth–artfully drawn up to justify rejection,
while preserving the appearance of presenting the subject
for deliberation—That matrimony was preferable to celi-
bacy, and that God bestowed grace on the married rather
than on the single.—That the priests of the Western
Church could lawfully contract marriage, notwithstanding
the canons; that to deny this was to condemn matrimony,
and that all were at liberty to marry who did not feel
themselves graced with the gift of chastity."
The disputation on the various questions connected
with matrimony commenced the next day, and was con-
tinued at intervals for six months. Meanwhile there were
negotiations on foot between Rome and Vienna, negotia-
tions complicated by various factors. The Pope and the
Curia were wrathful at the reforms enacted and projected
by the council, and were anxious to dissolve it at any cost,
while the Emperor Ferdinand was resolved to prolong its
sessions until he should obtain his desires. Then he had
had his son Maximilian, King of Bohemia, elected as King
of the Romans, 24 November, 1562, Sorely against the will
of Pius IV., who had vainly threatened to deprive the
Lutheran electors of their votes and then secretly to restore
them on condition of their electing Philip II. of Spain.
Failing in this, as the Holy See claimed the right of con-
firming the election, he demanded that Maximilian should
take an oath practically of allegiance to Rome, which was
naturally refused. Maximilian, in fact, had long been
suspected of Lutheran proclivities; in 1557 we find him
described as keeping a married Lutheran preacher, while
the most influential members of his court were Lutherans,
and he felt the necessity of friendly relations with the
1 Art. v.--Lettere del Arcivesc. Calini (Baluz et Mansi IV. 295). —Le Plat,
V. 674.
200 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Lutheran princes, whose support was indispensable against
the Turk. The ecclesiastical electors (Mainz, Trèves, and
Cologne) had hesitated to give him their votes till they
had assurances which satisfied them, but not the more in-
credulous Curia. Philip II. seems to have had no aspira-
tions for the imperial crown, but he was fanatically
opposed to any concessions to the heretics, whether these
concerned the use of the cup or priestly marriage, and
through his representatives at Rome and Trent he cease-
lessly brought to bear against them the utmost weight of
his great influence."
Our knowledge of the moves in this complicated game
is but fragmentary. We hear of a letter, in April 1562,
in which Ferdinand claims priestly marriage as a thing
promised to him by Pius in order to have an end put to
the council, and other letters in which he threatens that if
his requests are denied he will assemble a national council
and proclaim an Interim worse than that of Charles V. ; or
else that Germany would withdraw from the Roman
obedience, as there was no other remedy to satisfy his
people. These threats greatly troubled the Pope, who
begged Philip to send to Germany a personage of impor-
tance to represent that if Ferdinand separated himself from
the Holy See he would become a heretic and his children
would be incapacitated from inheriting his dominions. Not
relying on Philip's intervention, in May he sent Cardinal
Morone ostensibly as legate to the council, but with in-
structions to tarry there only twenty-four hours, and hasten
to Vienna. In reporting this to Philip, his ambassador
Vargas expresses the liveliest apprehensions that it would
result in the concession of the cup to the laity and mar-
riage to priests, so earnestly demanded by the Germans and
1 Döllinger, Beiträge zur politischen, kirchlichen und Cultur-Geschichte, I.
241–3, 329–40, 397–8, 526–9, 554 (Regensburg, 1862).
This is a series of despatches between Philip and his envoys which throw much
light on the secret history of this tortuous diplomacy.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 201
French, for the Pope had shown himself so yielding and so
inclined to make the grant, and he could readily control
the council if he did not care himself to take the responsi-
bility of what would set the world ablaze. What terms
were reached between Ferdinand and Morone it would be
impossible to say, but that a bargain was concluded was
generally understood. In fact, in March 1564 Pius ad-
mitted in consistory that he had made promises to Ferdi-
nand in order to hasten the dissolution of the council."
Possibly it was in concert with this that, as reported in
August 1563 by the nuncio Delfini from Vienna, the three
ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the
Duke of Bavaria held a conference, in which it was resolved
to unite with the Emperor in an appeal for bulls permitting
priestly marriage and communion in both elements.” In
pursuance of this, early in September Ferdinand wrote to
his ambassadors at Trent that he had called together in
Vienna the deputies of the electors and princes of the
empire, who, after mature deliberation, had determined to
ask these concessions of the Pope and not of the council.
He enclosed a protocol of the demand, but as it was not
fully settled, it was to be communicated to no one but to
Philip's ambassador, the Count of Luna, whereupon Philip
persuaded him to withhold it until after the council should
be dissolved.” A further move in the game, with the
same purpose, was a promise, later in the autumn, by
Pius, that when the council should be out of the way he
1 Döllinger, op. cit. pp. 523, 545–6, 555.
2 Lettere del Nunzio Visconti, n. LXIX (Ed. Amstelod. II. 299). This and the
concluding letters are not in Mansi’s edition.
Sarpi tells us (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, Lib. VIII. Ed. Helmstat, II. 315)
that in the spring of 1563 the Bavarians rose in revolt and demanded the cup and
priestly marriage, when the Duke was obliged to make a promise to his Diet that, if
the concessions were not made in June by either the council or the Pope he
would himself grant them. The threatened defection of this Catholic stronghold
caused such alarm that the legates despatched Niccolo Ormanetto to the Duke to
induce him to withdraw his promise, under a pledge that the council would take
such action as would satisfy his people.
3 Pallavicini, Lib. XXII. cap. 10.-Döllinger, I. 568.
202 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
would send a legate, with full powers to dispense in the
matters of the cup, of clerical marriage, and of the reten-
tion of Church lands, while Maximilian should treat with
the Protestants for their return to the Church under
these concessions."
Evidently the honest Germans were ill fitted to cope
with Italian diplomacy. Relying on papal promises, they
held their hands off from the council, which enabled the
Pope to control it absolutely through his legates.” Ac-
cordingly it went on its accustomed way to render the
breach with Protestantism as impassable as possible. Pal-
lavicini doubtless correctly represents its views when he
remarks, concerning the princes who exerted themselves
to secure sacerdotal marriage, that they seemed to con-
sider that the council had been convoked for the purpose
not of condemning but of contenting the heretics, whom
they proposed to convert by gratifying in place of repress-
ing their contumacious desires.”
The result of thus skilfully shielding the council from
all pressure from Germany and France was that the
question of retaining sacerdotal celibacy was prevented
from becoming the subject of serious debate. This,
indeed, was a foregone conclusion. In the minute
account, transmitted from day to day by Archbishop
Calini to Cardinal Cornaro, in which all the details of
internal discussion and external intrigue attainable by a
quick-witted member of the council were reported, there
is no allusion to the matter. No debates or diversity of
opinion are mentioned, no intimation that the matter was
regarded as open to a doubt, and even the appeals made
by the Emperor and other potentates are passed over in
1 Döllinger, I. 538.
2 Vargas, writing to Philip, 20 May, 1563, when he was fearing that the Pope
would yield, describes the ease with which he could control the council : “Sin tener
los pobres hombres mas boca y vigor que lo que los dichus legadas quieren 6 insinuan
como muchas veces ha dicho, y que genero de gentes son aquellas.”—Ibid. p. 523.
3 Pallavicini, Lib. XVII. cap. 4.
THE council of TRENT 203
silence, for the very sufficient reason that the papal legates,
who controlled all the business of the council, refused
to allow them to be read.” In their reply to the Em-
peror's remonstrances, indeed, they declared that to have
such a subject publicly broached in the council would
create a fearful scandal throughout Christendom, and
Pius IV. approved of their answer as the best that could
be given.” It is no wonder, therefore, that in the corre-
spondence of the nuncio Visconti the only allusion to the
matter is a simple reference, under date of 22 March,
1563, to the demand previously made by the Duke of
Bavaria.”
In fact, when, on March 4, the 5th and 6th articles
were reached, they were both unanimously pronounced
heretical without any prolonged debate. Doctor Juan de
Ludefia pronounced a “ disputation” on the subject, the
tone of which showed that the result was already decided,
and that the only disposition of the council was to vilify
those who desired the abrogation of celibacy." A dis-
cussion, however, then arose as to the power of the Pope
to dispense the clergy, both regular and secular, from the
obligation of celibacy, and on this point there was con-
siderable diversity of opinion, occupying numerous suc-
cessive meetings in its settlement. The majority were in
favour of the papal power, and its exercise in the existing
condition of the Church was even recommended by those
who recognised the evils of the system, but shrank from
the responsibility of themselves introducing the innovation.
1 See the apologetic letter of the nuncio to the Emperor, 19 January, 1562 (Le Plat,
op. cit. W. 320). Ferdinand remonstrated earnestly, but did not venture to rebel
against their decision (Ibid. 351-60).
2 Ibid. p. 388.
3 Lettere del Nunzio Wisconti (Baluz. et Mansi, III. 453).
4 Disputat. Joann. de Ludegna (Harduin. X. 359). The learned doctor presents
his argument in the form of a colloquy between himself and Calvin, and its spirit
may be gathered from the first speech of Calvin, in which he is made to declare that
he is endeavouring to find arguments with which to defend himself and his apostate
strumpets. -
204 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
This was promptly rebuked by the conservatives, according
to Fra Paolo, with the remark that a prudent physician
would not attempt to cure one disease by bringing on a
greater." It was not, however, until November 11 that
the canons on matrimony were finally adopted and
formally published. Of these there are two relating to
our subject. The first one pronounced the dread anathema
on all who should dare to assert that clerks in holy orders,
monks, or nuns could contract marriage, or that such a
marriage was valid, since God would not deny the gift of
chastity to those who rightly sought it, nor would He
expose us to temptation beyond our strength. The other
similarly anathematised all who dared to assert that the
married state was more worthy than virginity, or that it
was not better to live in celibacy than married.” In the
preliminary congregation, held October 13, they had been
adopted without a dissenting voice, save that the Arch-
bishop of Sens and the Bishop of Verdun desired the words
“non obstante lege ecclesiastica vel voto" to be omitted
from the ninth canon.” The tenth canon, though directed
against the Protestants, was by no means uncalled-for
among Catholics. About this period the Spanish Inquisi-
tion commenced to treat as a heresy the assertion that the
married state is preferable to the celibacy prescribed for
the clergy, when the number of cases which speedily
appeared in the records and continued for nearly a century
1 Sarpi, Lib. VII. (Opere, II. 280.)
2 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXIV. De Sacrament. Matrimon.
Can. Ix. Si quis dixerit clericos in sacris ordinibus constitutos, vel regulares
castitatem solemniter professos, posse matrimonium contrahere, contractumque
validum esse, non obstante lege ecclesiastica vel voto ; et oppositum nihil aliud esse
quam damnare matrimonium ; posseque omnes contrahere matrimonium, qui non
sentiunt se castitatis, etiamsi eam voverint, habere donum ; anathema sit ; quum
Deus id recte petentibus non deneget, nec patiatur nos supra id quod possumus
tentari.
Can. x. Si quis dixerit statum conjugalem anteponendum esse statui virginitatis
vel coelibatus, et non esse melius ac beatius manere in virginitate aut coelibatu, quam
jungi matrimonio, anathema sit.
3 Theiner, Acta genuina Concilii Tridentini, II, 428,429 (Zagrabice, 1874).
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 205
show how widely spread and persistent among the people
was this belief.” *
Thus, while keeping the Germans and French quiet
with delusive promises, the Church devoted its energies
to the miserable task of separating itself as widely as
possible from those who had left it. Its rulers seemed to
imagine that their only hope of safety lay in entrenching
themselves behind the exaggerations of those particular
points of policy which had afforded to their adversaries
the fairest chances of attack. The faithful throughout
Germany might suffer from the absence of the ministers
of Christ, or might endure yet more from the unrestrained
passions of wolves in sheep's clothing let loose among their
wives and daughters, but the Church militant in this
conjuncture dreaded even more to lose the aid of that
monastic army which, in theory at least, had no earthly
object but the service of St. Peter; it selfishly feared that
the parish priest who might legitimately see his fireside
surrounded by a happy group of wife and children would
lose the devotion which a man without ties should enter-
tain for the prosperity and glory of the ecclesiastical
establishment; and perhaps, more than all, it saw with
terror avaricious princes eager for the secularisation of that
immense property to which it owed so large a portion of
the splendour which dazzled mankind, of the influence
which rendered it powerful, and of the luxury which made
its high places attractive to the ambitious and able men
who controlled its destiny. To put an end, therefore, at
Once and for ever, to the mutterings of dissatisfaction
among those who compared the domestic life of the
Protestant pastors with the reckless self-indulgence of the
ministers of the old religion, it was resolved to place the
canon of celibacy in a position where none of the orthodox
should dare to attack it, and to accomplish this the simple
1 See the author’s History of the Inquisition of Spain, vol. iv. p. 144.
206 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
rule of discipline was elevated to the dignity of a point of
belief. As the Church had already been forced, in defend-
ing the rule from the assaults of the Reformers, to attribute
to it apostolic origin, we may not perhaps be surprised
that it was made a point of doctrine, but we cannot easily
appreciate the reasons that would justify the anathema
launched against all who regarded the marriage of those
in holy orders as binding. The dissolution of such mar-
riages, as we have seen, was not suggested until the
middle of the twelfth century, and the decision of the
council thus condemned as heretics the whole body of the
Church during three-quarters of its previous existence.
Although the doctrinal canon threw the responsibility
of priestly unchastity upon God, yet as the council had so
peremptorily refused to adopt the remedy urged by the
princes of the empire, it did not hesitate to employ human
means to remove, if possible, the scandals which God had
had permitted to afflict the Church. The decree of refor-
mation, published in December 1563, contained provisions
intended to curb the vice which the Tridentine fathers,
with all their reliance on Divine power, well knew to be
ineradicable. These provisions, however, were little more
than a repetition of what we have seen enacted in every
century since Siricius. Any ecclesiastic guilty of keeping
a concubine, or woman liable to suspicion, was admonished ;
disregarding this first warning, he was deprived of one-
third of his revenue; if still contumacious, suspension from
functions and benefice followed; and a persistence in
guilt was then visited with irrevocable deprivation. No
appeal from a sentence could gain exemption; these cases
were removed from the jurisdiction of inferior officials
and confided to the bishops, who were enjoined to be
prompt and severe in their decisions; while guilty bishops
were liable to suspension by their provincial synods, and,
if irreclaimable, were sent to Rome for punishment. The
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 207
illegitimate children of priests were pronounced incapable
of preferment. Those already in orders, if employed in
their fathers' parishes, were required, under pain of depriva-
tion, to exchange their positions within three months for
preferment elsewhere, and any provision made by a clerical
parent for the benefit of his children was pronounced to be
a fraud.” -
Such were the regulations which this great general
council of the Catholic Church considered sufficient to
relieve the establishment of the curse which had hung
around it for a thousand years. There is nothing in them
that had not been tried a hundred times before, with what
success the foregoing pages may attest. In some respects,
indeed, they were not as prompt and efficacious as the
decrees which Charles V. and his bishops had promulgated
a few years previous, and which had proved so lament-
ably inefficient. There were not wanting enlightened
members of the council who bitterly felt the inefficiency
of what they were doing, but the undignified haste of the
closing sessions, and the domination of Rome, rendered
them unable to accomplish more. As the Bishop of
Astorga said in a letter to Granvelle, “They are not as
we would have wished, to correct the abuses and scandals
of the Church, which cause so many to fall into error,
but we have to do what we are permitted to do, not
what we would wish to do.”* Heretics, indeed, who
asserted that there was in reality no intention of sup-
pressing concubinage, could point in justification to the
curious fact that, while previous councils had provided
heavy penalties against the concubines of priests, that of
Trent passed them over as though they were guiltless.
Within two months after the dissolution of the council,
1 Concil. Trident. Sess. xxv. Decret. de Reformat. cap. 14, 15.
* Manoi facciamo quello che ci si permette di fare, non quello che vorremmo.—
Examinatore, Firenze, 1868, p. 15.
208 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Ferdinand and Albert of Bavaria presented to the Pope
their requests, which were more moderate than might
have been expected. The two papers were essentially
the same. In the name of the princes of the empire,
after demanding the communion in both elements for
the laity, they proceeded to argue earnestly for the other
concession. In place of asking, as before, the privilege
for the clergy at large, they now reduced their entreaties
to the simple request of allowing such Catholic priests
as had entered into matrimony to retain their wives.
and perform their functions, which they assured the Pope
was absolutely essential to the preservation of the frag-
ments of the Church still doing battle with the prevail-
ing heresies throughout Germany." They likewise asked
1 Goldast. II. 380.—Le Plat, WI. 310, 312.
It is observable from this that many priests left the Church and married without
formally embracing the Lutheran faith, and a return of these was anticipated from
a relaxation of the canons. Others, as may be gathered from various references
above, married and still performed their regular duties. Of these, some no doubt
acted in virtue of dispensations granted by the nuncios of Paul III., after the
promulgation of the Interim, but many did so in utter contempt of discipline. An
illustrative example of the latter class may be found in the well-known Stanislas
Orzechowski, whose marriage, notwithstanding his prominent position, shows the
laxity of opinion which prevailed on the subject. As priest and canon of Przemysl
in Poland, his marriage naturally gave great offence to his colleagues, which was
not diminished by a dissertation which he wrote in favour of priestly marriage.
This, he subsequently claimed, had been prepared for the purpose of laying it before
the Council of Trent, and its publication had arisen from the indiscretion of a friend
to whom he had entrusted it. Somewhat contaminated with the new ideas by his
education at Wittenberg, he sturdily refused to give up either his wife or his
position. His consequent excommunication he disregarded, though according to
his own account he gave up on marrying his benefices and the ministry (Lettera a
Guilio III. trad. di B. Leoni, Milano, anno. VI.), and notwithstanding this he had a
very narrow escape from the death penalty, and his condemnation excited a com-
motion throughout Poland that was very favourable to the spread of the reformed
opinions (Orichovii Annales, pp. 71–84, 108, Ed. 1854). At length the feeling against
the pretensions of the Church became so strong that the diet of 1552 removed all the
civil and temporal penalties of excommunication, so that he triumphed for the time,
especially as Sigismund II. included priestly marriage among the concessions which
he requested of Paul IV. (Herzog, Abriss. III. 241.) When in 1556 the legate
Lippomani held a synod at Lovictz, he called to account those who had connived at
so great an irregularity. They denied granting the dispensation, saying that they
had only suspended the censures until the pleasure of the Pope should be known,
but at the same time many prelates used all their influence with Lippomani to obtain
one. Lippomani declared that he had no power to grant it, nor would he do so if
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 209
that in such places as could not obtain a sufficiency of
pastors, the bishops should be empowered to ordain
married laymen of approved piety, learning, and fitness.
These appeals were successful as far as communion in
both elements was concerned, for, on April 16, Pius granted
that concession under certain conditions. The subject of
priestly marriage, however, he still postponed, and on
June 17 we find Ferdinand writing to Cardinal Morone, to
express his thanks for what he had obtained, and to urge
the other subject on the consideration of the papal court.
He had instructed his ambassador, he said, to press it
earnestly, and he besought the Cardinal to aid in so pious
and advantageous a work."
Nor was this the only means which Ferdinand, then
verging rapidly to the grave, adopted to attain the object
he could, seeing that Orzechowski defended himself on heretical grounds (Concil.
Lovitiens.—Labbei et Coleti Supp. T. V. p. 702). In 1561 Orzechowski, in his
address to the synod of Warsaw, admitted that he had sinned, but claimed that he
had been punished sufficiently—“Si quis igitur a me quaerat : Num uxorem sacerdos
duxerim? Duxisse me fatebor. Peccasti igitur ! Peccavi. Poenas ergo peccati
debes 7 Debui et persolvi " (Doctrina de Sacerd. Coelibatu, Warsaviae, 1801). He
therefore complained of the persecutions to which he was exposed on account of his
wife, and he petitioned both the Pope and the Council of Trent for a dispensation.
While the Tridentine fathers refused it, some authors assert that it was granted by
Pius IV. to him as an exceptional case “tibi soli Orichovio,” but careful investiga-
tion has failed to discover the brief, and, according to Zaccaria, the Pope merely
sent secret orders to his legate Commendone not to allow Orzechowski to be
molested, but at the same time to give no publicity to an act of tolerance in contra-
vention of the canons of the Council of Trent (Grégoire, Hist. du Mariage des Prêtres
en France, pp. 51–55).
In his answer to Fricius, Orzechowski assumes that he was absolved from his
excommunication by the legate—“Praeterea a sententia excommunicationis, qua
eram a Joanne Episcopo Premisliensi, ob hanc eandem uxorem, ex ecclesia pulsus, a
Legato Romani Petri absolutus cum sim, nihil feci contra illum ” (ap. Doctrin. de
Sacerd. Coelibat. p. 24). He also alleges the extraordinary excuse that he
abandoned the priesthood before his marriage.
The history of Orzechowski, with probably a less fortunate result, is no doubt
that of innumerable others, whose obscurity has prevented their sufferings from
being known beyond their own narrow circle.
Strype (Annals, I. 485-6) asserts that after the accession of Queen Elizabeth the
Catholic emissaries in England had a general dispensation to marry, in order to
assist their concealment and to further the design of creating schism in the
Anglican Church. He gives as his authority one Malachi Malone a converted Irish
friar.
1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. VI. 331.
VOL. II. O
210 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of his unwearied pursuit. Georg Witzel had thrown aside
the monastic gown in 1531, to embrace the errors of
Lutheranism, but had returned to the old religion. His
learning and piety earned for him a deserved reputation,
and elevated him to the position of imperial councillor,
where his talents were devoted to the endless task of
bringing about a reconciliation between the Churches.
George Cassander, equally eminent, had never incurred the
imputation of apostacy, but had laboured with tireless
industry to convert his erring brethren from heresy to the
true faith. Men like these might perhaps be heard when
the voice of princes and prelates, actuated by motives of
personal advantage, met a deaf ear; and Ferdinand applied
to them for disquisitions on the subject." Before their
labours were concluded the monarch was dead (July 25,
1564), but his son Maximilian II. inherited his father's
ideas, and gladly made use of the opinions which the
learned Catholic doctors had no hesitation in expressing.
Both took strong ground against celibacy. Cassander,
while defending the Church for originally introducing the
rule, deplored the terrible and abominable scandals which
its untimely enforcement caused throughout the Church,
and he urged that the reasons which had led to its intro-
duction not only existed no longer, but had even become
arguments for its abrogation, since now the choice lay only
between married priests and concubinarians. He declared
it to be the source of numerous evils, chief among which
was promiscuous and unbridled licentiousness, and he added
that the already scanty ranks of the priesthood were de-
1 This was not his first attempt of this kind. In 1540 he had called upon John
Cochlaeus to examine the Confession of Augsburg and report as to what points were
reconcilable with Catholicism and what were not. Cochlaeus responded in an
elaborate dissertation, wherein he took strong ground against abandoning celibacy,
but admitted that he was utterly unable to suggest any remedy for the evils result-
ing from it—especially the “scandalosus presbyterorum in seculo concubinatus,
praesertim apud plebanos in pagis, qui communiter cum ancillis rem domesticam
gubernare necessitate quadam coguntur.”—Le Plat, II. 667.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 2II
prived of the accessions which were so necessary, since men
of a religious turn of mind were prevented from taking
orders by the universal wickedness which prevailed under
the excuse of celibacy, while pious parents kept their sons
from entering the Church for fear of debauching their
morals. On the other hand, those who sought a life of
ease and licence were attracted to the holy calling which
they disgraced. He was even willing to permit marriage
in orders, arguing that it was only a question of canon law,
in which faith and doctrine were not involved. As regards
the monastic orders, while fully appreciating the principles
upon which the system was founded, he warmly deplored
the corruption engendered by wealth and luxury. Though
the convents contained many pious and holy men, still for
the most part religion was forgotten in the observance of
ceremonies that had lost their significance, and nothing
could be more licentious and profane than the life led in
many of the monasteries." Witzel was equally severe in
his denunciations of the clerical licentiousness attributable
to the rule of celibacy, and concluded his tract by attacking
the supineness, blindness, and perversity of the prelates
who suffered such foulness to exist everywhere among the
priesthood, in contempt of Christ and to the burdening of
their consciences.”
It was already evident that both the great objects for
which the Council of Trent had ostensibly been assembled
were failures; that it would effect as little for the purifica-
tion of the Church as for the reconciliation of the heretics.
Perhaps Maximilian felt that under these circumstances no
one could deny the necessity of such changes as would at
least afford a chance of the reformation that could no
longer be expected of the Tridentine canons; perhaps he
1 G. Cassandri Consult. xxLII., xxv. (Le Plat, WI. 761–2, 783–4.)
2 Wicelii Via Regia, De Conjug. Sacerd.
Both these tracts were printed, with other controversial matter, by Hermann
Conring, 4to. Helmstadt, 1569.
212 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
felt strengthened by the support of his ecclesiastical coun-
sellors and controversialists; perhaps, with the zealous
hopefulness of youth, he felt a confidence of which age and
many disappointments had deprived his father; or perhaps
he was encouraged by the concession to his subjects and to
those of Albert of Bavaria of the communion in both
elements, not knowing that in two short years it would be
withdrawn. Certain it is that in a negotiation with the
Bishop of Ventimiglia, papal nuncio at his court, he lost no
time in renewing, with increased energy, the effort to
obtain the recognition of married priests. After the
departure of the nuncio, he addressed, in November 1564, a
most pressing demand to Pius IV., in which he declared
that the matter brooked no further postponement; that
throughout Germany, and especially in his dominions, there
was the greatest need of proper ministers and pastors; that
there was no other measure which would retain them in
the Catholic Church, from which, day by day, they were
withdrawing, principally from this cause. He assured the
Holy Father that the danger was constantly increasing,
and that he feared a further delay would render even this
remedy powerless to prevent the total destruction of the
old religion. If only this were granted to the clergy, even
as the cup had been communicated to the laity, he hoped
for an immediate improvement. The bishops could then
exercise their authority over those who at present were
beyond their control, as unrecognised by the Church;
and so thoroughly was this lawless condition of affairs
understood that a refuge was sought in his provinces by
those disreputable pastors who were banished from the
Lutheran states on account of their disorderly lives." His
brother, the Archduke Charles, was equally urgent, in a
letter which he addressed, a few days later, to the Pope,
repeating the same arguments, and assuring him that the
1 Goldast. II. 381.
THE COUNCIL of TRENT 213
only hope for the true religion in his dominions was to
find some means of admitting the services of a married
clergy.”
Ferdinand and Maximilian were actuated in these per-
severing efforts not merely by the desire of gratifying the
wishes of their people, or of remedying the depravity of
the ecclesiastical body. It had been a favourite project
with the father, warmly adopted by the son, to heal the
differences between the two religions, and to restore to the
Church its ancient and prosperous unity. In their opinion,
and in that of many eminent men, the main obstacle to
this was the question of celibacy. It was evidently hope-
less to expect this sacrifice of the Lutheran pastors, while
numerous members of the Catholic Church regarded the
change as essential to the purification of their own estab-
lishment. The only mode of effecting so desirable a
reconciliation was therefore to persuade the Pope to
exercise the power of dispensation which the Council of
Trent had admitted to be inherent in his high office. It
thus was left for Pius IV. to extricate himself from the
tangle of promises with which he had evaded the pressure
from beyond the Alps. His position, in fact, was perplexing,
for the council had thrown on him the responsibility, by
admitting his power of dispensation, while at the same
time, with little regard for consistency, it had cast the
denial of sacerdotal marriage in the form of a dogma en-
forced with the dread anathema. In spite of this, no one
On either side of the question seems to have doubted his
power to dispense with the dogma, and this power thus
became the storm-centre of a struggle in which the unfor-
tunate Pius reaped to the full the results of his double-
dealing policy.
The protagonist of conservatism was Philip II., the
most powerful monarch of the time and the head of the
1 Le Plat, WI. 335.
214 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
only thoroughly Catholic kingdom beyond the Alps. He
threw himself into it with such vigour, through a succes-
sion of envoys—Vargas, Luis de Zuñiga, Luis de Reque-
sens, Cardinal Pacheco, Pedro de Avila—that Pacheco
reported, 20 April, 1565, that Pius had conceived the idea
that Philip's purpose in urging him to refuse the German
demands was that the Emperor would then withdraw
from the Church, so that Spain should remain the only
Christian country and Philip thus be enabled to control
the Holy See. Pius, in fact, at times scarce knew which
way to turn. A few days earlier Pacheco had reported an
audience, in which the Pope asked him to obtain Philip's
advice as to whether he should grant a request, repeatedly
made by the Emperor, to assemble a junta of learned
prelates from all Christendom to consider the matter. It
was not, he said, an affair of divine law, requiring a
general council, but of positive law; and this at least
would have the advantage of postponing a decision.
Pacheco promised to write, but said that he knew that
Philip would send no prelates to such a junta, as it would
scandalise all Spain; and Philip would regard it as certain
that, if the concession were granted to Germany, the
Spanish clergy would not only want it, but would go
there and renounce their nationality, in order to lead a
dissolute life. To this Pius replied that he knew that all
Christendom would demand it, but he could not resist
the Emperor without the vigorous support of Philip, whom
he desired to use his influence with Maximilian to lighten
the pressure. Pacheco concludes by adverting to the
weakness and vacillation of Pius, who inclined first to one
side and then to the other."
On the other hand, Maximilian was urging the con-
cession with greater insistence than his father, and the
indecision of Pius was exemplified in a consistory held
1 Döllinger, op. cit. pp. 594–5, 598.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 215
12 January, 1565, chiefly to consider the matter. He
adverted to the grant of the cup, which Cardinal Hosius
of Ermeland reported had proved of much advantage in
Germany and Austria, both in retaining Catholics and
winning heretics, while in Bohemia it had been received
as a gift from heaven. The marriage question was still
more important; the Cardinal and other prelates admitted
that priests were few, and still fewer were those who
desired to take orders. He had met their arguments
and abhorred innovations; although so pious an emperor
deemed it necessary for his dominions, it would be of evil
example, for, if conceded to Germany, no one knew but
that it would be demanded by Spain, France, and Poland.
He wished that it had been decided by the council, and
that the burden had not been laid on him, for the Emperor
would be offended if refused what he said was the only
remedy, and he foresaw the action that might be taken in
the approaching Diet. He therefore wanted the opinions,
not only of the cardinals, but of many theologians, and
would be greatly pleased if an assembly could be con-
vened from all the nations. He therefore asked the
cardinals to consider the importance of the affair, and to
advise him freely and sincerely; he would hear all, and
take such resolution as the Holy Ghost might inspire.
To this appeal the only response seems to have been from
Cardinal Simoneta, who briefly stated that he had been
legate to the Council when the Emperor's petitions were
presented, and it had been deemed wiser not to bring
the matter up for debate, as it was certain that clerical
marriage would be refused." The report of this consistory
created great scandal in Spain, and Philip wrote a strong
letter to Pius, representing that the concession would
prove the destruction of Christianity and the ruin of his
1 Döllinger, I. 588–90.-Lämmer, Meletunatum Romanorum Mantissa, p. 217
(Ratisbonae, 1875).
216 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
dominions. When Cardinal Pacheco read this to the
Pope he sighed and groaned; he could not but listen to
so powerful a sovereign as the Emperor. He was told that
it would bring back Germany; that there were no priests
there, and that the land was relapsing into paganism;
that the approaching Diet would proclaim an Interim
worse than that of Charles V. ; but God had helped him,
for the Diet had been postponed until September, and
they thus at least gained that much time." Three days
after Pacheco writes that the Pope is old and weak and
worn out with perplexity; he complains that he is left
alone, and he will yield not only this, but all that is asked
of him, unless he is strongly supported. He has postponed
it as long as he can, and can do so no longer.”
When Don Pedro de Avila was sent as a special
envoy on the question, Philip, in his instructions of 10
June, 1565, told him that from the way in which the Pope
treated the matter it would appear that he was pledged
to make the concession, whether it was one of the articles
agreed upon with the Emperor for the dissolution of the
council or subsequently, and the expedients suggested for
paving the way to it were inadmissible, especially the
reference to the German prelates, for, even if they should
not be moved by the desire to preserve their estates, they
could not exercise free judgment in their anxiety to find
a remedy for the condition of the provinces and under
the pressure of the Emperor, the princes, and the people.
When the use of the cup was granted he had kept silent,
but this was vastly more important, and if it was conceded
he would make a great “demonstration’—a significant
word in Spanish parlance.”
De Avila's reports were reassuring. The Pope de-
clared that he had given no pledge as to marriage, as he
1 Döllinger, I. 591–3. 2 Ibid. pp. 596–7.
3 Ibid. pp. 605–7.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 217
had done with regard to the cup; the latter had been
necessary to prevent a schism by dissolving the council.
He would not grant it unless it would bring back all
the heretics, and even then he would hesitate. The danger
from the Diet had passed ; he had dragged the matter
along for six years, and would continue to do so, but
he would not drive the Emperor to despair. To gain
time he had sent his nuncios Landriano and Guicciar-
dini, with an offer to pay yearly 25,000 ducats in sup-
port of seminaries to supply the lack of priests, and
shortly a second similar sum would be sent to keep
Maximilian in good humour, for the Emperor, it seems,
rejected the project of seminaries while evidently keep-
ing the money. Still uncertainty continued, and as
late as December 2, Cardinal Pacheco warns Philip to
be friendly with the Pope and accede to his request for
co-operation in the Diet, for otherwise he will have to
grant to Maximilian and other princes things which it
will grieve Philip to hear."
The warning was superfluous, for in a week Pius
passed away, on December 9, having accomplished his
purpose of evading without rejecting the demands of
nearly all the Catholic nations beyond the Alps. His
successor, St. Pius V., elected 7 January, 1566, was a
man of different temper. Stern and inflexible, animated
with the loftiest convictions of the power of his office as
the representative of God, his policy towards heresy was
not conciliation, but the extermination which he had
practised as head of the Inquisition. Prompt action was
necessary, for the Diet of Augsburg, to which all parties
were looking for a solution of pending questions, was to
1 Döllinger, I. pp. 612–15,621–6, 635–6, 646.
That at this time the rule of celibacy was regarded as in imminent danger would
appear when a learned Italian lawyer felt called to address to Pius IV. an elaborate
work arguing against its abolition, as Marquardo de' Susani did in his Tractatus de
Caelibatu Sacerdotum non abrogando, printed in Venice in 1565.
218 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
be held in March. Triumphant Protestantism was in
hopes of winning over Maximilian and sundering Ger-
many from the Roman obedience. The Catholics, who
were the weaker party, were disheartened and in lack of
a leader who should rally their wavering ranks. They
found him in the new Pope, who within a week of
consecration despatched a courier to intercept Cardinal
Commendone, then on his return from Poland, with
orders to hasten to Augsburg and instructions as to his
duties there. At the same time letters were written to
Maximilian, and to the Catholic princes and prelates,
couched in a very different tone from those of his pre-
decessor. The Diet must confine itself exclusively to
secular affairs, and not meddle with anything belonging to
the jurisdiction of the Holy See; no interference with the
rites and institutes of the Church must be suffered, nor
any change be made in what the Council of Trent had
decreed and the Holy See had confirmed. If this was
disobeyed, Commendone was ordered to register a protest
and depart. No special allusion was made to priestly
marriage, nor was it required. Commendone fulfilled his
mission with indefatigable dexterity, and was ably sup-
ported by the representatives of Philip II. The heretics
were prevented from interjecting religious questions, and
no Interim was proclaimed. Commendone assembled the
Catholic prelates and princes, and urged them to accept
the decrees of Trent. To this, after consultation, the
Archbishop of Mainz replied, in the name of all, that they
accepted without question everything that concerned faith
and worship, but there were some points of discipline for
the enforcement of which quieter times must be awaited."
Thus, after a struggle continued at intervals for a quarter
of a century, the rule of celibacy was left undisturbed, and
the counter-Reformation had begun.
1 Ladenchii Annales, ann. 1566, n. 219–24, 230, 238, 242–3.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 219
Still, in spite of conciliar anathemas, there was, after
an interval, a certain amount of liberality in granting dis-
pensations for marriage. A collection of decrees of the
congregation of the Inquisition contains a number of
examples of these, issued between 1600 and 1630 to sub-
deacons and deacons and members of the military Orders,
not only for prospective marriages, but for those already
consummated, including the legitimation of the offspring.
The most prominent instance is one of 18 December, 1625,
to Archduke Leopold of Austria, who as subdeacon held
the bishoprics of Strassburg and Passau. He promptly
resigned the sees, and in 1626 married Claudia de' Medici,
widow of Federigo, Duke of Urbino. The numerous
cases of members of the religious Orders, of both sexes,
who left their houses and contracted marriage among
heretics, subsequently seeking return to the Church, illus-
trates the confusion of the period, while the benignity with
which their supplications were admitted indicates how
impotent was the Holy See to enforce the rules amid the
exigencies of the struggle between orthodoxy and heresy
in the lands remaining under the Roman obedience."
In Spain, as may readily be conceived, there was no
such benignity. Bishop Simancas, about the middle of
the sixteenth century, quotes authorities who held that a
priest or religious who married publicly was subject
to the Inquisition, as this manifested heretical belief,
while, if the marriage was secret, it implied no intellectual
error, and he was to be dealt with by his superiors; but
Simancas asserts that both cases implied heresy, and the
Inquisition had jurisdiction.” The Inquisition took the
same view, and its name inspired a terror discouraging to
1 Decreta Sac. Congr. S. Officii, pp. 84–140 (Bibl. del R. Archivio di Stato in
Roma, Fondo Camerale, Congr. del S. Off, vol. iii.).
* Simancse, de Catholicis Institutis, Tit. XL, n. 8–13.
220 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
aspirants to clerical matrimony. Still, its records show
that occasionally there were those who dared the risk,
trusting to escape detection, and for them the usual
penalties were deprivation of functions and benefice, and a
longer or shorter term of service in the galleys."
1 See the author's History of the Inquisition of Spain, vol. iv. p. 336.
CHAPTER, XXIX
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH
THE great council, on which so long had hung the hopes
of the Christian world, had at last been held. The
reformation of the Church, postponed by the skilful policy
of the popes, had been reached in the closing sessions, and
had been hurriedly provided for. As we have seen, the
regulations which concerned the morals of the clergy were
sufficient for their purpose, if only they could be enforced,
yet as they were but the hundredth repetition of an
endeavour to conquer human nature, which had always
previously failed, even those who enacted them could have
felt little faith in their efficacy. August Baumgartner,
the Bavarian ambassador, in his address to the council,
27 June, 1562, had alluded to the prevailing belief that
any comprehensive effort to enforce the chastity required
by the canons would result in driving the mass of the
Catholic clergy over to Protestantism." Since continence
was held by them to be impossible, it was thought that
they would prefer to marry their concubines as Lutherans
rather than give them up as Catholics. Possibly the fear
of such untoward result may explain the slender effect
which can be discerned from a scheme of reform so
laboriously reached and so pompously heralded as the
panacea for the woes which were destroying the Church.
Although Catherine de Medicis and her sons refused
to allow the council to be formally published in France,
1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. W. 340.
222 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
yet she permitted its decrees to be freely circulated, and
her bishops were at liberty to adopt them as the code of
discipline in their dioceses." In Germany we have seen
how the Catholic princes, secular and ecclesiastical,
accepted it at the Diet of Augsburg in 1566. Philip II.,
after some hesitation, ordered the reception of the council
in all his dominions, which extended from Naples to the
North Sea; * and Poland, despite some opposition from an
ambitious prelate, submitted to it before the year 1564 was
ended.”
As an authoritative exposition of the law of the
Church of Christ, conceived and elaborated under the
influence of the Holy Ghost, and commanded for implicit
observance by the Vicegerent of God; as the expression
of the needs and wants of the Catholic faith, wrought by
the concentrated energy and wisdom of the leading doctors
of Christendom, and transmitted for practical application
through the wondrous machinery of the Catholic hierarchy,
it should have had an immediate influence on the evils
which it was intended to eradicate. Those evils had con-
fessedly done much to create and foster the schism under
which the Church was reeling; their magnitude was
admitted by all, and no one ventured to defend or to
palliate them. Their removal was acknowledged to be a
1 The Council of Trent has never been received in France. For a résumé of the
efforts made to obtain its adoption and their uniform lack of success, see Chavart,
Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 507–12.
2 In August 1564 Philip II. had ordered its publication in the Low Countries,
but Margaret of Parma had hesitated to obey in consequence of the intense opposi-
tion excited by its interference with local liberties and franchises, as it completed
and crowned the centralising policy which rendered the papacy supreme over all
local Churches. It was not until 18 December, 1565, that it was finally promulgated,
under imperative commands from Philip. It is characteristic of Philip's habitual
double-dealing, however, that while his public orders commanded the reception of
the Council without exception, he secretly reserved the rights of himself and his
subjects (Le Plat, Concil. Trident. VII. Praef. p. vi.).
3 By a bull dated 18 July, 1564, Pius IV, fixed 1 May, 1564, as the time when the
Tridentine canons became the law of the Church. His letter to the Archbishop
of Bremen, with an official copy and directions as to its promulgation, is dated
October 3 of the same year (Hartzheim, VII. 25).
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 223
necessity of the gravest character, and every adherent of
Catholicism was bound to lend his aid to the good work.
What, then, was accomplished by the council which had
for so long a period laboured ostensibly with the object of
restoring Latin Christianity to its primitive purity ?
To few of the long line of popes does the Church owe
so much as to St. Pius V. When he ascended the chair
of St. Peter, Protestants were looking forward hopefully
to the time when the lands of the Roman obedience
should shrink to the two peninsulas of Italy and Spain.
His pontificate was too brief to show results in checking
the progress of revolt, but his resolute purpose to remove
the evils that had led to it laid the foundations on which
the counter-Reformation was built. It has not come
within our scope to consider the abuses and corruption
of the Curia which had created, throughout Latin Chris-
tendom, a detestation of the Holy See, to be reckoned
among the primary causes of Luther's success, but they
were inveterate, and to their removal he addressed himself
with relentless vigour. That he should show equal
solicitude in the harder task of reforming the morals of a
dissolute clergy was to be expected, and this he lost no
time in attempting, for he recognised how futile were the
Tridentine utterances unless they should be unsparingly
enforced. Pius IV. had allowed two years to elapse in
silence after the dissolution of the council, but Pius V.
lost no time, and on 1 April, 1566, issued a brief com-
manding the Ordinaries of all Churches to execute with
vigour the conciliar decrees against concubinary priests."
Then, as soon as the dangers of the Diet of Augsburg
were safely passed, in June he addressed to Maximilian, to
Albert of Bavaria, and to the German bishops letters in
which, after alluding to the scandalous lives of the clergy
as one of the leading causes of heretic success, he prescribed
1 Pii PP. W. Bull, Cum primum, $ 12 (Bullar, Roman. II. 191).
224 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the most active measures of reform, for otherwise what
remained of Catholicism in Germany would be ex-
tinguished. The bishops were ordered to make visitations
throughout their dioceses, to investigate the morals of their
clergy, to expel their concubines, and to punish the refrac-
tory with all the severity of the laws, depriving them of
their benefices and of the functions which they polluted;
moreover, that the reform might be thorough, these
instructions were accompanied with faculties which placed
the regular Orders under episcopal jurisdiction. As in all
this they would need the support of the secular power,
Maximilian and Albert were exhorted to lend to the
prelates all aid and favour."
The immediate result of this was not encouraging.
When Bernard Rasfelt, Bishop of Munster, in his synod
of 1566 published the papal commands, the fury of his
canons was so excited that they forced him to resign his
bishopric and spend the rest of his days in obscurity. He
was succeeded by Johann von Hoya, Bishop of Osnabruck
and President of the Imperial Chamber, a man dis-
tinguished by birth and learning, who speedily wearied of
the conflict and sought peace by imitating the example of
his subordinates.” Three years later, in 1569, the Arch-
bishop of Salzburg, in response to a fresh exhortation from
Pius to reform his Church, replied that he and his suffragans
had never ceased to attempt it, but that all their efforts
had been fruitless and that he despaired of its accom-
plishment.”
Two years after this, in 1571, we have a summary of
the condition of Germany in a confidential letter of
November 16 to Philip II. from Fray Francisco di
Cordova, the confessor to the Empress. The continued
1 Ladenchii Annales ann. 1566, n. 251–4.—Hartzheim, VII, 231.
2 De Thou, Hist, univ., Lib. xxxvii.I. ann. 1566—Ladenchii Annales, ann. 1566,
n. 256.
3 Dalham, Concil. Salisburgens., p. 556.
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 225
success of the Protestant movement he attributes to
clerical disorders. Maximilian II., he says, “is regarded as
a heretic, for he shows favour to heretics and admits all
their preachers to audiences, which he denies to Catholics.
He and the princes hold the Pope, the cardinals, and the
bishops responsible for the failure of reform which would
restore religion. Throughout all Germany the bishops
neither preach nor celebrate Mass nor perform ecclesiastical
functions, but seem to be laymen rather than clerics, while
of the clergy at large there is scarce one without a wife
or concubine. When the chapters elect bishops, they are
required to swear that they will not reform the canons,
and the monasteries are full of laymen and women. For
all this there is no punishment, and the bishops and canons
excuse themselves by saying that they merely live as the
cardinals do. The one who is most scandalised by all this
and who talks the most about it is the Emperor. The
details are not fit to write, but it is certain that if the
clergy were reformed, Germany would accept Catholicism,
for the people are disgusted with the clashing of opinions,
and, if the bishops would preach, the people would follow
them, but as long as there is no reform the heresies
increase day by day, and little by little the heretics obtain
the bishoprics and benefices. I know, he concludes,
that true reform would win back many heretics and
their chiefs, and I think the Emperor would not be the
last.” "
1 Döllinger, op. cit. I. 654.
At this period the Protestants had fair prospects of winning all Germany, but
their progress was arrested, not by Catholic reform, but by the fierce doctrinal dis-
sensions between Calvinists, Lutherans, and Philippists, who hated each other more
than they did the common enemy. At the critical moment the Jesuits came, with
their tireless labour and skilful policy; the Protestant line which had been steadily
advancing was driven back, and finally the Thirty Years' War established the
boundaries which have remained with little change.
Against the lukewarmness of Maximilian may be set the zeal of his brother, the
Archduke Ferdinand, of whom de Avila writes to Philip II. 1 December, 1565, that
it is said for certain that he secretly cast some heretic preachers into a well in his
palace.—Döllinger, p. 645.
VOL. II. P
226 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
The German clergy were not without justification in
shielding themselves behind the example of Rome, where
Pius IV. had allowed the most public and scandalous
immorality to flourish unchecked under his immediate
supervision. In 1538 the Consilium de Emendanda
Ecclesiae had animadverted upon the cynical licentious-
ness of the Roman clergy in terms which show that not
much improvement had taken place since Petrarch's
description of the papal court," and the intervening thirty
years had not served to purify it. Pius V. included this
among his reformatory efforts. He at first proposed to
banish all the public women who would not give a pledge
of reformation by immediate marriage, and, when forced
to abandon this as impracticably harsh, he restricted their
residence to certain houses, and forbade their plying their
vocation in the streets by day or night. Although this
admitted the necessity of the evil and only sought to
restrain its public manifestation, such reform was deemed
insufferable. The clergy were ashamed to offer open
opposition, but urged the Senate to strenuous resistance.
The remonstrance presented by that body not only shows
the prevalent immorality, but also the conviction that
immorality was inseparable from celibacy. It was repre-
sented that, if the proposed rules were enforced, the
prosperity of the city would be destroyed and the rents of
houses be reduced to nothing, and it was urged that, amid
so vast a number of men condemned to celibacy, under
such restrictions it would be impossible to preserve the
virtue of the wives and daughters of the citizens. The
contest was stubbornly continued until at length Pius was
driven to declare that if further difficulties were interposed
1 In hac enim urbe meretrices ut matronae incedurt per urbem, seu mula
vehuntur, quas affectantur de media die nobiles familiares cardinalium clericique.
Nulla in urbe vidimus hanc corruptionem praeterquam in hac omnium exemplari,
habitant enim insignes aedes : corrigendus etiam hic turpis abusus.-Le Plat, Monu-
ment. Concilii Trident. II. 604.
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 227
he would leave the city." The Germans, moreover, were
not mistaken when they included the cardinals among
those whom they imitated, for Sixtus V. in 1586 decreed
that no one who had children, even if they were legitimate,
should be eligible to the cardinalate, because in no other
way could assurance be had of the observance of their
vows.” g
If Pius V. met with opposition in the task of purifying
the Augean stable of Rome, St. Charles Borromeo,
encouraged and stimulated by his example, found himself
involved in a more dangerous quarrel when he attempted,
in the equally demoralised city of Milan, to enforce respect
for the decrees of Trent. In 1569 he undertook to reform
the canons of S. Maria della Scala, whose licentious mode
of life was a scandal to the faithful. So persistently did
they deny their subjection to his archiepiscopal jurisdiction,
that after a long discussion his only resource for vindicat-
ing his authority was excommunication. The contuma-
cious canons were still indisposed to yield, and, assembling
in their church, they maltreated his messenger. Thinking
that his presence might bring them to reason, he ventured
himself to expostulate with them, and found them drawn
up in their cemetery, with arms in their hands, and
supported by soldiers whom they had hired. On reaching
the gate, he dismounted from his mule and advanced
towards them with his cross, which he had snatched from
his cross-bearer. Unabashed by this symbol at once of
religion and authority, the mutinous canons rushed upon
him with shouts of “Spagna | * “Spagna l’ brandishing
their weapons and discharging their fire-arms at the cross
in his hands—fortunately without injuring him. Having
thus driven him off, they continued for some time in open
1 De Thou, Hist. univ. Lib. xxxHx. -
2 Sixti PP. V. Const. Postguam verus, Š 16 (Bullar. Roman. II. 611).—“Certum
nequeat suae testimonium continentiae exhibere.”
228 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
rebellion, until they were at length obliged to submit,
when Pius V. and Philip II. united their power in support
of St. Charles.”
Still greater was the peril to which the saint was
exposed in his quarrel with the Umiliati. They were a
branch of the Benedictine Order, founded in 1180 by the
Milanese who escaped the destruction of their city by
Frederic Barbarossa. Sharing in the general licence of the
age, the excesses of the Umiliati became so infamous that
they surpassed in turpitude the worst exploits of the
unbridled youth of the city. Supported by the decretals
of Pius, in 1568 St. Charles undertook to reduce the Order
to the observance of monastic rule. The Umiliati resisted
with so much energy and success that, after two years of
contest, they were still defiant. Regarding St. Charles as
the cause of all their troubles, Girolamo Lignana, Provost
of S. Cristoforo di Vercelli, who assumed their leadership
in 1570, engaged a monk of the order named Girolamo
Donati to murder him. The blackness of the deed was
not relieved by the circumstances under which it was
attempted. While the holy archbishop was absorbed at
midnight in his devotions, Donati stole into the oratory
and discharged full upon him an arquebuss loaded with
slugs. Some of the missiles struck St. Charles, but
rebounded to the floor, leaving him unhurt, and the
miraculous nature of his escape was proved by the depth
to which others penetrated the walls. At this moment
the policy of Philip the Catholic supported the disaffected
and rebellious monks, and for some time yet they escaped
the retribution due to their many crimes, but at length
those concerned in the attempted murder were caught and
executed, and the order of the Umiliati was broken up.”
1 Fleury, Liv. CLXXI. chap. 104 et seq.
2 Muratori, Annal. ann. 1569.-Henrion, Hist. des Ordres Religieux, I. 196.-
Fleury, Liv. CLXXI. chap. 26.—De Thou, Lib. L.-The calm Muratori stigmatises the
Umiliati as “troppo scorretto e corrotto ordine,” and Henrion, who cannot cer-
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 229
- Af
Tºº-sºe?
In fact, the Tridentine reform, so 16...ii; heralded as a
panacea for all the evils afflicting the Church, was every-
where confessedly a failure. When, in 1583, President
d’Espeisses presented to Henry III. a memorial against
the publication of the council in France, he drew one of
his arguments from the greater corruption of the Italian
Church, where, though the council was received without
demur, yet none of its orders reforming the morals of the
clergy received the least attention." That the Tridentine
canons in this respect were wholly inefficacious throughout
•Italy, and that the officials, with rare exceptions, did not
venture to enforce them, can indeed be seen in the series
of provincial councils held during the remainder of the
century, from Lombardy to Naples.
The papacy had succeeded in crushing the reformers
who had responded in so many Italian cities to the
uprising in Germany; it had then convoked and managed
at its will the great congress of Catholic Christendom
which was to put an end at once and for ever to all the
evils which had led to the schism; it had every opportunity
and every motive for vindicating itself from the asper-
sions of its enemies, and yet we see it at once recur to the
old machinery of local councils enacting canons whose
frequency and wordy severity are the inverse measure of
their efficiency. Had the promises of reform so liberally
made been possible in their fulfilment, there had been no
need of further legislation. A convocation of the ecclesi-
astics of each province to receive and publish the decrees
tainly be regarded as a prejudiced authority, declares that “les exces des Humiliés
surpassoient ceux des laïques les plus débauchés.” Pius V., in his bull suppressing
the order, is equally emphatic, and vouches for the truth of the miracle by which
the life of St. Charles was preserved.—Bull. Quemadmodum sollicitus (Mag. Bull.
Rom. II. 326). -
1 Vå que par toute l’Italie on le vit reconnoitre pour l'usage et observations de
toutes les ordonnances, on n'en voit une seule entretenue de celles qui concerne la
reformation de la vie et moeurs des ecclesiastiques. . . . Et ce peut dire pour ce
regard que l'église n'est en autre lieu de la Chrétienté si déréglée et difforme qu’es
pays ou le pape a commandement et puissance absolu.—Le Plat, VII. 259.
230 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of Trent would have been all-sufficient. When, therefore,
we see the endless iteration with which the guilty clergy
were threatened with the Tridentine canons, and with
other new or revivified penalties—as at the councils of
Milan in 1565 and 1582,” and at those of Manfredonia in
1567, of Ravenna in 1568, of Urbino in 1569, of Florence
in 1573, of Naples in 1576, of Cosenza in 1579, of Salerno
in 1596, of S. Severino in 1597, and of Melfi in 1597*—we
can only conclude that the evil was irremediable, in spite
of the well-meant efforts to suppress it or to throw off the
responsibility of its existence.
In fact, the manner in which the Council of Trent was
greeted by the clergy may be judged from its treatment in
the archiepiscopate of Utrecht. Though Philip II. had
authoritatively ordered its reception in 1565, we find the
Duke of Alvain May 1568 issuing his commands to the pre-
lates of the five Churches of Utrecht to offer no further
opposition to it. Even so stern a ruler could not obtain
immediate obedience, however, to so obnoxious a series of
regulations, and they responded by pleading their ancient
privileges. This availed them little, for in June he replied
that his instructions were positive, and he proceeded to en-
force them by sending royal commissioners to the province,
empowered to carry them out. In July, therefore, the
Archbishop assembled his clergy, and in conjunction with
the commissioners issued a series of regulations designed to
give effective force to the canons of the council. Visiting
nunneries and haunting taverns, joining in dances and
1 Concil. Mediolanens. ann. 1565 P. II. Const. xiv. (Harduin, X. 661)—Concil.
Mediolanens. ann. 1582 Const. xiv. (Ibid. p. 1117.)
2 Concil. Sipontin. ann. 1567 De Wit. et Honest. Cleric.—Concil. Ravennat. ann.
568 De Wit. et Honest. Cleric. c. v.–Concil. Urbinat. ann. 1569 De Wit. et Honest.
Cleric. c. vi.-Concil. Florent. ann. 1573 Rubr. XXXVII. c. 3, 4.—Concil. Neapol.
ann. 1576 cap. XXII.-Concil. Consentin. ann. 1579 Sess. Iv.–Concil. Salernit. ann.
1596 cap. XVIII.-Concil. S. Severin. ann. 1597 De Wit. et Honest. Cleric.—Concil.
Amalfitan. ann. 1597 De Wit. et Honest. Cleric.c. v.–(Labbei et Coleti Supplement.
T. W. pp. 827–1331.)
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 281
hunting and indecent songs were forbidden. The clergy
were ordered to shave their beards and to give up their
concubines, whom they were not to retake or to replace,
Even yet they did not yield, but while they were ashamed
to claim the right to keep their female companions, they
demurred as to the sacrifice of their beards, and the
Archbishop was obliged to issue another peremptory
command.”
It was not, however, only concubinage which the
Council of Trent failed to extirpate. Even the denial of
sacerdotal marriage, which it had elevated to the dignity
of a point of faith, was stubbornly opposed, and was not
accepted until after a protracted struggle.
In 1569 we find the synod of the extensive and im-
portant province of Salzburg virtually dividing its clergy
into two classes—those who haunt the taverns under
pretext of getting their meals, but really for the pur-
pose of indulging in drunken riots with their parishioners,
and those who keep houses, with concubines under the
guise of female servants, whom they secretly marry, and
who are openly known by their husbands’ names. To
meet this condition of affairs, the synod devised an
elaborate system by which the richer clergy were directed
to keep as domestics respectable middle-aged married
women with their husbands, while the poorer ecclesiastics
were to club together for the same purpose.” This expe-
dient proved as fruitless as its predecessors, for in 1572
Gregory XIII. complained to the Archbishop that in
many places priests who were known to be married were
permitted by their bishops to celebrate Mass and to handle
1 The documents are in Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. VII. 199–201. For
the condition of morals in the Church of Holland, see Synod. Harlem. ann. 1564;
Synod. Ultraject. ann. 1564; Concil. Ultraject. ann. 1565 (Hartzheim, VII. 5, 22,
137). It was to the publication of the Council of Trent that William of Orange
attributed the inevitable revolution which followed (Stradae de Bell. Belgic. Lib. iv.).
* Synod. Salisburg. ann. 1569 Const. XXVII. cap. xviii., xix., xx., xxi., xxii.
(Hartzheim, VII. 306–8.)
232 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the sacred elements." In spite of all this the evil continued
unabated, and in 1616 the Archbishop of Salzburg, in his
instructions for a general visitation, ordered that all priests
should remove their concubines to a distance of at least six
miles, and should not allow their illegitimate children to live
openly with them, except under special licence from him.”
In 1565, Anthony, Archbishop of Prague, promulgated
the Council of Trent in his provincial synod. He was a
man of more than ordinary vigour; he had been the
imperial orator at Trent, understood fully the views of the
council, and was not likely to underrate either their im-
portance or their authority. Armed with the Tridentine
canons, he set actively to work and instituted a very
thorough system of inquisitorial visitations, which ought
to have succeeded if success were possible. Yet, after the
lapse of thirteen years, in a special mandate issued by him
in 1578 he deplores the obstinate blindness of many of his
clergy, who still believed, with the heretics, that marriage
was not incompatible with priesthood, while those who did
not marry were guilty of the less dangerous error of
maintaining concubines and children on the revenues of
their benefices.”
The same wilful ignorance apparently existed in the
diocese of Wurzburg, for Bishop Julius, in 1584, found it
necessary, in his episcopal statutes, to discountenance
clerical matrimony and to prove its nullity by laboriously
quoting innumerable canons and decretals ; and he even
condescended to remind his priesthood that in taking
orders they had willingly and knowingly entered into an
agreement of continence, by the consequences of which
they must be prepared to abide."
1 Concil. Salisburg. XLVII. (Dalham, Conc. Salisb. p. 583.)
2 Visitat. Salisburg. ann. 1616 Tit. I. cap. vi. (Hartzheim, IX. 266.)
3 Decret. Reformat. Pragens. (Hartzheim, VII. 53.)
4 Statut. Rural. Julii Wirceburg. P. III. c. iv. (Gropp Script. Rer. Wirceburg. I.
471–4). It is somewhat remarkable that Bishop Julius attributes the prohibition of
marriage to the Council of Nicaea. After describing the custom of the Greek Church,
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 283
A provincial synod of Gnesen, of which the date is
uncertain, but which was probably held in 1577, deplored
the insane audacity displayed by ecclesiastics in marrying,
and threatened them with the Tridentine anathema.” This
warning appears to have been completely disregarded, for
the Bishop of Breslau, a suffragan of the metropolis of
Gnesen, in opening his diocesan synod in 1580, still com-
plained that, many of his clergy were guilty of this
perversity, and he was at some pains to disavow any
complicity with it, or any connivance at the licentiousness
which was prevalent among the unmarried.” In 1591 the
synod of Olmutz asserted that many clerks in holy orders
contracted pretended marriages, and were not ashamed
of the families growing up publicly around them, while
others indulged in scandalous concubinage with women,
whom they styled housekeepers or cooks. In endea-
vouring to put an end to this state of affairs the synod
manifested its estimation of the morals of the priesthood
by renewing the hideous suggestions which we have seen
in the tenth and twelfth centuries, for pastors were
allowed to have near them the female relatives authorised
by the Nicene canons, but, in view of the assaults of
the tempter, were prudently advised not to let them
reside in their houses.” The disregard of the Tridentine
canon continued, and as late as 1628, at the synod of
Osnabruck, the orator who opened the proceedings in-
veighed in the vilest terms against the female companions
of the clergy, who not only occupied the position of wives,
but were even dignified with the title."
he proceeds, “Permissio vero et consuetudo illa duravit usque ad Nicaenum concilium,
in quo generali decreto abrogata est, statutumque ne aliquis habens uxorem con-
secretur Sacerdos”—a falsification which is equally singular whether it proceeded
from ignorance or fraud, and an admission that celibacy was not of apostolic origin
which was rare in a Catholic prelate of that period.
1 Synod. Gnesens. c. xxxiii. (Hartzheim, VII. 891.)
2 Synod. Wratislav, ann. 1580 (Hartzheim, VII. 890).
3 Synod. Olomucens. ann. 1591 c. xiii. (Hartzheim, VIII. 352.)
4. Synod. Osnabrug, ann. 1628 (Hartzheim, IX. 431). As usual, a distinction is
234 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Ancillary to the questions of clerical marriage and con-
cubinage was that of the provisions made for the benefit
of the offspring of such unions. The Council of Trent had
decreed that all such provisions should be deemed fraudu-
lent, but, in spite of this, the transmission of ecclesiastical
property continued as before, and in 1571 Pius V. found
it necessary to supplement the conciliar decree with
further positive legislation. In this he recognised his own
Curia as the source of much of the evil by declaring null
and void all dispensations granted for such purpose, and
annulling all faculties for granting them.” It was not
only the need of preserving the possessions of the Church;
the scandal of sacerdotal families required repression, and
this he sought to accomplish, in 1572, by another decree
pronouncing such children incapable of receiving even the
private and patrimonial property of their fathers.” How
soon all this was forgotten is indicated by the synod of
Augsburg, in 1610, which declared that it would enforce
the Tridentine canon prohibiting the illegitimate sons of
priests from holding preferment in their fathers' benefices,
notwithstanding what dispensations they might produce.”
Thus the movement started by the vigour and inflexible
purpose of Pius V. had at last succeeded in enforcing the
Tridentine decree which prohibited priestly marriage, and
in suppressing the almost universal demand for it through-
out Catholic Christendom. In this he richly earned the
gratitude of the Ultramontanism which regards the Church
as a hierarchical organisation, directed as much to temporal
drawn between those who thus formed permanent though illicit connections and
others who indulged in promiscuous licence—“alii vaga dissoluti lascivia, tanquam
equi emissarii, ad incontinentissimum quodgue scortum aut adulteram adhinniunt
trahuntgue ingentes liberorum spuriorum greges. Haec in propatulo sunt ; quae vero
in occulto fiunt ab ipsis, turpe est et dicere.”
1 Pii PP. W. Const. Quae ordini (Bullar. Roman. II. 346).
2 Pii PP. W. Const. ad Romanum (Bullar. Roman. II. 348).
3 Synod. Augustan. ann. 1610, P. III. cap. iii. § 1 (Hartzheim, IX. 58).
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 285
as to spiritual ends. This preponderating element at the
Council of Trent, if we may believe Fra Paolo Sarpi, pre-
dicted that, if priests were allowed to marry, their affections
would be concentrated on family and country instead of
on the Church; their subjection to the Holy See would
be diminished, the whole structure of the hierarchy be
destroyed, and the Pope himself would eventually become
a simple Bishop of Rome." It is foreign to our purpose to
discuss whether this would have occurred, and whether it
would have been a misfortune to the Church and to the
world, or whether, if marriage had been permitted, it
might have resulted in a reunion of Christian believers.
Its denial, at all events, rendered the division permanent,
and it remains for us to see whether the counter-Reforma-
tion succeeded in removing the corruption which was
admitted to have been one of the efficient causes in pro-
moting the success of the Lutheran revolt.
Clear-sighted prelates were not wanting who pro-
claimed that the same causes continued to operate and to
produce the same effect. Anthony, Archbishop of Prague,
in his synod of 1565, took occasion to declare that the
misfortunes of the Church were attributable to the dis-
soluteness of the clergy, and that the extirpation of heresy
could best be effected by reforming the depraved morals
and filthy lives of ecclesiastics.” At the Council of
Salzburg, in 1569, Christopher Spandel, in the closing
address, asked the assembled prelates what title was more
contemptible or more odious than that of priest, in conse-
quence of the licence in which the clergy as a body
indulged.” The clergy of France, assembled at Melun in
July 1579, when addressing Henry III. with a request
for the publication of the Council of Trent, assured him
that the heresy which afflicted Christendom was caused
1 Sarpi, Hist. Con. Trident. Lib. VII. (Opere II. 280.)
2 Statut. Dioeces. Pragens. ann. 1565 (Hartzheim, VII. 26).
3 Synod. Salisburg. ann. 1569 (Hartzheim, VII. 407).
236 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
by the corruption of the Church, and that it could only
be eradicated by a thorough reformation." Though the
Inquisition took care that Spain should not be much
troubled by heretics, yet the synod of Orihuella, in 1600,
declared that the concubinage practised by ecclesiastics
was the principal source of popular animosity against them.”
These complaints were general. In 1599, Cuyck, Bishop
of Ruremonde, published a work aimed at concubinary
priests, in which he assured them that they and their
predecessors were the cause of the ruin and devastation of
the Netherlands for the last thirty years, for their vices had
led to the contempt felt for the clergy, and thus to the
heresy which had caused the civil wars. Those who kept
their vows he asserts to be as rare as the grapes that can
be gleaned after the vintage or the olives left after gather-
ing the crop ; but the only remedy he can suggest is
increased vigilance and severity on the part of the prelates.”
Evidently the Tridentine canons had thus far been a
failure. In 1609, at the synod of Constance, the Rev.
Dr. Hamerer, in an official oration to the assembled pre-
lates, deplored the continued spread of heresy, which he
boldly told them was caused by the perpetually increasing
immorality that pervaded all classes of the priesthood.
The Reformation had begun, had derived its strength, and
was still prospering through their weakness, which ren-
dered them odious to the people and made the Catholic
religion a by-word and a shame." In 1610, the Bishop of
Antwerp, in a synodal address, agreed with Bishop Cuyck
in attributing the evils which had so grievously afflicted
the Church of Flanders for nearly half a century to the
1 Le Plat, VII. 238.
2 Synod. Oriolan. ann. 1600 cap. xxxviii. (Aguirre, WI. 457.)
3 Henr. Cuyckii Speculum Concubinariorum Sacerdotum, Monachorum ac Cleri-
corum ; Coloniae, 1599.
4 Synod. Constant. ann. 1609 (Hartzheim, VIII. 838). Another orator, Dr. Mayer,
S.J., though more cautious in his deductions, was equally outspoken in his denuncia-
tions of the wickedness of the clergy (Ibid. p. 881).
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 237
same cause, and, while recounting the various successive
efforts at internal reform made since the Council of Trent,
he pronounced each one to have been a failure in conse-
quence of the incurable obstinacy of the clergy.” Dam-
houder, a celebrated jurisconsult of Flanders, whose
unquestioned piety and orthodoxy gained for him the
confidence of Charles V. and Philip II., does not hesitate
to speak of the clergy of his time as men who rarely lived
up to their professions, and who as a general rule were
scoundrels distinguished for their indulgence in all manner
of evil.” In a similar mood the Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, in
opening his synod of 1612, declared that the scandalous
lives of the ecclesiastics were a source of corruption to the
laity and a direct encouragement of heresy.” So, in 1625,
the synod of Osnabruck gave as its reason for endeavour-
ing to enforce the Tridentine canons that the true religion
was despised on account of the depraved morals of its
ministers, whose crimes were a sufficient explanation of
the stubbornness of the heretics. So little concealment
of their frailty was thought necessary that they openly
enriched their children from the patrimony of the Church,
and decked their concubines with ornaments and vest-
ments taken from the holy images, even as we have seen
was the custom among the Anglo-Saxons of the tenth
century.*
The Thirty Years' War proved a more effectual bar to
the spread of heresy than these fruitless efforts to cure the
incurable malady of the Church. After the Peace of
Westphalia, there was no further need to appeal to the
dread of proselytising Lutheranism as a stimulus to virtue,
but still the same process of reasoning appears in exhorta-
1 Synod Antwerp. ann. 1610 (Hartzheim, VIII. 979).
2 Damhouder Rerum Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvii. No. 25 (Antwerp. 1601).
3 Synod. Boscodunens. II. ann. 1612 (Hartzheim, IX. 200).
4. Synod. Osnabrug. ann. 1625 cap. v., x. Hartzheim, IX. 350–Synod. Osnabrug.
ann. 1628 (Ibid. p. 428).
238 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
tions to regain the forfeited respect of the community.
Thus, in 1652, the Bishop of Munster expressed his horror
at the obstinacy with which, in spite of fines, edicts, and
canons, his clergy persisted in retaining their concubines,
and he declared that the discordance between the pro-
fessions and the practice of the priesthood rendered them
a stench in the nostrils of the people and destroyed the
authority of religion itself;" and in 1662 the synod of
Cologne deplored that the notorious want of respect felt
for the ministers of Christ was the direct result of their
own immorality.” A doctrine even sprang up to the
effect that it was not requisite to force a concubinarian to
eject his companion if she was useful to him in his house-
keeping or if it would be difficult for him to obtain another
servant; and this became sufficiently formidable to entitle
it to a place among the errors of belief formally con-
demned by the Roman Inquisition in its decree of March
I666.”
In France the influence of the Tridentine canons had
been equally unsatisfactory. At a royal council held in
1560, which resolved upon the assembly of the States at
Orleans, Charles de Marillac, Bishop of Vienne, declared
that ecclesiastical discipline was almost obsolete, and that
no previous time had seen scandals so frequent or the life
of the clergy so reprehensible.” From the proceedings of
the Huguenot synod of Poitiers, in 1560, it is evident
that priests not infrequently secretly married their con-
cubines, and, when the woman was a Calvinist, her
equivocal position became a matter of grave consideration
with her Church.” The only result of the Colloquy of
1 Synod. Monasteriens. ann. 1652 (Hartzheim, IX. 786–7).
2 Synod. Colon. ann. 1662 P. III. Tit. I. cap. 1 $ iii. (Hartzheim, IX. 1006.)
3 Mag. Bull. Roman. Ed. Luxemb. 1742, T. VI. App. p. 2.
4 Pierre de la Place, Estat. de Relig. etc. Liv. III.
5 Quick, Synod. Gall. Reform. I. 18.
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 289
Poissy, in 1561, was that Catherine de Medicis prevailed
upon the bishops to present a request to the King asking
him to use his influence with the Pope to concede the
marriage of priests and the use of the cup by the laity.
Means were found, as we have seen, to prevent the former
of these demands from being made, while the latter, when
presented, was peremptorily refused." In the existing
condition of affairs, the Council of Trent could not
reasonably be expected to effect much, for, as the orthodox
Claude d’Espence informs us, the French prelates, like the
Germans, were in the habit of collecting the “cullagium ”
from all their priests, and informing those who did not
keep concubines that they might do so if they liked, but
must pay the licence-money whether or no.” In 1564,
the Cardinal of Lorraine, not long after his return from
the council, held a provincial synod at Rheims, where he
contented himself with declaring that the ancient canons
enjoining chastity should be enforced.” The next year,
1565, a synod held at Cambray reduced the penalties to a
minimum, and afforded every opportunity for purchasing
immunity, by enacting that those who consorted with
loose women, and who remained obdurate to warnings
and reprehension, should be punished at the pleasure of
the officials.” Thus we find Pius V., 26 January, 1567,
granting to Archbishop Maximilian full power to correct
the depraved morals of his canons, in spite of the
customary oath which he had taken not to interfere with
them. Pius further seized the opportunity to urge him
and his suffragans to labour strenuously in the good cause,
1 Fleury, Hist. Eccles. Liv. CLVII. Nos. 37–42.
2 Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, p. 401.
3 Concil. Remens. ann. 1564, Stat. XVII. (Harduin. X. 477.)
4 Concil. Camerac. ann. 1565, Rubr. VIII. c. 3. At this council, which was held
in June 1565, the Council of Trent was formally adopted. As forming part of
Flandre française, Cambray may properly be considered as French, though Francis I.,
by the treaty of Madrid in 1526, had been compelled to surrender his sovereignty,
and till a hundred years later it continued under Spanish dominion.
240 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
for the surest means of extirpating heresy was the reform
of the clerical corruption that had occasioned it.' We
may assume this to have stimulated the council held the
same year to disregard clerical immunity by invoking the
aid of the secular arm to remove the concubines of its
clergy”—a course again suggested as late as 1631.” The
terms in which Claude, Bishop of Evreux, at his synod of
1576, announced his intention of taking steps to eject
those who for the future should persist in their immor-
ality show not only that such measures were even yet an
innovation, but also indicate little probability of their
being successful." The Council of Rheims, in 1583, while
proclaiming that the Tridentine canons shall be enforced
on all concubinary priests, manifests a reasonable doubt as
to the amount of respect which they will receive in
threatening that those who are contumacious shall be
subdued by the secular arm.” The Council of Tours, in
the same year, deplores that the whole ecclesiastical body
is regarded with aversion by the good and pious on
account of the Scandals perpetrated by a portion of them.
To cure this evil, the residence of suspected women, even
when connected by blood, is forbidden, as well as of the
children acknowledged to be sprung from such unions,
and various penalties are denounced against offenders.”
The Council of Bordeaux, in 1624, earnestly warns the
clergy of the province not to allow their sisters and nieces
to live in their houses, and especially not to sleep in the
same room with them;’ and various other synods held
during the period repeated the well-known regulations on
1 Pii W. Epistolar. Lib. quinque, Lib. I. Ep. ix. (Antwerpae, 1640.)
2 Concil. Camerac. ann. 1567 c. iii. (Hartzheim, VII. 216.)
3 Synod. Camerac. ann. 1631 Tit. XVIII. c. xiv. (Ibid. IX. 562.) -
4 Claudii Episc. Ebroicens. Statut, cap. III. § 1 (Migne's Patrol. Tom. 147,
pp. 244–5). -
5 Concil. Remens. ann. 1583 cap. xviii. § 5 (Harduin. X. 1293).
6 Concil. Turon. ann. 1583 cap. xv. (Ibid. p. 1481.)
7 Concil. Burdigalens. ann. 1624 cap. xiii. § 2 (Harduin. XI. 96).
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 241
the subject, which are only of interest as showing how
little they were respected."
Avignon and the Constat Venaissin, the portion of
modern France then belonging to the Holy See, were not
neglected by the vigilance of Pius V. In 1569 we find
him writing to the Cardinals of Bourbon and Armagnac,
his legates in charge of the territory, and also to the
individual bishops, urging them to reform the corrupt and
depraved morals of clergy and laity, to which the growth
of heresy was largely ascribable; the clergy especially
were to be looked after and be coerced with the full
severity of the canons.” The usual lack of success
attended this, for a Council held in Avignon in 1594,
declares that the numerous decrees relative to the morals
and habits of the clergy are either forgotten or neglected,
and then proceeds, as was customary, to forbid the residence
of suspected women.” g
No one, in fact, who is familiar with the popular
literature of France during that period can avoid the
conviction that the ecclesiastical body was hopelessly
infected with the corruption which, emanating from the
foulest court in Christendom, spread its contagion
throughout the land. If Rabelais and Bonaventure des
Periers reflect the depravity which was universal under
Francis I., Brantôme, Beroalde de Verville and Noël du
Fail continue the record of infamy under Catherine de
Medicis and her children.“ The genealogy of sin is carried
1 Synod. Tornacens. ann. 1574 Tit. xii. c. 5, 6, 7 (Hartzheim VII. 780).—Synod.
Audomarens. ann. 1583 Tit. xvi. c. 2 (Ibid. VII. 947). Concil. Burdigalens. ann.
1583 can. xxi. (Harduin. X. 1360.)—Concil. Bituricens. ann. 1584 Tit. xlii. can. 1–4
(Ibid. X. 1503–4).—Concil. Aquens. ann. 1585 cap. de Vit. et Honestate Cleric.
(Ibid. X. 1547.) Concil. Narbonnens. ann. 1609 cap. xli. (Ibid. XI. 96.)
2 Pii W. Epistolae. Lib. III. Epist. xxi.
3 Concil. Avenionens. ann. 1594, can. xxxii. (Harduin. X. 1854.)
4 Du Fail, whose high official position in the Parlement of Rennes precludes the
supposition of any tendency to Calvinism, devotes one of his discourses (Contes et
Discours d’Eutrapel No. xx.) to the evils entailed by celibacy on the Church and on
society, quoting the exclamation of Cardinal Contarini to Welly the French Ambassa-
cor, “O quae mala attulit in ecclesia coelibatus ille !” It is true that such stories as
VOL. II. Q
242 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
on by Tallemant des Réaux, Bussy-Rabutin, and the
crowd of memoir writers who flourished in the Augustan
age of French literature. These show us how often the
high places of the hierarchy were filled with men to whom
the very name of virtue was a jest, and who could not be
expected to enforce on their subjects the continence to
which they themselves made no pretension. Yet it would
be unjust not to keep in view also the lofty piety of such
a prelate as Fénelon, or the austere virtue of Antoine
Arnauld and his comrades of Port Royal. While the
Jesuits and so-called moral theologians were smoothing
the path of sin by the casuistry of Probabilism, there
sprang up to resist them the Jansenistic Rigorism, which
exercised wide influence on the side of godliness, in spite
of unremitting persecution by the Holy See.
It is evident from all this that the standard of ecclesias-
tical morals had not been raised by the efforts of the
Tridentine fathers, and yet a study of the records of
church discipline shows that with the increasing decency
and refinement of society during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the open and cynical manifestations
of licence among the clergy became gradually rarer. It
may well be doubted, nevertheless, whether their lives
were in reality much purer. A few spasmodic efforts
were made to enforce the Nicene canon, prohibiting the
residence of women, but they were utterly fruitless, and
were so recognised by all parties; and the energies of the
arch-priests and bishops were directed to regulating the
character of the hand-maidens, who were admitted to be a
necessary evil. The devices employed for this purpose
were varied, and repeated with a frequency which shows
“Frater Fecisti” are not historical documents, yet they have their value as indi-
cating the drift of public feeling and the convictions forced upon the minds of the
people by the irregularities of the clerical profession. The same lesson is taught
by Boccaccio, Piers Plowman, Chaucer, Poggio, the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,
and all the other records of the interior life of the fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 243
their insufficiency; and it would be scarce worth our
while to do more than indicate some sources of reference
for the curious student who may wish to follow up the
reiteration which we have traced already through so many
successive centuries." Among them, however, one new
feature shows itself, which indicates the growing respect
paid to the appearance of decency—complaints that con-
cubines are kept under the guise of sisters and nieces.
That the monastic orders had profited more than the
secular clergy by the Tridentine reformation may well be
doubted. Laurent de Peyrinnis, one of the heads of the
Order of Minims, in 1668, issued a code of regulations in
which he showed that scandal was more dreaded than sin
when he promulgated an exemption from excommunica-
tion in favour of those brethren who, when about to yield
1 Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. VII. 136. —Collect. Synod. Mechlin. Tom.
I. pp. 39, 57. –Synod. Mechlin. ann. 1570 Tit. xiv. (Ibid. I. 118.)—Synod. Lovaniens,
ann. 1574 (Ibid. I. 191).—Synod. Provin. Mechlin. ann. 1607 Tit. XVIII. c. viii. (Ibid.
I. 395.)—Synod. Dioeces. Mechlin. ann. 1607 Tit. XVII. C. vi. (Ibid. II. 237.)—
Congregat. Archipresbyt. ann. 1613 (Ibid. II. 271).--Tertia Congregat. Episc. ann.
1624 (Ibid. I. 466).—Ibid. I. 514.
Synod. Augustan. ann. 1567 P. III. c. ii. (Hartzheim VII. 182.)—Synod. Con-
stant. ann. 1567 P. II. Tit. i. c. 9 (Ibid. VII. 541). —Synod. Ruremond. ann. 1570
(Ibid. VII. 653).—Synod. Boscodunens. ann. 1571 Tit. XIV. c. ii. (Ibid. VII. 723.)
—Synod. Warmiens. ann. 1577 c. i. (Ibid. VII. 871.)—Synod. Mettens. ann. 1604
c. xlviii., liii., lxii. (Ibid. X. 768–70.)—Synod. Brixiens. ann. 1603 De discip. cler.
c. xvii. (Ibid. VIII. 576.)—Synod. Namurcens. ann. 1604 Tit. VIII. c. vi. (Ibid.
VIII. 623.)—Synod. Constant. ann. 1609 P. II. Tit. xvii. c. 7 (Ibid. VIII. 906). —
Synod. Mettens. ann. 1610 Tit. XI. c. xi. (Ibid. VIII. 962.)—Synod. Antwerp. ann.
1610 Tit. xv.1I. c. vi. (Ibid. VIII. 1003.)—Statut. Visitat. Salisburgens. ann. 1616
Tit. I. c. vi. (Ibid. IX. 266.)--—Synod. Iprens. ann. 1629 c. xx. (Ibid. IX. 496.)—
Synod. Namurcens. ann. 1639 Tit. XIX. c. ix., x. (Ibid. IX. 592–3.)—Synod. Audo-
mar. ann. 1640 Tit. XIV. c. vii. (Ibid. X. 802.)—Synod. Colon. ann. 1651 P. II.
c. ii. § 1 (Ibid. IX. 742).-Synod. Hildesheim. ann. 1652 (Ibid. IX. 805–6).—
Synod. Colon. ann. 1662 P. III. Tit. ii. c. 1, 2, 3 (Ibid. IX. 1008-11).-Statut.
Synod. Trevirens. ann. 1678 c. xi. xii., xiii., xiv. (Ibid. X. 60.)—Statut. Synod.
Argentinens. ann. 1687 De clericis addit. I. (Ibid. X. 180.)—Synod. Brugens. ann.
1693 Tit. v. § 2 (Ibid. X. 202.)—Cod. Canon. Mettens. ann. 1699 Tit. x. c. xviii.
(Ibid. X. 245.)—Synod. Bisuntin. ann. 1707 Tit. II. c. xxv. (Ibid. X. 291.)—
Synod. Culmens. et Pomesan. ann. 1745 c. ix. (Ibid. X. 517.)
Concil. Toletan. ann. 1565 Act. II. cap. xxii. ; Act. III. cap. xix., xxv. (Aguirre
V. 396, 405-6.)—Concil. Valentin. ann. 1565 Tit. II. cap. xviii., xix. (Ibid. 425.)—
Concil. Toletan. ann. 1582 Act. III. Decret. XXXV. (Ibid. VI. 12.)—Concil. Tarra-
conens. ann. 1591 Lib. I. Tit. viii.; Lib. III. Tit. ii. (Ibid. 256, 271–3.)—Synod.
Oriolan. ann. 1600 cap. xxxiii. (Ibid. 456.)
244 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
to the temptations of the flesh, or to commit theft,
prudently laid aside the monastic habit." Apparently
this caution was exceptional for Chiericato deplores the
constant scandal given by religious, who are not ashamed
to be seen entering and leaving the houses of public
prostitutes.” Another celebrated jurist of the Order of
Minims bears testimony to the demoralisation of his
brethren when he declares that if the severe punishments
provided for unchastity by the statues were enforced
they would result in the destruction of all the religious
congregations.”
That the awful sacrifice of the mass should be
performed by a priest fresh from concubinary pollution, is
a sacrilege, but even more to be dreaded would be the
omission of the function which would reveal his weakness
to his flock. For centuries the question has troubled the
hurch, and it has been forced to permit the sacrilege
ather than to risk the exposure. The Council of Cambrai,
indeed, devised a tolerably effective remedy, about the
year 1300, when it ordered celebrants to confess daily to
the episcopal penitentiaries,” but this was applicable only
to the cathedral town and even there was too cumbrous
to be enforced. Aquinas was more considerate to human
frailty when he asserted that if the sinful priest could not
confess before celebrating, he could qualify himself by
1 Ratio est quia tunc non dimittit habitum ut periculose vagetur, sed ut com-
modius fornicetur, vel liberius furetur.—Apud, C. Chabot, Encyclopédie Monastique
p. 24 (Paris, 1827).
2 Nihilominus frequentissimum est, etsilinobservata etiam in peccatum carnis . . .
in Religiosis qui non werentur ingredi domus publicarum meretricum et exire ex
ipsis absolue rubare, quamvis videantur ac observentur aſ transeuntibus et ab aliis
in eodem vico habitantibns, qui omnes gravissimum scandalum ultra peccatum carnis
committunt et deturpant bonum nomen suae Ordinis.—Clericati de Virtute Poeniten-
tiae Decisiones, p. 215 (Venetiis, 1706).
3 Spatharius, Aurea Methodus corrigendi regulares, 1625, p. 57—" atque mea
sententia, in totalem ordinis ruinam et destructionem singularem religionum ”
(Apud Chabot. op. cit. p. 95).
4 Concil. Camerac. ann. 1300–1310 (Hartzheim IV. 65).
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 245
making a vow to confess." The Council of Trent
prescribes preliminary confession for a priest conscious of
mortal sin, but this is not always easy, for confession is
complicated with questions of jurisdiction and reserved
sins, and it adds that if this is impossible, he must confess
subsequently as soon as practicable.” Jansenist rigour
was too severe to permit this sacrilege, but even it had to
provide for frailty and it offered the suggestion that the
peccant ministrant should scratch his thumb with a knife,
bind up his hand and proclaim himself incapacitated.”
The ordinary practice, however, with those who are
scrupulous, seems to be to perform an act of contrition or
to make a hasty confession in the sacristy before going to
the altar.”
In the New World the licentiousness of the priesthood,
as might be expected, began to vex the infant church as
soon as it was organised among the heathen. Little more
than half a century had passed since the voyages of
Columbus, when Oviedo, the first chronicler of the New
World, speaks of the licentiousness of the clergy as
inviting the destruction of the Spanish Colonies, even as
the marriage of the Greek priests had been punished by
their subjection under the Turks.” The earliest synods
1 S. Th. Aquinat. Summae Supplem. Q. VI. Art. 5.
2 Concil. Trident. Sess. XIII. De Eucharistia, cap xiiii.
3 De Charmes, Theol. Universal. Diss. V. cap. vi. Q. 5, § 3.
4 Jo. Gersoni Regulae Morales.—Casus Conscientiae Benedicti P.P. XIV., October
1736 cas. 3.-Corella, Praxis Confessionalis. P. II. Tract. xii. cap. 1, n. 11.
Miguel Albert alludes to a case in which a fornicating priest was convicted of
heresy for not confessing before celebrating mass, and alleging that the virtue of
the sacred vestments which he wore effaced all sins.—Repertor. Inquisitorum, s. v.
Confessio (Valentiae, 1494).
See also a case decided in Rome, May 9, 1896, and reported in Il Consulento
Ecclesiastico, Vol. I., p. 165, and another decided 8 March, 1897, in which a priest
committed incest with his sister, whom he had intoxicated for the purpose, and
celebrated mass the next day in order not to lose a handsome fee (Ibid. Vol. II.
p. 160).
S. Alphonso Liguori (Theol. Moral. Lib. VI. n. 585) suggests a device for eluding
the difficulty of reserved cases.
5 Oviedo Valdés, Las Quinquagenas de la Nobleza de España, I.383 (Madrid, 1880).
246 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
and councils which were held contain the customary
denunciations of concubinage and prohibitions for eccle-
siastics to keep their children in their houses, to celebrate
their baptisms and nuptials, and to be assisted by them in
the ministry of the altar. Many, as we are informed by the
first Council of Mexico, held in 1555, brought with them
from Spain their concubines under the guise of relatives."
For the most part, however, they formed connections with
the natives.
In fact, the institution of slavery and the subject popu-
lations among whom its ministers were scattered gave rise
to fresh problems, which the Church sought perseveringly,
but vainly, to solve. Thus, in New Grenada, before the
conquest was fairly achieved, Bishop Barrios, of Santafé,
held his first synod, in 1556, and there, after premising
that the fruits of religion among the Indians depended
upon the good example of their pastors, he proceeded to
prohibit any priest stationed in an Indian town from
having any Indian woman residing in his house; his food
was to be cooked by men, or, if this was impossible, his
female servant must be a married woman, residing with
her husband under another roof”—a provision repeated by
the synod of Lima in 1585.” A curious experiment in
dealing with the troubles arising from slavery is seen in
the Mexican canons, which directed that if an ecclesiastic
had children by his slave, the ownership of the woman
was to be transferred to the Church and the children were
to be set free. It will be remembered (vol. i. p. 206) that
in 1022 the Church insisted upon the continued servitude
1 Concil. Mexican. I. ann. 1555 cap. lvii.-The first and second Mexican Councils
are not contained in Aguirre's collection, but were printed, together with the third,
by Archbishop Lorenzana, in two folio volumes, Mexico, 1769. The Third Council
has also been reprinted in Mexico, in 1858, as a manual of existing local ecclesi-
astical law.
2 Constituciones Sinodales de Santafé, 1556 cap. IV. (Groot, Hist. Eccles. y Civil
del Nuevo Reino de Granada, T.I. Append. ii. p. 497.)
3 Synod Dioec. Limens. III. ann. 1585 cap. xi., lxvii. (Aguirre, VI. 193, 198.)
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 247
of clerical bastards whose mothers were serfs of the Church;
and the contrast between this and the regulation which
proclaimed the freedom of the children as a punishment
inflicted upon the father is perhaps the sorriest exhibit that
could be made of the character of those who were engaged
in spreading the teachings of Christ among the heathen."
While there can be no doubt that much heroic self-
devotion was shown in the efforts made to convert the
new subjects of Spain, it is equally unquestionable that a
majority of the ecclesiastics who sought the colonies were
men of evil character. The councils held in the several
provinces deplore the bad example which they set to their
newly converted flocks, and the regulations which were
issued time and again against their excesses show the
impossibility of keeping them under control. In Peru, for
instance, when in 1581 St. Toribio commenced the quarter
of a century of labour as Archbishop which worthily won
for him the canonisation accorded by Benedict XIII. in
1726, two councils had already been held in Lima, one in
1552 and the other in 1567, which had essayed a reforma-
tion of morals. He, in turn, lost no time in summoning
a provincial council, which assembled in 1583, the decrees
of which, in their denunciation of all manner of vices,
show how ineffectual the previous efforts had been. The
clergy were not disposed to submit tamely to the new
restraints which Toribio sought to impose, and, while the
active resistance which some of them raised was subdued,
the underhand management of others was so far successful
that the royal assent to the proceedings of the Council
was delayed till 1591.” Notwithstanding the activity
of Toribio, who, between 1583 and 1604, held three
provincial councils and ten diocesan synods, who three
1 Concil. Mexican. I. ann. 1555 cap. li.—Concil. Mexican. III. ann. 1585 Lib. v.
Tit. X. § 8.
* Aguirre, WI. 51, 55.-The canons of the council directed against concubinage
&c. are Act. III, c. 18, 19, 20, 23, 24 (Ibid. pp. 40–41).
248 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
times personally visited every portion of his vast arch-
bishopric, and who repeatedly ordered his vicars to send
secret reports of concubinary and dissolute priests, he was
obliged, in the provincial council of 1601, to content him-
self with renewing the regulations of 1583, sorrowfully
observing that they had recived scant obedience, and that
consequently the corruption and abuses prevalent among
the clergy deprived them of usefulness among their Indian
parishioners." We can thus readily understand the grief
with which the honest Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta, a
contemporary, after depicting the eager docility with which
the natives at first welcomed Christianity, contrasts it with
the hatred which sprang up for the very name of Christian
when they realised the hopeless wretchedness of their
position under their new taskmasters; and the Fray does
not conceal the fact that this was partly owing to the
character of some of the clergy, while the better ones were
disheartened and discharged their trusts mechanically,
without expectation of accomplishing good.” This con-
dition of morals did not improve with time. In his
official report of 1736, the Marques del Castel-Fuerte,
Viceroy of Peru, remarks that the greater portion of those
of Spanish blood born in the colonies embraced an eccle-
siastical life, as offering an easier and more assured career
than any other. Surrounded by their Indian subjects, the
pastors lived in luxury and licence, which their superiors
did little or nothing to check. In 1728 the civil power
was ordered to make an investigation into the morals of
the priesthood, and especially to designate those whose
concubinage was open and notorious—an invasion of the
sacred immunities of the Church which provoked a storm
against the secular authorities, although only an exami-
1 Synod Dioec. Limens. III. ann. 1585 cap. XXXVI.-Synod. VIII. aun. 1594
cap. xxxvi.-Concil. Provin. Limens. III. ann. 1601 Act. II. Decret. iv. (Aguirre,
VI. 197–8, 436, 479.)
2 Mendicta, Historia Eccles. Indiana, Lib. IV. cap. xlvi. (Mexico, 1870.)
THE POST-TRIDENTINE CHURCH 249
nation was proposed, and there was no attempt to be
made of conviction or punishment." There is therefore no
reason to question the truthfulness of the description by
Don Jorje Juan and Don Antonio de Ulloa, in an official
report made about 1740, when they assert that the clergy
of Peru, both secular and regular, live so licentiously and
with such scandal and self-indulgence that, although all
men have their weaknesses and human nature is fragile in
Peru, yet it seems as though it were the special function
of these ecclesiastics to exceed all the rest in the perverted
habits of their disorderly lives—an assertion which the
writers proceed to justify by abundant details of the
most convincing character.”
That the monastic establishments shared in the general
dissoluteness we may fairly conclude when we see the
precautions which St. Toribio found necessary to preserve
the purity of the spouses of Christ. Thus one regulation
provides that no ecclesiastic shall visit a nun without a
written permission, to be granted only by the Archbishop
himself, or his Provisor; and so little confidence did he
feel in the guardians whom he himself appointed, that he
directs that the official visitors who inspected the nunneries
should not enter them without some special and urgent
reason.” In fact, the report of Juan and Ulloa, declares
that the regulars exceed the seculars in their disorders,
which are so public and notorious as to fill one with
horror.
1 Memorias de los Wireyes del Peru, Lima, 1659, T. III. pp. 63–70.
2 Noticias secretas de America, Sacadas ā Luz por Don David Barry, p. 490
(London, 1826).
Juan and Ulloa were distinguished men of science, sent in 1735, to co-operate
with a similar party from France in the measurement of an equatorial arc of the
earth's surface. They carried instructions to make a confidential report on the
resources, condition and administration of the colony, in fulfilment of which they
traversed it from end to end. Their voluminous report lay hidden in the Spanish
archives until unearthed and printed by Mr. Barry.
3 Synod. Dioec. Limens. III. ann. 1585 cap. xli.—W. ann. 1588 cap. ix.
(Aguirre VI. 198, 216.)
250 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
A curious rule adopted by the first Council of Mexico
in 1555 shows how much more scandal was dreaded than
sin. In order, as it says, to avert danger and infamy from
the clerical order and from married women, it prohibits
the Fiscal, or prosecuting officer, from taking cognisance
of cases of adultery committed by ecclesiastics, unless the
husband be a consenting party, or the adulterer makes
public boast of it, or the fact is so notorious that it cannot
be passed over in silence; and even when action thus is
not to be avoided, in no case is the name of the woman to
be mentioned in the proceedings. The Provisors, how-
ever, are not forbidden to take notice of such crimes, but
are allowed to settle them, if they can, with all due dis-
cretion." As might be expected these regulations, by
giving practical immunity, led to an increase in crime,
and the third Council of Mexico in 1585 tells us that
many of the clergy indulged in it, in preference to
ordinary concubinage, in the confidence that they would
not be prosecuted; but the amended rule adopted by
the Council to meet this trouble differs so little from
its predecessors, that we may reasonably doubt whether it
was followed by any diminution in the evil.” And this,
judging from Rivera's notes to his edition of 1859, is the
existing state of ecclesiastical law in Mexico,” although
the Tridentine canon specially orders the Episcopal
Ordinaries to proceed ea officio in all such cases, even of
laymen." *
1 Concil. Mexican. I. ann. 1555 cap. lxxxi.
2 Concil. Mexican. III. ann. 1585 Lib. V. Tit. x. $ 7.
3 Notes 57 and 229, pp. 452, 549. -
4 Concil. Trident. Sess, XXIV. De Reform. Matrim. c. viii.—It requires some
artful special pleading on the part of Rivera and of the authorities on whom
he relies to reconcile this Mexican laxity with the instructions of the Council of
Trent.
CHAPTER XXX
SOLICITATION
THE Church of the post-Tridentine period was brought
into the strongest competition with the Reform, which
had carried away nearly half of Europe and was seriously
threatening to secure the rest. The needs of the counter-
Reformation rendered obligatory efforts at internal puri-
fication, which had been superfluous during the ages of
unquestioned theocracy, and there was no point in which
this was more imperative than in the relations between the
celibate priest and his spiritual daughters in the sacrament
of penance. The power of the confessional, one of the
most effective instrumentalities invented by the ingenuity
of man for enslaving the human mind, was peculiarly liable
to abuse in sexual matters. No one can be familiar with
the hideous suggestiveness of the penitentials without
recognising how frequent must be the temptations arising
between confessor and penitent, while their respective
relations render seduction comparatively easy, and un-
speakably atrocious." To deprive such relations of danger
requires the confessor to be gifted with rare purity and
holiness, and when these functions were confided to men
such as those who composed the Sacerdotal body, as we
have seen it throughout the Middle Ages, the result was
inevitable.
The scandals of the confessional were no new source
1 For the brutal details of the questions which the confessor was required to ask
of his penitents, female as well as male, see Burchardi Decretorum Lib. XIX. c. v.
I dare not give even a specimen.
252 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
of tribulation to the Church and the people. No sooner
had the early custom of public and lay confession tended
to fall into the hands of the priesthood than it was found
necessary to call attention to the dangers thence arising.
The first Council of Toledo, in 398, forbids any familiarity
between the virgins dedicated to God and their confessors."
About the year 500, Symmachus calls attention to the
spiritual affinity contracted between the confessor and his
penitent, rendering the latter his daughter; he alludes to
Silvester as having denounced guilty relations between
them, and proceeds to decree not only deposition in such
cases, but life-long penitence.” As sacerdotal confession
gradually became customary, a decretal was forged—
whether to give additional authority to the practice, or
to impress upon the minds of confessors the necessity of
prudence—by which the name of Celestin I. was used
for a regulation confiscating all the possessions of the
female delinquent and confining her in a monastery for
life, while the seducer was warned that such sin with his
spiritual daughter amounted to a grave case of adultery,
for which he must be deposed and undergo penance for
twelve years, provided, always, that the facts had become
known to the people,” thus indicating that scandal rather
than sin was the danger most dreaded.
It was inevitable that this trouble should continue, as
we have seen it do throughout the whole history of a celi-
bate priesthood.” So constantly was “solicitation"—
solicitatio ad turpiae, as it came to be technically called—
1 Concil. I. Toletan. ann. 398 can. vi. For the gradual growth of confession
and its conversion from public to auricular, see the author's “History of Auricular
Confession and Indulgences,” 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1896. Confession to the priest
was not made obligatory until the fourth Council of Lateran, in 1215–16.
2 Gratian. Caus. XXX. q. i. can. 8.--Whether this decretal be authentic or not
there is significance in Gratian's including it in his collection.
3. Gratian. Caus. XXX. q. i. can. 9, 10. –Although long practically obsolete these
canons are quoted, in 1611, as still in force by Jacobus and Graffiis, “Decisionum
aurearum casuum conscientiae,” P. II. Lib. I, cap. vi. n. 53 (Venetiis, 1611).
4 See Vol. I., passim, especially p. 435.
SOLICITATION 253
borne in mind that the mediaeval canonists recognised that
a parish priest known to be addicted to it forfeited his
jurisdiction over his female penitents, who were at liberty
to seek another confessor.” St. Bonaventura, indeed,
declares that there are few parish priests free from this
or from other defects that should incapacitate them.”
That it was the subject of frequent and indignant repre-
hension on the part of those who sought to elevate and
purify the church we may well believe. Calixtus II.
freely assumes the perdition of the priest who thus betrays
the sacred confidence reposed in him, denouncing him as
a lion devouring sheep, as a bear attacking a traveller who
has lost his way, as a fowler spreading lures for birds and
attracting them with sweet sounds, while the woman he
treats not as a partner in guilt, but as an unfortunate who
finds destruction where she is seeking salvation.” It is
observable here that the fault is assumed to lie exclusively
with the confessor, and such is likewise the case in the
eloquent denunciations of Savonarola, who declares that
the Italian cities are full of these wolves in sheep's cloth-
ing, who are constantly seeking to entice the innocent
into sin by all the arts for which their spiritual director-
ship affords so much scope.” For this there was virtual
immunity. Like all other sins it was made a source of
profit to the curia, which offered absolution and a dispen-
sation to hold benefices for the moderate price of thirty-
1 S. Th. Aquinat. Summae Supplem. Q. VIII. art. 4.—Astesani Summae Lib. v.
Tit. xiii. q. 2. —Summae Sylvestrina s.v. Confessor I. SS. 10–11.
Guido de Monteroquer, however (Manipulus Curatorum, P. II. cap. iii. art. 9),
says that when snch a priest refuses to grant a licence to confess elsewhere, or there
is no other priest accessible, the woman must confess to him, after prayer to God to
resist his importunities.
2 S. Bonaventura, Quaere Fratres Minores praedicant (Opusc. I. 405).
3 Calixti II. Serm. I. de S. Jacob (Migne’s Patrolog. T. 163 p. 1390).—The
genuineness of these sermons has been doubted, but they are unquestionably, if not
by Calixtus, by a writer nearly contemporary.
4 Perrens, Jérome Savonarole, p. 71. See also Cornelius Agrippa, De Vanitate
Scientiar. c. lxiv.
254 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
six gros tournois.” For those at a distance from Rome
the local episcopal courts were equally lenient, if we may
judge from the case of Alonso de Valdelamar, a priest of
Almodovar, tried in 1535 by Blas Ortiz, vicar-general of
the Archbishop of Toledo. The charges fully proved
against him embraced the seduction of two of his female
penitents and his refusal of absolution to a third unless
she would surrender herself to him, besides a miscellaneous
assortment of crimes—theft, blasphemy, cheating with
bulls of indulgence, charging penitents for absolution and
frequenting brothels. For all this he was sentenced to a
fine of two ducats and the costs and fees of his trial, and
to thirty days seclusion in the church to repent of his
sins and fit himself for celebrating mass, after which he
was free to resume his flagitious career.” The regular
Orders seem to have been equally benignant with their
delinquents. In the Mexican case of Fray Juan de Valdaña,
guardian of the Franciscan convent of Suchipita, who
made no secret of his affairs with his penitents, it was
in evidence, on his trial by the Inquisition in 1583, that
when remonstrated with, he asked what could his prelates
do to him ? it was only a dozen strokes of the discipline
and a year's suspension from his guardianship.”
The Lutheran revolt, which found in the crime euphe-
mistically termed Solicitation, a favourite point of attack,
wrought a change in the view taken of it. The reforming
Bishop of Verona, Matteo Ghiberti (died in 1543), decreed
severe temporal punishments for all attempts on the virtue
of female penitents, culminating in deprivation and per-
petual imprisonment when the attempt was successful.”
In his case this was doubtless prompted by sincere con-
1 Taxes des Parties casuelles, p. 79 (Lyou, 1564).
2 Archivo histórico nacional de España, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 233,
n. 100.
3 MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.
4 Salzedo, Practica criminalis canonica, p. 276 (Compluti, 1587).
SOLICITATION 255
viction of the iniquity of the offence, but even those who
thought lightly of it recognised that the time had passed
for its condonation. Bernal Díaz de Lugo, in 1543,
intimated that improper relations between confessor and
penitent are not much worse than ordinary concubinage,
but that when they become publicly known they should
be visited with deprivation and imprisonment, seeing that
notoriety tends to prevent men from allowing their wives
and daughters to confess and exposes the sacrament of
penitence to heretical assault." In the same spirit, Arch-
bishop Carranza of Toledo, in 1558, tells us that the enemy
took full advantage of this weak spot in the line of defence.”
As the Council of Trent assumed that God would not
deny the gift of chastity to a celibate priesthood, it could
scarce refer to such a matter, even if the dread of scandal
arising from any allusion to it had not imposed silence,
and it adopted no provisions to lessen the evil. About
that time, however, a preventive effort was commenced
by the invention of the confessional. Hitherto the priest
had heard confessions in the open, with the penitent at
his knees or seated by his side, which gave ample oppor-
tunity for temptation and solicitation. To remedy this
the confessional was gradually evolved—a box in which
the confessor sits while the penitent outside pours the
tale of his sin through a grille, neither being visible to the
other. The earliest allusion to such a contrivance that I
have met occurs in a memorial to Charles V., by Siliceo,
Archbishop of Toledo, in 1547.” In 1565 a Council of
Valencia ordered its use, especially for the confession of
women, and between 1565 and 1575 S. Carlo Borromeo
introduced it in his province of Milan, while the Roman
1 Bern. Diaz de Luco, Practica criminalis canonica, cap, 75, 76 (Venetiis,
1543).
2 Carrauza Commentarius sobre el Catechismo, Tercero Sacramento, cap. vii
s Burriel, Vida de los Arzobispus de Toledo (Biblioteca nacional de España
seccion de MSS. Ff. 194, fol. 9).
256 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Ritual of 1614 prescribes its employment in all churches."
The command was obeyed but slackly, for the innovation
had to win its way against the pronounced opposition of
the priesthood, who objected to this seclusion from their
penitents. In Spain we find the Inquisition, between 1710
and 1720, busy in endeavouring to enforce the use of the
confessional and, as late as 1781, it issued a decree to be
printed and sent to all parish priests and superiors of
convents who were to post it in their sacristies. In this
it alludes to its previous repeated orders and its sorrow at
the evils arising from their non-observance or from the
devices used to elude them, of which it gives a curious
enumeration.”
A drawback to the advantages of the confessional was
the opportunity which it afforded for laymen to ensconce
themselves and hear confessions of women, whether from
jealousy or to gratify prurient instincts, or because it
enabled them to ask indecent questions. Such cases were
not uncommon, and though the offenders were not liable
to prosecution for solicitation, they were held subject to
the Inquisition for suspicion of heresy. If the pretended
confessor, however, ventured to administer absolution he
came under the savage decrees of Paul IV., Gregory XIII.,
and Urban VIII., which prescribed burning alive for such
sacrilege, although in Spain the Inquisition humanely
modified this to service in the galleys.”
Mechanical devices, however, went but a little way
to cure an evil so widespread and so persistent. If the
1 Concil. Valentin. ann, 1565, Tit. II. cap. vii. (Aguirre W. 417.)—C. Mediolanens
I. ann. 1565 P. I. cap. vi. (Harduin. X. 653.)—C. Provin. Mediolanens IV. ann. 1576
(Acta Eccles. Mediolanens, I. 146).-Rituale Roman. Tit. iii. cap. i. -
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala, 39, Legajo 4, fol. 34, 55, 81.-Archivo
histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 9, n. 2, fol. 236 ; Cartas del
Consejo, Legajo 16, n. 6, fol. 9.
3 Cozza, Dubia selecta circa Solicitationem, Dub. XXXVIII. (Lovanii, 1760.)—
Trimarchi de Confessore abutente Sacram. Poenitentiae, Tract. unicus, p. 147
(Genuce, 1636).-Bullar, Roman. II. 415; III. 142; IV. 144.—Archivo histórico
nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 299, fol. 80.
SOLICITATION 257
mouths of mocking heretics were to be closed, some
efficacious method must be found for the discovery and
punishment of offenders. Yet this was surrounded with
difficulties. The crime was secret and known only to the
confessor and penitent, and the latter, whether she yielded
or not, was deterred from volunteering a complaint by the
notoriety which accompanied it, compromising her with
husband or father, to say nothing of the dangerous
enmity which she would excite. Strictly speaking, such
matters were not covered by the seal of the confessional,
but she could scarce know this in the face of assertions
freely made to the contrary." The spiritual courts, more-
over, which held exclusive jurisdiction, were not, as we
have seen, disposed to treat the offender harshly, and a
not unnatural esprit de corps would lead them to reject
accusations which could not be supported by witnesses
and were so easily discredited. Then, beyond all else,
was the ever-present dread of scandal to be aroused
through the publicity of open trials, with the consequence
of rendering confession odious and of affording comfort to
the heretic. Thus the crime, although peculiarly heinous,
was almost assured of impunity.
Yet there was in Spain a tribunal which, by its
impenetrable secrecy, could avert scandal and by its
special procedure could hope to procure convictions.
This was the Inquisition, and, though its Apostolic
jurisdiction was confined to heresy, yet heresy was an
elastic term which, like charity, could be made to cover
a multitude of sins. Pedro Guerrero, the reforming
Archbishop of Granada, chanced to represent to Paul IV.
the frequency of the crime and the necessity of some more
efficacious means of repression.” Whether or not he
directly suggested the interpellation of the Inquisition
1 Rodriguez, Nuova Somma de' Casi de Coscienza, P.I. cap. 53.
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 374.
VOL. II. R.
258 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
does not appear, but Paul resolved on tentatively trying
the experiment, and, on 18 February, 1559, he ad-
dressed to the Inquisitors of Granada a brief in which
he assumed that confessors who could so abuse their
functions must hold unorthodox views as to the sacrament
of penitence, rendering them suspect of heresy and sub-
jecting them to the Holy Office. The inquisitors were
thus authorised to prosecute such offenders and punish
them at discretion, even to “relaying ” them to the secular
area for burning. As the case was heretical, the exemp-
tions of the Regular Orders were withdrawn, and they
were subjected to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition."
We have no records to inform us what was the result
of this in Granada, but presumably it sufficed to indicate
the extent of the evil and the increased efficacy of the new
method for its discovery and punishment. Accordingly,
Pius IV., by a bull of 14 April, 1561, addressed to Valdes,
the inquisitor-general, empowered the Inquisition, through-
out the Spanish dominions, to investigate and punish all
confessors who solicited women in the act of confession,
even to the extent of degrading and relaying them to the
secular arm for punishment at its discretion. As before,
all exemptions of the monastic Orders were withdrawn.”
The Inquisition was nothing loath to exercise this new
power, and, to render it effective, in the next annual
1 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro III. fol. 322 (Archivo hist, nacional).
The theologians did not find it easy to explain the “suspicion of heresy” inferred
in solicitation, and constructed various theories to elucidate it.—Alberghirri,
Manuale Qualificatorum, cap. xxxi. § 2, n. 1.
How nebulous was the subject appears from the fact that, as we shall see, in
Italy the suspicion was held to be “vehement,” and in Spain to be “light"—a dis-
tinction of importance in inquisitorial procedure, as the former entailed relaxation,
or burning, in case of relapse.
2 Pii PP. IV. Bull. Cum sicut nuper (Bullar. Roman. II. 48). -
The definition of the crime in this bull, on which a good deal subsequently
hinged, was rather vague. It alludes to the priests who “sacramento poenitentiae in
actu audiendi confessiones abutantur,” and describes their offence “mulieres
videlicet poenitentes ad actus inhonestos dum earum audiunt confessiones, alliciendo
et provocando seu allicere et provocare tentando.”
SOLICITATION 259
publication of what was known as the Edict of Faith,
solicitation was included among the offences which every
one having knowledge was required to denounce to the
Holy Office." As this edict was solemnly published in
the churches on a feast-day, at which the whole population
was summoned to attend, it was a most effective means of
acquainting the people with the new legislation and of
inviting information from every source. Naturally it
produced a sensation, although this has been absurdly
exaggerated by hostile writers.” This bold abandonment
of the traditional policy of the Church to cover such
offences with the deepest silence evoked opposition which
finds expression in a memorial presented to the Inquisition.
This commences by deploring the crime which converts
the sacrament into a snare for the ruin of souls; but, evil
as is this, the evils of publicity are greater. The crime
has always existed, for men are men and women are
women, but the Church has never before attempted so
novel a cure. It has always been the policy to conceal
the offences of the clergy and not to risk the diminution
of the reverence due to them. Scandal is the very thing
to be avoided; the authority of the priesthood depends
upon popular estimation, which should not be imperilled.
To proclaim to the world that the confessional is thus
abused is to deter people from seeking it ; fathers and
husbands will prevent their women from confessing, respect
for the sacrament will be destroyed and Christianity will
be overthrown. Besides, it is usually the women who are
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 107.
2 González de Montes relates that when the edict was published in Seville in
1563, it brought to the Inquisition such a crowd of accusing women that twenty
secretaries were unable to take down the depositions within the allotted term of
thirty days, and the time had to be extended to four months, causing finally so great
a popular ferment, and implicating so large a portion of the clergy, that the attempt
had to be abandoned.—Reg. Gonsalvii Montani, Inquisitionis Hispan. Artes aliquot
detectae, pp. 184 sqq. (Heidelbergae, 1567.)
See also Cipriano de Valera's account of the trouble in Seville.—Los dos Tratados,
p. 271 (Reformistas antiquos Españoles).
260 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the tempters, and, when their advances are repelled, they
will bring false charges to ruin the innocent. Moreover,
the comfort is to be considered which it will bring to the
heretics, justifying their slanders on the morals of priests
and friars. Altogether the document, which is not without
learning, is a barefaced admission that morals and religion
have nothing in common, and that the salvation of souls
is of small account in comparison with the material
interests of the Church.”
It is easy to conceive how pressure of this kind in-
creased; the Inquisition in time yielded, and, on 22 May,
1571, it instructed the tribunals that solicitation was no
longer to be included in the edict, on account of the evils
which it caused. The inquisitors were told to devise such
other means as they could and to notify prelates to instruct
confessors that, when penitents confessed to having been
solicited, they must be admonished to denounce the
offenders to the Holy Office. The result of this was not
satisfactory after a few years' trial, and, on 2 March, 1576,
an edict to be published in future was sent to the tribunals
containing the crime of solicitation. The reason given is
its great increase, and the inquisitors are taken to task for
not acting upon the denunciations which they received.”
This remained the settled policy of the Inquisition, and
all who knew, directly or indirectly, of such cases, were
required to denounce them under pain of major excom-
munication.
The chief sufferers under this new dispensation were
the Regular Orders, for not only was the business of con-
fession largely in their hands, but the temptation to abuse
it was greater than among the secular clergy who had
fuller opportunities for less dangerous indulgence. The
Inquisition moreover was resolute in enforcing its jurisdic-
1 Biblioteca nacional de España, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 216,
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1465, fol. 16.
SOLICITATION 261
tion over them and, when two Jesuit fathers, Sebastian
Briviesca and Cristóbal Trugillo, who were guilty of the
offence, were quietly conveyed out of Spain, it prosecuted
and imprisoned, in 1587, Francisco Marcen, the Provincial
of Castile, with fathers Francisco Labata and Juan López,
for infraction of the edict commanding all cases to be
reported to it.” Jesuit influence was powerful in Rome;
Sixtus V. promptly evoked their cases to himself and,
when the Inquisition demurred, he threatened Inquisi-
tor-general Quiroga with deprivation of his office and
cardinalate, which brought submission to his mandate.”
Encouraged by this, the Jesuits laboured strenuously to
obtain exemption for all the religious Orders, but the
whole influence of Spain was brought to bear and, after a
prolonged struggle, the Congregation of the Universal
Inquisition, in the presence of Clement VIII, issued a
decree, 3 December, 1692, declaring that the jurisdiction
of the Spanish Inquisition was exclusive and that the
superiors of the regulars could not exercise it. This was
confirmed, in 1605, by Paul V. in a general constitution, re-
voking the jurisdiction of superiors in all cases pertaining to
the Inquisition, and the question was permanently settled.”
Although Portugal had been added to the Spanish
crown in 1580, the separate organisation of its Inquisition
had been preserved and it was not until 1608 that Paul V.
extended to it jurisdiction over solicitation in the same
terms as those granted to the Spanish tribunals.” That
the Roman Inquisition should exercise the same power
may be assumed as a matter of course.
In all these decrees the definition of the crime, as we
have seen, was so loosely phrased that there was little
1 Vatican Library, MSS. Ottobonian. Lat. 495.
2 Archivo de Simancas, Graein y Justicia, Inquisicion, Legajo 621, fol. 139.
3 Bulario de la Ordui de Santiago, Lib. IV. fol. 109, 111.—Archivo de Alcalá de
Herrares, Hacienda, Legajo 1049.
4 Pauli PP. W. Bull. Cum sicut nuper, 16 September, 1648 (Trimarchi, op.
cit. p. 7).
262 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
difficulty in evading the letter of the law, for in practice it
was construed that technical solicitation was confined to
women and that it must be committed during the very
act of confession. As early as 1577 the Supreme Council
of the Spanish Inquisition ruled that there was no penalty
for soliciting penitents in the place assigned for confession
if there was no confession, and soon afterwards that, if the
confessor told the penitent that he did not wish to confess
her, he was not to be prosecuted for soliciting her." All
this opened the door to so many evasions that the effective-
ness of the bulls was seriously crippled. The churches
were for the most part deserted, the attitude of penitent
and confessor would disarm the suspicion of any one who
chanced to observe them and amorous endearments and
even incredible indecencies might easily be indulged
in so long as there was no actual sacramental confession,
as is shown by frequent and flagrant details in the trials.
The Roman Inquisition sought to check these abuses by
subjecting them to the Holy Office, in decrees of 10 July,
1614 and 6 February, 1619,” but these decrees seem not to
have been accepted in Spain, for de Sausa, in 1623, repeats
the assertion that there must be actual confession and that
the opposite opinion is destitute of all probability. In
this he is supported by an experienced inquisitor, about
the same time, who says that when there is an assignation
and only an external appearance of confession there is no
sacrament and therefore no sacrilège.”
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1465, fol. 16.-MSS. of National
Library of Lima, Protocolo 223, Expediente 5270.-‘‘Confesores que con intento de
solicitar á sur bijas de confesion dicen que no las quieren confesar, se puide dejar de
proceder contra ellas.”
2 Tremarchi, op. cit. pp. 10, 11.
3 Ant. de Sousa, Opusculum circa Constit. Pauli.W. Tit. 1, cap. 19 (Ulyssip. 1623).
Biblioteca nacional de España, Seccion di MSS. B. 159, fol. 159.
The Roman Inquisition, by decree of 24 November, 1612, extended the operation
of the bulls to the solicitation of males, which was accepted in Spain and announced
to the tribunals, 8 May, 1613.-Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1465,
fol. 16.
SOLICITATION 263
Another and even more dangerous evasion was evolved
from the words of the bills, implying that solicitation must
be in the act of confession. Probabilism and casuistry were
developing rapidly and ingenious moralists were busy in
demonstrating how all the sanctions of the moral law
could be eluded. It was explained that if the confessor
should make his advances before confession actually com-
menced, or wait until after it was concluded and absolution
given, there would be no irreverence to the sacrament and
consequently no suspicion of heresy for the Inquisition to
punish. By no means all authorities assented to this, but
it was defended by enough to render it probable and con-
sequently safe in practice." Then the question as to what
acts and words amounted to solicitation opened a wide
field for the dialectics of the casuists. The rule that what-
ever a priest does is to be interpreted favourably—that if
he embraces a woman it is to be held that he is blessing
her—was invoked to prove that winks and nods and
praises of her beauty were not to be regarded as tempting
her to evil. The more rigid moralists asserted that such
acts were foreign to the sacrament and could only be con-
strued as opening the way to further advances, while
others held that unless the acts amounted to mortal sin
they did not come within the papal bulls—that to tell the
penitent that she was pretty and cultivate her friendship
so as to be invited to her house might be imprudent but
was not a mortal sin.” There was another question on
which opinions were divided—whether a priest acting in
the confessional as a pimp for the benefit of another, or
urging the penitent to serve as a procuress for him, came
under the definitions of the bulls.”
1 Biblioteca nacional de España, ubi sup—Henriquez, Summa Theol. Moral.
Lib. VI. cap. xvii. n. 42 (Venetiis, 1600)—Rod. Å Cunha, pro SS. P.P. Pauli V.
Statuto, Q. 5 (Benavente, 1611).—Ant. de Sousa, op. cit. Tract. I. cap. xviii. —Tri-
marchi, op. cit. p. 83. –Paranio de Orig. Officii S. Inquisit. p. 878 (Matriti, 1598).
2 Rod. 3 Cunha, op. cit. Q. vii.-Ant. de Sousa, op. cit. Tract. I. cap. i.
3 Rod. 3 Cunha, Q. xvii.—Ant. de Sousa, Tract. I. cap. 14,-The bull of 1622
264 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
It was evident that papal utterances of a more defi-
nite character were requisite if the efforts to suppress the
crime were to have a measure of success and, in 1622,
Gregory XV. attempted this in the comprehensive bull
Universi Dominic; Gregis. He not only confirmed the
acts of his predecessors but extended their provisions over
all the lands of the Roman obedience, constituting not
only inquisitors but also episcopal Officials as special judges
over all the clergy, including the exempted religious
Orders, with exclusive jurisdiction, and full power to
inflict punishment, even to degradation and relaxation to
the secular arm. Moreover he sought to meet all the
evasions by defining that solicitation, whether for the
priest himself or for another, could occur either before or
after confession, and when there was a pretext of it,
provided it was in a place where confessions were heard,
and he included illicit and indecent talk and acts within
the definition.”
The success of this well-intended measure scarce
corresponded with its merits. At first Spain would have
none of it. The Inquisition was exceedingly sensitive as
to its exclusiveness of jurisdiction and the terms of the
bull appeared to restore to the episcopal courts a cumula-
tive cognisance of solicitation. By some means the
Ordinary of Seville obtained a copy and showed it to the
inquisitors. The Supreme Council of the Inquisition took
decided that acting as a priest was technically solicitation. As it said nothing about
using the penitent as a procuress—which we are told was a more frequent practice
—there were doctors who held that it did not subject the confessor to prosecution.
Jo. Sanchez, Disputationes Selectae, Disp. XI. n. 3, 4 (Lngduni, 1636)--Trimarchi,
op. cit. pp. 53, 55.
1 Bullar. Roman. III. 484.—“Qui personas, quaecumque illae sint, ad inhonesta,
sive inter se sive cum aliis, quomodolibet perpetranda, in actu sacramentalis confes-
sionis, sive ante vel post immediate, seu occasione vel praetextu confessionis hujus-
modi, etiam ipsa confessione non sequuta, sive extra occasionem confessionis in
confessionario, aut in loco quocumque ubi confessionis Sacramentales audiantur. Seu
ad confessionem audiendam electo, simulantes ibidem confessiones audire, solicitare
vel provocare tentaverint, aut cum eis illicitas et inhonestas sermones sive tractatus
habuerint.”
SOLICITATION 265
alarm and promptly addressed a memorial to Philip IV.,
14 January, 1628, dwelling eloquently upon the heinous-
ness and frequency of the crime, the energy and vigour of
the Inquisition in repressing it and the disastrous conse-
quences of granting concurrent jurisdiction to the bishops.
Confessors would be much emboldened in their evil
courses by the comparative leniency of the episcopal
courts; the secrecy which kept a knowledge of these
affairs from husbands and kinsmen would be destroyed,
and, if the two complainants necessary for a trial should
apply, one to the bishop and the other to the Inquisition,
the culprit would escape. The King was therefore asked
to obtain the exemption of Spain from the operation of the
bull, which was speedily arranged. Then, after some
delay, in 1629, the Supreme Council sent copies of the
bull to the tribunals as a guide in practice. There was
some trouble with bishops who revendicated jurisdiction
under it, but the Inquisition boldly asserted that it had a
special brief conferring exclusive jurisdiction, though this
it could never exhibit, and it finally made good its claim.”
Elsewhere, the bull had a still more inhospitable
reception. It was not accepted or published in either
France or Germany. In France the assemblies of the
clergy refused to receive it, declaring that it was unsuited
to the customs of the country and that it tended to violate
the seal of the confessional. It was even asserted to prove
the fallibility of the Holy See, and an attempt to publish
it, early in the eighteenth century, was suppressed.”
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 940, fol. 212; Legajo 1465, fol. 16;
Gracia y Justicia, Inquisicion, Legajo 621, fol. 27.-Archivo histórico nacional, In-
quisicion de Valencia, Legajo 1, n. 6, fol. 274, 393 ; Libro 7 de Autos, Legajo 2, fol.
114.—Biblioteca nacional, Seccion de MSS. D. 118, p. 148.
2 Pontas, Dictionnaire de Cas de Conscience, I. 864 (Paris, 1741).-Lochou, Traité
du Secret de la Confession, pp. 135, 144 (Brusselle, 1708).-Lenglet Du Fresnoy,
Traité du Secret invoilable de la Confession, pp. 283, 304–20.
In France, solicitation was a cas royal, cognisable by the secular courts. A
spiritual director of a convent convicted of it was hanged and burnt in the Place
Maubert, 23 June, 1673.−Du Fresnoy, loc. cit.
266 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Germany was either indifferent or opposed. In 1666,
Father Gobat states that the Papal decrees have not been
commented upon by German moralists, either because
they have not been received there and there is no expecta-
tion that they will be, or because the German women
cannot be expected to trouble with their complaints such
exalted personages as bishops and vicars-general, and he
adds that he can name a number of vicars-general who
have never received such a denunciation, save one, in a
single instance.” Yet this absence of complaint was not
due to the superior morality of the German priesthood.
In 1733, Dr. Amort tells us that a few years previously
the Franciscans of Bavaria had agreed to receive the bull
in so far as to prohibit any of their confessors from
absolving a penitent who had been solicited by one of
their own Order, unless she would permit him to denounce
the offender, an example which Amort wishes were
followed elsewhere, as it would be very useful in repressing
many scandals which afflict the German Church.” As
the Roman Inquisition, in 1633, had ordered all superiors
of religious houses, under pain of deprivation of office and
of active and passive voice, to assemble the brethren once
a year and admonish them as to the observance of the
bulls, this shows how completely they had been ignored.”
When Gregory included illicit and indecent acts and
words in his definition of solicitation, he merely opened a
field of unlimited debate. Every moralist had his own
standard, from the extreme of rigorism to the most
abandoned laxity. Thus already, in 1635, there was a
discussion whether handing a love-letter to a penitent in
the confessional came under the definition ; if it was to be
1 Gobat, Alphabetum Confessariorum, n. 576–77.
2 Amort, Dict. Selectt. Casuum Conscientiae, I. 704–5 (Aug. Windel. 1733).-See
Reusch (Beiträge zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens, p. 236, München, 1894) for
scandals recorded in the memoranda of a Jesuit visitor in South Germany.
3 Trimanchi, op. cit. p. 17.
SOLICITATION 267
read on the spot, it was generally so considered ; if to be
read subsequently, the stricter theologians condemned it,
while others argued that the woman had been absolved
and reconciled to God, so that the sacrament was out of
the way. It was not until 1665 that Alexander VII.
condemned the proposition that love-letters could be thus
given without incurring the penalties of solicitation." It
was a received rule among moralists that parvitas materia:
—or the trifling character of an offence such as theft—
reduced mortal sins to venial, but it was likewise agreed
that there was no parvitas materiae in usury or lust.
Whether there was in solicitation was a disputed point
until, in 1661, the Roman Inquisition decided in the
negative. Still this settled little, for at the same time it
decided that praising the beauty of a penitent or giving
her a present might be solicitation or not according to
intention.” Thus the question of intention threw every-
thing in doubt and justifies Bodonus in applying it to
such utterances as “Remember me, for I love you,” “If I
were a layman I would marry you,” “Wait for me at
home, for I have to speak with you about a matter of
importance,” and even advising a penitent to kill her
husband, none of which justify denunciation for they may
be innocent.” In 1741, Benedict XIV. endeavoured, in
the bull Sacramentum Poenitentiae, to define the indefinable
more accurately, but he could do little more than copy
Gregory XV." Subsequently to this, St. Alphonso de
1 Trimanchi, op. cit. pp. 48–50.-Bullar. Roman. T. VI. Append. p. 1.
2 Berardi de Sollicitatione, p. 5 (Faventiae, 1897).
3 Bodoni Sacrum Tribunal Judicum, cap. xxiii. n. 53–4, 60, 61 (Romae, 1648);
Ejusdem Manuale Consultorum, Sect. XXV. n. 91 (Romae, 1693).
There were even doctors who held that a priest confessing a rich woman and
taking advantage of her falling into stupor or delirium was not liable to denuncia-
tion, for in that condition she was no longer his penitent, and the papal bulls
were directed not against fornicating priests, but soliciting confessors. Berardi,
however, assures us (pp. 36–7) that the weight of authority is against this line of
reasoning.
4 Bullar, Benedicti XIV. I. 23.
268 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Liguori, the most authoritative moralist of modern times,
inclines to the laxist view—not wholly, but in many of the
debatable cases. He follows the laxist system in constru-
ing strictly the words of the papal decrees and limiting
them to the letter, not developing their spirit. The effort
to subject the crime to the Inquisition, since all other
jurisdictions had failed to curb it, rendered necessary the
figment of suspicion of heresy arising out of flagrant con-
tempt for the sacrament. Thus, even in lands where there
was no Inquisition and since the Inquisition has been
abolished, the sacrament came to be the one thing vital;
the relation between confessor and penitent and the
morals involved were lost to sight. Any vileness might
be committed unless it could be proved that the sacrament
was made the direct instrument of seduction. This is
Liguori's guide, and the only difference between him and
the extreme laxists is that he sometimes brushes aside the
flimsy casuistry by which they sought to justify the
unjustifiable." All this discussion is not merely academic ;
it is of the utmost practical importance in guiding the
confessor in granting or refusing absolution to a woman
who has been solicited, if she declines to denounce the
offender, and the net result is to prove that solicitation is
a purely technical offence, which has nothing to do with
morals.
Another source of perplexity in this matter, arising
from the indispensable confidences of the confessional,
is the difficulty of determining the limits of indecency
1 S. Alph. de Ligorio Theol. Moral. Lib. VI. n. 676–91.
It is true that Berardi (op. cit, pp. 21–5) controverts Liguori's tendency to laxity,
but nevertheless he remains the chief authority relied upon by the congregation of
the Inquisition. Thus, in answer to a request for a definition as to the degree of
guilt which would bring a confessor absolving his partner in guilt under the consti-
tutions of Benedict XIV., it replied, 15 September, 1859, to consult approved authors
and especially Liguori (Il Consulenti ecclesiastico, IV. 19, Romae, 1899). In fact,
his canonisation and elevation to the dignity of a Doctor of the Church imply that
his writings have been closely scrutinised and found to be flawless.
solicitATION 269
permissible to a confessor with his penitent, so long as he
abstains from positive acts about which there can be no
doubt. Suggestive questions and ribald talk might be
merely for the delectation which the moralists tell us holy
men experience in discussing these matters, or they might
be for the purpose of insidiously inflaming the passions
and corrupting a prospective victim, or again they might
come within the scope allowed to the confessor of
acquainting himself accurately with the spiritual and
moral condition of the penitent. Where the line is to be
drawn is incapable of practical definition. It is for the
confessor to decide how far his conscience or his brutality
may lead him, and, if the penitent complains, each case
has to be settled on its own merits. This was not always
by any means easy. In 1786 a nun of the Convent of
Santa Clara of Játiva complained of Fray Vicente
González, and reported a number of irregularly indecent
and wholly irrelevant questions which he repeatedly put
to her in confession. Under the advice of the definitor of
his Order, she empowered him to denounce González to
the Inquisition, whereupon the ordinary confessor of the
Council intervened and persuaded the definitor to write a
letter withdrawing the charges. The licence which some
confessors permitted to themselves was shown in the case
of Fray Vicente Sarria, in 1773, in which his interrogations
were brutally indecent and completely superfluous, and
in that of Maestro Diego de Agumanes, in 1742, who used
to discourse at length, with a young nun, on sexual
matters in a manner most provocative of passion." In
fact, the details of some of these trials would be incredible
if they were not matters of judicial record, with every
evidence of authenticity, and it is difficult to estimate the
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, n. 46, fol. 26,
31; Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 227, n. 7.
That this sort of instruction in the confessional was not unknown in Italy may
be gathered from Cardinal Cozza's Dubia selecta, Dub. 30.
270 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
filthy contagion which such men spread in the confes-
sional. -
Gregory XV., in his bull of 1622, endeavoured to
overcome the greatest obstacle to the punishment of
offenders—the difficulty of inducing solicited penitents to
denounce their seducers. It was the only mode by which
the crime could be known, while the reluctance of the
woman was almost insuperable. In Spain, as we have
seen, the Inquisition sought to accomplish this by the
Edict of Faith, excommunicating those who failed to do
so, and by ordering confessors to admonish their penitents
as to their duty, when, as sometimes happened, the woman
would include her sin in making another confession.
There were authorities who denied that she was under
this obligation, arguing that no one is obliged to denounce
an accomplice when it may involve his own infamy,” and
it required the severest pressure to compel performance.
Gregory essayed this in a clause ordering all confessors,
who learn that a penitent has been solicited, to admonish
her to denounce the culprit ; any who should neglect this
or teach their penitents that soliciting confessors were not
to be denounced, were to be duly punished by the
inquisitors or ordinaries. The Spanish Inquisition, accord-
ingly, in 1629, granted faculties to inquisitors to punish
all confessors who taught such erroneous doctrine,” and
Urban VIII. issued an encyclical ordering that when
episcopal approbations were issued to confessors, they
should be instructed to require denunciation by all peni-
tents who had been solicited.” It illustrates the inde-
pendence of the Gallican Church that it flatly contradicted
these papal utterances. In 1707, with the support of the
Faculty of Douai, the Sorbonne pronounced it to be a
1 Biblioteca nacional, Seccion de MSS. B. 1159, fol. 161.—Sayri Clavis Regio
Sacerd., Lib. XII, cap. xiv. n. 26, 32.
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 1, Libro 6, fol. 274.
3 Summa Diana, s.v. Denuntiare, n. 9.
SOLICITATION 271
mortal sin for a confessor to oblige a penitent to denounce
a priest who had seduced her in the confessional."
In Spain, the woman who failed to denounce incurred
excommunication, and consequently was incapable of
absolution until she did so, a rule enforced there as early
as 1571, and at a later period elsewhere.” That it proved
effective to some extent is seen in the fact that a large
portion of the cases tried by the Spanish Inquisition
derived from it their origin. Even the Edict of Faith
was less productive in overcoming the deep-seated repug-
nance of women to expose their weakness, but, at some
time or other, in making a general confession, they would
chance to mention a slip of this kind, when denial of
absolution would compel them to act. Yet that at best
this was uncertain, is shown by the long interval which
frequently occurred between the crime and its denuncia-
tion—in some cases twelve, fifteen, and even eighteen
years.”
It was doubtless with the object of overcoming the
repugnance of women to expose their shame that the
Roman Inquisition, by a decree of 25 July, 1624, ordered)
that neither the penitent nor the confessor was to be;
questioned as to her consent, and that, if either of the ;
volunteered the information, it was not to be entered o
the record.” The casuists, indeed, agreed that the woman,
if interrogated, could deny, using the mental reservation
that she had not so consented as to reveal it to the
examiner." Be this as it may, the wholesome rule of the
Roman Inquisition was long in winning its way in Spain,
where the reports of the trials show that the unfortunate
witness was spared nothing. Indeed, as late as 1750,
1 Lochon, Traité du Secret de la Confession, pp. 197 sqq.
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 107.—Trimarchi, op. cit. pp.
95, 100, 104.
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, fol. 10, 18, 35.
4 Cozza Dubia selecta, Dub. XIV.
5 Trimarchi, op. cit. p. 119.


272 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
instructions to commissioners appointed to take deposi-
tions in these cases require them to ascertain and record
all details with the utmost minuteness, no matter how
obscene they may be." Towards the close of its career,
however, the Spanish Inquisition learned mercy, and
instructions issued in 1816 require the examiner to warn
the witness that she is not required to state whether she
consented, and if she says that she did so, it is to be
omitted from the record. It is likely, however, that this
received scant respect, for, in 1819, the Supreme Council,
in ordering the arrest of Fray Juan Montes, feels it
necessary to call special attention to the rule.”
There was one thing which greatly reduced the pres-
sure on the consciences of women, thus seduced, to
denounce the delinquents—the habitual practice of the
latter in granting them absolution for the sin committed.
This destroyed the sin so effectually that it no longer
counted before God or man ; it need not be recited in any
subsequent confession, and it could be denied without sin
for it no longer existed.” This was an old custom both
with the concubinary priesthood and soliciting confessors,
and, though it was deprecated by the schoolmen, the
absolution was universally conceded to be valid as, indeed,
it necessarily must be under the doctrine that the sacra-
ments are not vitiated in polluted hands." In every way
the practice was scandalous and demoralising ; it gave the
tempter an enormous advantage in overcoming the virtue
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 299–"Å las
quales procurara satisfazer con la mayor individuacion y claridad, declarando formal-
mente las palabras y acciones que intervinieron, por obsenas que Sean.”
2 Cartilla de Comisarios, Š$ 9, 10 (Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo
1473).—Ibidem, Libro 890.
3 Herzig, Manuale Confessarii, P. II. n. 52.-Gury, Casus Conscientiae, I. 418 ; II.
872–Cf. S. Alphonsum de Ligorio, Theol. Moral. Lib. III. n. 162.
4 S. Th. Aquinat. Summae Supplem. Q. XX. Art. ii. ad. 1.-Astesarri Summae,
Lib. v. Tit. xxxix. Q. 4.—Summa Sylvestrina. s.v. Confessio Sacramentalis, I. § 17;
III. § 9.
SOLICITATION 273
of his penitent by promising her immediate pardon for
their mutual sin, and it interfered greatly with the obli-
gation of denunciation. It is therefore remarkable that
Gregory XV., in his bull of 1622, should have omitted all
reference to it. Apparently the abuse was so venerable
and rested on foundations so dangerous to disturb that
prudence counselled silence, while great canonists like
Sánchez and Diana were found to argue that not only
could the confessor absolve his partner in guilt, but that it
was expedient for him to do so if it would soothe her con-
science and avert defamation from her, and this although
the relations between them were notorious.* Even in
1661, when the Roman Inquisition settled sixteen
questions relating to solicitation, there was no allusion
ventured to this.”
Had there been a sincere desire to put an end to the
practice, a way could readily have been found by limiting
the jurisdiction of the confessor in such cases, as had
already been done by some thirteenth-century councils in
the Low Countries, In 1661 the provincial synod of
Cambrai revived their canons, and decreed that no con-
fessor in such cases should have power to absolve, except
in articulo mortis, a rule which was soon afterwards pro-
mulgated by the congregation of archpriests of the province
of Mechlin.” Rome was slow to follow the example. In
1665, it is true, Alexander VII., in condemning a number
of propositions, included one which affirmed that absolution
under such circumstances relieved the woman from the
obligation to denounce, but he went no further.” That
such a proposition should have been defended shows the
audacity of the latitudinarian moralists, but its condemna-
tion did not affect the evil, which was left in the hands of
1 Summa Diana, s. v. Confessarius, n. 35 (Venetiis, 1646).
2 Berardi, de Sollicitatione, p. 5.
3 Hartzheim, III. 86; IV. 68; IX. 388.—Synodicon Mechlinense, II. 319.
4 Bullar. Roman. T. WI. Append. p. 1.
WOL. II. S
274 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the episcopate. In the province of Mechlin the power to
grant such absolutions was specially excepted in the certi-
ficates issued to confessors, but this accomplished little, and
in 1698 the synod of Namur peremptorily inhibited the
abuse." In the province of Besançon a canon of 1689
declares that although the practice had long been forbidden,
yet it continued to flourish, and a cure was sought in
withdrawing the power to absolve such penitents — a
regulation which had to be repeated in 1707.” In 1709
the Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, forbade it
in his diocese, but Pontas informs us that such absolutions
were valid everywhere, except where prohibited by epis-
copal authority, and Dr. Amort in 1732 makes the same
statement as to Germany.” This discreditable condition
continued until the accession of Benedict XIV., who in
his constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae, in 1741, de-
nounced the device of sacrilegious ministers of Satan
rather than of God in absolving their partners in guilt, and
erected into a general law what had previously been mere
local regulations in some dioceses. He absolutely pro-
hibited such absolutions for the future, except in articulo
mortis when no other priest was to be had ; he pronounced
them when granted to be null and void, and punished
the attempt with ipso facto excommunication, removable
only by the Holy See." In the next year, 1742, he
extended these provisions to the Greek Churches in the
Roman obedience, and four years later he showed how
overmastering was the dread of scandal by permitting
absolution in articulo mortis in all cases where another
confessor could not be called in without exciting sus-
1 Hartzheim, X. 219.
2 Ibid. p. 323.
3 Pontas, Dict, de Cas de Conscience, I. 837.-Amort, Dict. Select. Casuum Con-
scientiae, I. 932.
4 Bullar. Bened. PP. XIV. I. 23.−For a discussion on the subject see his De Synodo
dioecesana, Lib. VII, cap. xiv.
SOLICITATION 275
picion, which was virtually a removal of the prohibi-
tion.”
These well-intentioned measures had little practical
result. To what extent the bulls were admitted in the
various European states I have no means of knowing, but
the synod of Namur, in 1742, felt it necessary to remind
confessors that they could not absolve women whom they
had seduced in the confessional, and in 1768 the Bishop
of Ypres was obliged to recall the attention of his clergy
to the bulls of Gregory and Benedict, and to threaten
their transgresssors with excommunication.” In 1775 the
Apostolic Vicar of Cochin China had the effrontery to ask
Pius VI. whether the provisions of Benedict XIV. applied
to the Franciscan missionaries under his charge, and, if so,
whether they could not be moderated, to which somewhat
shameless questions Pius replied affirmatively as to the
first and negatively as to the second; while the continu--
ance of the abuse is shown by a pastoral letter of the
Apostolic Vicar of Suchuen in 1803.” The Spanish Inqui-
sition, after some little delay, accepted the bull Sacramen-
tum Poenitentiae,” and in 1763 it told Padre Felipe Garcia
Pacheco that his asserted ignorance of it did not relieve
him from its operation. It produced, however, little or no
practical effect. In the great majority of subsequent cases
of solicitation the culprits had absolved the women, and
the only result of the bull was that in their sentences
they were told to secretly advise their penitents to repeat
all subsequent confessions, as being invalidated, and, as
1 Bull Etsi pastoralis, $ ix. n. 5 (Concil. Collectio Lacensis II. 518).-Constit.
Cxx. § 3 (Bullar. I. 219).
2 Hartzheim, X. 487, 638.
3 Collectio Lacensis, III. 554; VI. 646–7.
4. There was always delay in accepting papal utterances that had not been asked
for. This bull must have occasioned considerable debate, for it was not until
22 December, 1743, that the papal nuncio transmitted to the Inquisitor-General,
Manrique di Lara, two copies, with instructions to publish it in his diocese of San-
tiago.—Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV. fol. 283 (Archiva histórico
nacional).
276 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
for themselves, to consult their consciences as to the
irregularity of celebrating Mass while under the censures
of the bull." In this, as in so much else, the wholesome
measures of the Holy See were virtually nullified in
practice.
The confessor in search of easy victims had a resource
in requiring male penitents, who confessed to carnal sins,
to name their partners in guilt, when the knowledge thus
gained could be utilised in selecting objects for solicitation.
The custom was an old one, for the information thus
sought might be used for good purposes as well as for
evil. In the thirteenth century, Caesarius of Heisterbach
disapproves of it, for though it may sometimes be service-
able, priestly proclivity to sin, he says, renders it dangerous.”
Towards the close of the sixteenth century, Bartolomé de
Medina declares that, if a confessor refuses absolution
unless the penitent reveals the name of his accomplice, he
should be denounced to the Inquisition as a heretic, and
the penitent should be refused absolution until he makes
the denunciation.” It is somewhat remarkable that
Benedict XIV. should have been the first to take action
on this abuse. In 1745, in a brief addressed to Portugal,
he prohibited utterly, as scandalous and pernicious, the
custom of inquiring the name of the accomplice, and
in 1746 he decreed excommunication, latae sententiae,
reserved to the Holy See, on all who should teach it as
being permissible. It was assumed that these briefs were
confined to Portugal, and in a few months he was obliged
to issue another declaring the prohibition to be general and
to be enforced everywhere. Still another utterance was
required in 1749, placing the offence in Portugal under
1 A number of cases illustrating this will be found in the Archivo histórico
nacional, Inquisicione de Toledo, Legajos 1 and 2.
2 Caesar. Heisterb. Dial. Moral. III. cap. 28–31.
3 Bart. a Medina Instruct. Confessar, Lib II, cap. iv. De Complicibus, Š 1
(Coloniae, 1609).
solicITATION 277
the Inquisition.' I have not met with any formal grant
of the kind to the Spanish Inquisition, but it assumed the
power and, in spite of the papal prohibitions, until its
suppression, there were cases brought before it of con-
fessors who refused absolution unless the names of the
guilty partners were revealed to them.” The abuse seems
ineradicable. Pius IX., in the bull Apostolicae Sedis
(1849), deemed it necessary to decree reserved excom-
munication for all who should teach it to be lawful, and
various recent councils have felt called to condemn the
practice.” Notwithstanding all this, in modern times it is
agreed that there are circumstances under which the con-
fessor is justified in demanding the name of the accomplice
under threat of withholding absolution, and as such neces-
sity must of course be left to the discretion of the confessor,
the door is kept open to the misuse of the power.”
Seduction in the confessional was not wholly confined
to one side. The relations of confessor and penitent
expose both to temptation, and what is known as passive
solicitation occurs when the woman is the tempter. As
the matter is not referred to in the papal decrees, writers
on the subject are very much at odds as to its treatment
and what is to be done to either party. They discuss the
liability of the confessor when the solicitation is mutual,
and when he yields to threats of making an outcry after
1 Benedicti PP. XIV. Constitt. Suprema, July 7, 1745; Ubi primum, 4 June,
1746; Ad eradicandam, 28 September, 1746; Apostolici ministerii, 9 December,
1749. See also his De Synodo dioecesana, VI. xi.
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 100.
3 Collectio Lacensis, WI. 159, 334.—Acta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorens, 1866,
p. 305.
4 Schieler's Theory and Practice of the Confessional, p. 354 (New York, 1906).
This work may be assumed to represent authoritatively the received practice
of the Church, at least in Germany and the United States. It bears the imprimatur
of Archbishop Farley of New York, it is translated under the supervision of the Rev.
H. J. Heuser, Professor of Theology at Overbrook Seminary, and it has an Introduc-
tion by Archbishop Messmer, of Milwaukee. Moreover the publishers, Benziger
Brothers, style themselves “Printers to the Holy Apostolic See.”
278 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
he has rebuffed the temptress, and they draw distinctions
between yielding on the spot and postponing the final act.”
An authoritative decision was postponed until 1661, when
the Roman Inquisition decided that the confessor was to
be denounced, under the papal decrees, when the solicita-
tion was mutual, and also when he yielded through fear,
and nothing was said about the woman.” Subsequently to
this Cardinal Cozza asserts that she is not liable to denun-
ciation; she is not alluded to in the papal decrees, and the
case, although equally an insult to the sacrament, is so rare
in comparison with the converse that the Popes have not
deemed it worthy of special animadversion.” From this
we may assume that the space devoted to the matter by
the commentators, and their assertions of its frequency,
may reasonably be attributed to their desire to minimise
the guilt of confessors and exaggerate that of their peni-
tents. Still, such cases did sometimes occur, and I have
met with two or three in which the woman was
denounced to the Spanish Inquisition.*
Classed with solicitation was a somewhat kindred abuse
of the confessional known to the Inquisition as flagellation.
This was prescribing the discipline as penance, and either
administering it personally or causing its self-infliction in
presence of the confessor, the penitent being stripped as
far as necessary. As the lash could be ordered for any
peccant portion of the body, this gave opportunity for the
vilest indecency, and it was fully exploited by those of
brutish instincts. In fact, it was not confined to the
penitent, for confessors sometimes found gratification in
1 Paramo de Orig. Officii S. Inquis., p. 886.-Rod, a Cunha, Q. ix. xi.--Ant. de
Sousa, Tract. i. cap. 6, 7, 17. –Alberghini Man. Qualificatorum, cap. xxxi. § i. n. 10,
11, 17. –Trimarchi, pp. 193–212.-Bibl. Nacional de Espana, Seccion de MSS. W. 377,
cap. xx. §§ 5, 10.
2 Berardi de Sollicitatione, p. 5,
3 Cozza, Dubia Selecta, Dub. 9.
4 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 376.-Archivo de
Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1006, fol. 25 ; Registro de Solicitantes, A. 7, fol. 2.
SOLICITATION 279
making the women discipline them, like Fray Francisco
Calvo, who in 1780 denounced himself to the Inquisition
of Madrid for having caused himself to be flagellated." At
first there was considerable doubt as to whether such
cases came under the papal decrees, but it was finally
decided to be a form of solicitation, and after this con-
clusion had been reached the Inquisition had no hesitation
in prosecuting flagelantes.” Culprits were not treated with
deserved severity, for the records show to what an extent
the abuse was sometimes carried ; cases are not infrequent,
and continue until the suppression of the Holy Office.”
It remains for us to see what was the practical applica-
tion of the papal decrees directed against the abuse of the
sacred relation established between the confessor and his
spiritual daughters. As France and Germany had refused
to receive the bull of Gregory XV., the matter remained
as before in the hands of the bishops, who for the most part
were indifferent, and, as we have seen, no effective measures
were taken, beyond the occasional comminatory proceedings
of synods, which serve rather to prove the existence of the
evil than to promise its suppression, though occasionally, it
is true, a prelate like Fénelon might instruct mission
priests, to whom women should confess to have been
solicited, to refuse absolution unless the penitent would
authorise denunciation to be made to him.” As he felt it
necessary, moreover, to promise protection both to the
woman and the mission priest, it indicates the risk to which
were exposed all those who sought to obey the papal
commands.
From such desultory and local attempts no remedy
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1006, fol. 25.
2 Ibid., Inquisicion de Logroño, Procesas de fe, Legajo 1.-De Sousa, Aphorismi
Inquisitionis, Lib. I. cap. xxxiv. n. 40.-Alberghini, op. cit. cap. xxxi. § i. n. 19.
3 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 100.—Archivo
de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 890.
4 Fénelon, Avis aux Confesseurs (CEuvres, Ed. 1838, II. 349).
280 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
could be expected of an evil so inveterate and widespread.
In Italy and in Spain, however, the crime was subjected
to the respective Inquisitions, which were armed with
power and organisation sufficient for its suppression, if
that were practicable under the conditions of human
nature and the temptations and opportunities offered by
the confessional to a celibate priesthood.
As regards Italy, the data are lacking to enable us to
ascertain what use the Inquisition made of its faculties.
The dread of scandal rendered secrecy the one essential
matter. The culprit, if found guilty, was not sentenced
and punished in public as an example, but in the chambers
of the Holy Office, or in his convent if a member of a
religious Order. No one was to know that the crime had
been committed and expiated. Under such circumstances
the inquirer can ask in vain for statistics or for instances
to determine whether culpable leniency or wholesome
severity was shown to offenders. We only know that
nominally the prescribed regulations assume the crime to
require stern repression. The suspicion of heresy implied
in it was classed as vehement, and the culprit was obliged
to abjure de vehementi, which assumed that he was to be
burnt without ceremony in case of relapse. If he denied
the accusation and the evidence was insufficient for con-
viction, he could be tortured, as was the practice of the
Roman Inquisition in other crimes; or if he admitted the
facts and denied evil purpose, he could similarly be tortured
to discover his intention. If convicted, the bull of
Gregory XV. prescribed a wide range of punishments,
according to the degree of culpability, even to the cul-
minating rigour of the stake. Although the latter extreme
may be regarded as merely a deterrent threat, never
intended to be executed, yet we are told that the punish-
ment was five or seven years in the galleys, which was
sufficient to inspire wholesome fear. In 1677, moreover,
SOLICITATION 281
the Roman Inquisition manifested a laudable desire to
discover offenders by following Spanish example in an
edict requiring all persons, under pain of excommunication
latae sententiae, to denounce within a month all cases
coming within their knowledge."
It is not stated, however, that this edict was ever
repeated, as in Spain, and in practice there was much to
soften the severity of the law. Obstacles to trial were
interposed by a decree of the Inquisition, 17 July, 1627,
providing that arrests were not to be made on the
denunciation of a single penitent, but only a report was to
be made to it. Two denunciations were required for
arrest and imprisonment, and three, or according to some
authorities, four, for conviction, the reason alleged being
the untrustworthiness of female evidence and the difficulty
otherwise of getting learned and conscientious men to
confess women. Similarly, the punishment was much
milder than the threat. For a single solicitation, duly
proved, it sufficed to deprive the offender of his faculty to
confess; if he had repeatedly solicited two women,
deprivation of priestly functions was added; and if there
had been scandal, a regular priest was to be perpetually
secluded in a convent and a secular one in a hospital. If
the penitent were the wife or daughter of a magnate, or if
there had been many women concerned and much public
scandal, then came degradation and the galleys.” Con-
sidering the extreme difficulty of inducing women to
denounce their confessors, it will be seen that the chances
of escape were great and the danger of severe penalties
small. It is true that in 1745 the Roman Inquisition
decreed that soliciting confessors incurred perpetual
disability for celebrating Mass,” but there was always the
prospect of obtaining dispensations from an indulgent
1 Trimarchi, pp. 288, 301, 302.-Berardi de Sollicitatione, p. 6.
2 Trimarchi, pp. 289–92, 304, 306.
3 Berardi, op. cit. p. 126.
282 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Mother Church, and all this legislation seems virtually to
have become a dead letter, for, as we shall see hereafter,
when Leopold I. of Tuscany endeavoured, in 1774, to
reform the nunneries in his dominions, they were found to
be the scene of the worst disorders between the nuns and
their spiritual directors, and the reformatory efforts of
Leopold met their chief opposition in the Roman Curia
itself."
There was also always the resource, when a soliciting
priest found himself in danger of denunciation, of de-
nouncing himself, for those who spontaneously confessed
were treated with exceptional leniency. According to
rule, if he did this before denunciation, and had been guilty
with only one woman, a severe reprimand sufficed, while,
if two witnesses accused him, he was to be deprived of
confessing.” One or two cases, however, of which we
chance to have the record, would seem to show that self-
denunciation conferred virtual immunity. The minim,
Hilario Caone, of Besançon, was domiciled in Seville. He
probably had intimation that he was about to be de-
nounced, for he fled to Rome in 1653, and confessed to
the Inquisition that in the church of San Francisco de
Paula of Seville he had solicited some forty women, mostly
with success. For this he was merely sentenced to abjure
de vehementi, to visit the seven privileged altars of St.
Peter's, and to recite the chapters of the Virgin weekly for
three years. That this was the ordinary treatment of such
cases may be inferred from that of Vincenzo Barzi, in the
same year, who had a similar sentence on denouncing
himself.”
1 De Potter, Vie de Scipion de' Ricci, T.I. pp. 87 sqq. 258 sqq.
2 Trimarchi, p. 310.
3 MSS. of Trinity College, Dublin, Class II. vol. Iv. pp. 63, 294.
It should be added that this leniency did not extend to cases in which there had
been a prior denunciation. In 1695 Dr. Agustin Velda, rector of La Sallana, was
accused of solicitation before the tribunal of Valencia. To avoid arrest he fled to
Rome, and presented himself before the Inquisition there, which ordered him to
SOLICITATION 283
In Spain, access to the voluminous archives of the
Inquisition gives us for the first time an opportunity of
acquaintance with these secrets of the confessional which
the Church has always guarded so carefully from the
profane, thus rendering possible a fairly accurate under-
standing of its attitude towards soliciting confessors. The
Inquisition had accepted in good faith the jurisdiction
conferred on it, but it always had a leaning in favour on
clerical delinquents, and the rules which it established for
this class of cases show how much more benignantly it
regarded this particular suspicion of heresy than other
suspicions. It is true that no ecclesiastic could be arrested
on any charge by a tribunal without referring the case to
the Supreme Council and awaiting its orders, so that in
this respect confessors had no advantage over their
brethren, but, as, in Italy, two independent denunciations
of solicitation were required, where one sufficed in ordinary
heresy. Where denunciation was so difficult to secure,
this was a most important advantage to the delinquents,
and saved thousands of them from trial. A woman
who chanced in a general confession to mention her sin
with a previous confessor might be refused absolution
until she denounced him. If she did so, the Inquisitors,
after the introduction of postal facilities, sent letters of
inquiry to all the other tribunals, to learn whether they
had the culprit's name on their register of solicitors. If
the replies were in the negative, the papers were filed away,
and nothing more was done, unless at some future time
another denunciation was made to some tribunal. Mean-
while the woman was left under the impression that her
seduction by her confessor was too trivial a matter to
require investigation, and the offender was left at liberty
to continue his assaults on the virtue of his penitents.
return and stand trial at home, and he did so. —MSS. of Royal Library of Copen-
hagen, 218b, p. 339.
284 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Perhaps if, after the lapse of years, a second accusation
came, the first accuser was dead and could not make the
indispensable ratification of her testimony, so that the
culprit had another respite. The records are full of cases
in which a second denunciation did not come until ten,
fifteen, and sometimes even twenty, thirty, or forty years
after the first ; and there are many in which three denuncia-
tions are specified, showing that the first victim must
have died before the second came forward. The pro-
longed impunity thus enjoyed by offenders whose offences
must have been habitual shows how disastrous was the
favour thus extended to them. The reason given for
this double denunciation was the assumed unreliability
of female testimony, but in ordinary heresy all witnesses
were welcome, irrespective of sex, character, and almost
of age; while, if there was enmity or infamy, the accused,
from whom the knowledge of their names was with-
held, had to grope his way to identify and disable them.
But in these cases the Inquisition saved him from all
this and protected him, before it would act on the
denunciation, by a searching inquiry into the character
of the witness and any possible enmity that might exist."
Regrets were expressed that female testimony was ad-
mitted at all; it was justifiable only because the nature
of the crime admitted of no other, and writers like Páramo
discredit it in advance with the customary monastic abuse
of women.”
Another favour shown to the accused was immunity
from torture. While in ordinary accusations of heresy a
single witness sufficed to expose the defendant to the rack
or strappado, in case of his denial, the confessor was
exempt, no matter how many witnesses appeared against
him. In the earlier time there was some question as to
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365.
2 Páramo, op. cit. pp. 867 871. –Rod. a Cunha, op. cit. A. XXII. n. 3.
SOLICITATION 285
this, and some dialectics as to fact and intention, but the
question was settled on the common-sense basis that it
would be a greater infliction for the uncertain than for
the certain, as the penalties for conviction were not equal
to torture.” When, however, doctrinal errors led to
solicitation there was no hesitation in the use of torture to
detect the aberrations of Illuminism, as in the case of the
priest Manuel Madrigal, voted to torture to discover
intention, “por solicitante, Molinista y flagelante,” by the
tribunal of Madrid in 1725.”
There was also the broad avenue to escape in the
strictness with which the formulas of the papal utterances
were construed. Solicitation is a purely technical crime,
based on inferential misbelief as to the sacrament, and it
is wholly unconnected with morals. The Church cares
nothing as to the relations between confessor and penitent
so long as the confessional and the Sacrament are not
involved, and even there the confidences deemed necessary
in confession, the obligation on the confessor to acquaint
himself with all details, afford ample opportunity for
pruriency, which the casuist can approve or condemn
with equal facility. All this is one of the incidents
inseparable from auricular confession, and the Church
can only make the best of it with vague general regula-
tions, construed and enforced by imperfect human nature.
The decisive importance attached to locality meets one
constantly in the trials of these cases. In that of
Fernandez Pujalon, parish priest of Ciempozuelos, before
the tribunal of Toledo, in 1744, he confesses to vile
indecencies committed with his penitent Sor Cayetana de
la Providencia in the convent of Santa Clara, and chanced
1 De Sousa, Aphorismi Inquisit. Lib. I. cap. xxxviii. n. 64, 65; Ejusd. Opusc.
circa Constit. Pauli PP. V. Tract. ii. cap. 13, 21.-Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de
MSS. W. 337, cap. xx. § 9.—Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia,
Legajo 61.
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 876, fol. 208.
286 - SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
to mention that once in the parlour of the convent she
said that she never indulged in this in the confessional,
but that it was bad for Padre Colmenas and Sor Antonia
Blanca, who had illicit relations in the confessional. The
tribunal commissioned the superintendent of convents,
Canon Miguel Barba, to examine Sor Cayetana as to
when he should next visit Ciempozuelos, which he did in
1747, but she naturally did not care to implicate herself;
Barba discreetly did not push his investigations, and the
matter was dropped." So, in the case of Fray Joseph
Rives, tried in Valencia in 1741, the evidence of two of his
penitents shows the beastliness of the practices employed
to inflame the passions of the women, while arguments of
his advocate are devoted to prove that the precautions
which he took to evade the letter of the papal decrees
proved his respect for the sacrament, and that technically
he was not guilty. This was unavailing, but he escaped
with deprivation of his faculty to confess and three years'
exile from Valencia, Bocayente, and all royal residences.”
It was to meet this customary line of defence that the
tribunals, in their instructions as to taking testimony,
always laid special stress on ascertaining the exact spot
where the incriminating acts occurred; what would be
guilt in the confessional would escape animadversion
elsewhere.
Another favour shown to these delinquents was that,
in place of being shut up incomunicado in the secret prison
during trial, like ordinary heretics, they were at liberty and
could devise means of defence. What these sometimes were
is shown in the case of a priest who had been denounced,
and who threatened to kill the confessor who had sent the
denunciation unless he would write that the women had
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 229, n. 32.
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, n. 45, fol. 4.
In the sentences to temporary exile, which was a favourite punishment for minor
offences, Madrid and royal residences are always included.
SOLICITATION . 287
withdrawn their charges. More crafty was Dr. Joseph
Soriano, vicar of Vinaroz, in 1796, against whom we find
pending in the tribunal of Valencia two prosecutions, one for
solicitation and another for the ingenious device of suborning
several women to denounce him and then to retract.”
When, in spite of all facilities for evasion, conviction
was obtained, the punishment meted out to the criminal
was singularly disproportionate to the moral turpitude of
the offence and its damage to the Church and to society.
In the first place, the dread of scandal shielded him from
public reprobation and the shame of exposure, thus
exempting him from what in Spain was one of the
heaviest penalties visited on other crimes—the infamy
inflicted on the lineage of one who had been penanced by
the Inquisition. There was not only the secrecy in which
all the operations of the Holy Office were jealously
guarded, but the culprit was not exposed to view in an
auto da fe like ordinary offenders—heretics, bigamists,
blasphemers, petty sorcerers, and the like. From the
earliest period, as soon as the form of procedure was
reduced to rule, strict injunctions were issued that the
sentence was to be read in the audience-chamber with
closed doors, the only witnesses present being a specified
number of members of the culprit's Order, if he were a
regular, or priests of parish churches, if a secular. The
same instructions prescribe as the punishment in all cases
abjuration for light suspicion of heresy and perpetual
deprivation of the faculty of confessing, to which might be
added others suited to the gravity of the offence. Thus
for frailes there might be a discipline inflicted in his
convent, while the sentence was read in the presence of
the assembled brethren, or, if the case were especially
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Legajo 365, n. 46;
Legajo 100.
... º.
288 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
aggravated, a previous one in the audience-chamber also :
there might further be seclusion in a convent, suspension
or deprivation of orders, of the right of voting and being
voted for, as well as the last place in choir and refectory,
together with penance for heavy sin, such as the discipline
and prayer. For secular priests there might be exile or
seclusion, or suspension or deprivation of functions and
benefice, together with fines and secret discipline and fasts
and prayers." As regards fines, they were a favourite
penalty for all offences, as they accrued to the tribunal
inflicting them. They could not be imposed on the
regulars, who held nothing, but the secular priests were
sometimes rich and were valuable culprits. Thus in the
case, alluded to above, of Fernandez Pujalon, parish priest
of Ciempozuelos, a feature of his sentence was a fine of
half his property, but his guilt was greatly enhanced by
some heretical propositions that he had uttered.
Inadequate as all this may seem in comparison with
the penalties habitually imposed by the Inquisition on
other classes of offenders, it was rarely inflicted to the full
extent, and as time wore on there appears to be a distinct
tendency to regard the crime with increasing leniency.
The indulgence, indeed, with which it was viewed, in
spite of the rhetorical horror expressed in the utterances
of popes and inquisitors, is reflected in the adjuration of a
Cunha not to drive the delinquents to despair nor to
impose more penalty than is just, and he thinks that
it would be much better for the Inquisition to hand
offenders over for punishment to their own prelates.” It
is impossible, in fact, not to recognise a fellow feeling
and a certain amount of sympathy, as for a matter in
which any priest might involve himself, but the temper
in which the Inquisition exercised the jurisdiction con-
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 1465, fol. 16.
2 Rod. a Cunha, op. cit. Q. xxiv.
SOLICITATION 289
ferred on it can best be estimated from a few illustrative
Ca,SCS.
In 1594, in Mexico, the Dominican Fray Thomás
Maldonado was tried on the evidence of five of his
penitents. He made no defence, except alleging that his
conduct with them had been jocular, and he presented
witnesses as to his character, especially his prior, Fray
Cristóval de Sepúlveda, all of whom testified to his being
a good servant of God and a man of irreproachable life.
While the trial was in progress, the prior asked for his
release, as the convent wanted his services to take
charge of some mills, to which the tribunal promptly
assented. Finally he was sentenced to abjure for light
suspicion, to be deprived of confessing women, and to exile
for six years from the convent of Cuyvacan." It is evident
that his offence was regarded rather in the light of an
indiscretion than of a crime. More severe, in 1674, was
the sentence in Toledo of Fray Miguel Martin de Eugenio,
whose powers of seduction had been exercised in a number
of places. He was subjected to a “circular discipline” in
his convent, he was deprived of confessing men and women,
and was secluded for four years in a convent, where he
was to have the last place in choir and refectory and to serve
in the most humble positions; during the first year he had
Friday fasting on bread and water, eating on the floor of
the refectory, and he was deprived of voting and being
voted for.” As regards the galleys, the only case that I
have happened to meet in which they were imposed is that
of the licentiate Lorenzo de Eldora, who was suspended
from orders, in 1691, by the tribunal of Toledo, and con-
demned to the galleys for five years, with instructions at
the expiration of the term to present himself to the
inquisitors for further orders; but he was evidently deemed
an incorrigible relapsed, as he had already been punished
1 Proceso de Fray Thomas Maldonado (MS. penes me).
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 1.
WOL. II. T
290 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
for the same offence by the Inquisition of Granada." It
must have treated him with undeserved leniency, and not
have deprived him of the faculty of confession.
As a rule, however, the sentences were moderate, and
grew more so as time wore on. In 1647 the Valladolid
tribunal considered a reprimand sufficient for Padre
Antonio Escobar, S.J., who was accused by a nun of the
Monasterio de la Penitencia of Salamanca—a reformatory
for loose women—although he had previously been de-
nounced in Logroño, and the testimony obtained from
there revealed almost incredible brutality on his part and
on that of Padre Vilarde, S.J.” In 1649 the tribunal of
Toledo merely deprived the licentiate Bernardo de Amor
of the faculty of confessing, with four years of exile from
Madrid, Toledo, and Andujar, although his offence was
that of soliciting youths in the confessional.”
Progressive leniency is seen in the Toledo case, in 1763,
of Felipe Garcia Pacheco, a priest with various dignities,
who was condemned only to seclusion in a convent for six
months, and was left in the enjoyment of his dignities and
the faculty of confession, although the injunction cautiously
to warn his accomplices that they must repeat the confes-
sions made to him shows that his guilt was complete.”
The nineteenth century saw no increase in severity. In
1816 the case of Dr. Pedro Luceta must have been
especially foul, for when his sentence was read before the
twelve ecclesiastics in the audience-chamber, portions of
the details of his offences were ordered to be omitted; but
he was only deprived of confessing, with some spiritual
exercises, one year's seclusion, and five years' exile from
certain places. He was ungrateful for this leniency, and
broke his seclusion, which was a more serious offence than
1 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo I.
2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Legajo 552, fol. 35.
3 Archivo histórico nacional, loc. cit.
4 Ibid. Legajo 2.
SOLICITATION 291
solicitation, for he was then sent to the presideo of Ceuta
(implying hard labour as in the bagne) for the remainder
of the six years, but he was allowed to return to Algeciras
on the plea of ill-health." In this same year the tribunal
of Santiago, in sentencing Gerónimo González, priest of
Requeijo, speaks of his enormes delitas, but only condemned
him to spiritual exercises, a suspension of three months
from celebrating mass, of one year from confessing men
and perpetually women, and eight years' exile from certain
places; then, within three months, on the plea of ill-health,
it allowed him to reside with his parents in Requeijo, warn-
ing him to avoid the taverns and highways, which had led
to his misdeeds, and ordering the priest there to keep a
watch over him. The case in 1818 of Fray Antonio de la
Porteria y Vela, also in the Santiago tribunal, must have
been especially atrocious, for he was perpetually deprived
of both confessing and preaching, but beyond this he was
subjected only to temporary exile from certain places and
to two months’ seclusion devoted to spiritual exercises.”
As in Italy, so in Spain, a favourite device to disarm
severity, especially when accusation was expected, was
self-denunciation, for the espontaneado, as he was called,
earned a claim to merciful consideration, provided always
that he expressed due contrition and made full confession
of his misdeeds. A very large portion of the cases tried
by the Inquisition are of this character; in one list of a
hundred and eight, thirty-two, or thirty per cent., are
espontaneados.” The customary impulse to this is seen in
the case of Fray Nicholas de Madrid, who denounced
himself to the tribunal of Madrid, 8 June, 1757. He was
a trifle tardy, for a denunciation against him had been
received two days before.”
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 890; Lib 435, n. 22.
2 Ibid. Lib. 890.
3 Ibid. Lib. 1006. 4 Ibid. fol. 105.
292 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
As a matter of course, the espontaneado was apt to
soften the details of his guilt and extenuate his offences as
far as possible. In ordinary Inquisitorial procedure this
only increased the culpability, for a confession which was
the result of contrition was required to be complete, and
the diminuto who partly withheld or palliated his faults
was but a hardened sinner seeking to escape punishment.
Confessors, however, were not ordinary criminals. It is
true that, in the earlier period, during the first flush of
exercising its new jurisdiction, the Inquisition pursued its
ordinary course of testing the confession by examining
witnesses, and if it found that the culprit was a diminuto,
his self-denunciation did not save him from the customary
penalties, but this severity was gradually relaxed. About
1640, an experienced inquisitor lays down the rule that, if
a confessor accuses himself before there is any evidence
against him, and if the women concerned are numerous,
they are examined, and if they admit it, he is deprived of
confessing ; if they deny, as sometimes happens, the case
is suspended with a warning to him ; if there is but one
woman, and the case is not grave, he is reprimanded
without other penalty. If he accuses himself before there
is more than one denunciation against him, the penalties
are lighter than if he had not done so."
It could not have been long after this that the Inquisi-
tion manifested its indifference by simply accepting the
self-denunciation without examining the women. In 1669
the licentiate Fernando de Valdés denounced himself to
the tribunal of Santiago for having solicited in confession,
with indecent acts, seven single and three married women,
to whom, in a subsequent confession, he added a pregnant
1 Biblioteca Nacional de Espana, Seccion de MSS. W. 377, cap. xx. § 8.
Suspension of a case was virtually acquittal, in the estilo of the Inquisition, which
rarely acquitted. It, however, remained on record, and could be reopened if subse-
quent bestimony Came.
Reprimand and warning were an ordinary feature of all sentences rendered in the
sala or audience-chamber of a tribunal.
SOLICITATION 293
woman and several others unmarried. The records were
examined, and no previous accusation was found against
him. Without summoning the witnesses, the tribunal
reported the case to the Supreme Council, which ordered
it simply to be suspended and the culprit to be repri-
manded.” The fact that out of so many women solicited
not One accused him indicates how few were the denuncia-
tions in comparison with the offences. The indifference
of the tribunals grew with time. In 1724, Fray Manuel
Pablo Herraiz denounced himself to the tribunal of Toledo
for a somewhat complicated illicit connection with two
penitents. Inquiries were sent to the other tribunals, with
negative results. Without further action, the case was
laid aside, and in 1732 the fiscal or prosecuting officer
reported that there was nothing more to be done with it.”
These cases indicate that the only danger incurred by the
espontaneado was that some previous denunciation might
be lying in the records awaiting a second, provided the
tribunal took the trouble to make inquiry.
In time even this seems to have been abandoned, and
so completely did it come to be understood that the
espontaneado was not to be prosecuted that, in 1783, the
Supreme Council interrogated the tribunals, asking
whether they suspended such cases or dismissed the self-
accuser with abjuration and absolution.” So it continued
until the extinction of the Inquisition. In 1815, Padre
Fray Francisco Gómez Somoerotro, sacristan mayor of
the Mercenarian convent of Madrid, denounced himself to
that tribunal for solicitation and doctrines suspect of
Molinism, and his case was suspended. In 1819 he was
denounced for solicitation to the tribunal of Valladolid,
and again the case was suspended.”
1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion de Santiago, Relaciones de Causas, Legajo 1.
2 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 229, n. 40.
3 Ibid. Inquisieion de Valencia, Legajo 16, n. 6, fol. 4.
* Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 1002.
294 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
No class of ecclesiastics, privileged to hear confessions,
was exempt from this contaminating sin, but the great
mass of culprits belonged to the regular Orders. Llorente
explains that the secular priests, having comparative
wealth and freedom, were able to gratify their passions in
ways less dangerous, and that it was precisely the Orders
that were most rigid which produced the greatest number
of culprits." To verify this last assertion would require
statistics of the different Orders now unattainable, and an
accurate knowledge of the degree to which they devoted
themselves to the duties of the confessional. A factor in
their activity was the special faculties granted to the
mendicant Orders to absolve for cases reserved to the
Holy See, except those included in the Coena Domini bull
and six others specified in a decree of Clement VIII. in
1601—these mendicant Orders being Dominicans, Fran-
ciscans, Augustinians, Carmelites, Minims, Jesuits, and
Servites.” This, of course, rendered their ministrations
more attractive, and secured them a larger number of
penitents, which helps to explain their undue proportion
of offenders. In analysing an aggregate of 3775 cases I
find that the great body of the secular clergy, including
parish priests, vicars, canons, &c., contributed only 981,
while the regular Orders furnished 2794.”
Spain was the only land in which solicitation was
systematically prosecuted where the conditions were such
as to remove some of the impediments to denunciation,
and where the records are accessible. If any methods
could reduce the abuse to a minimum, it was there, and,
from what we learn as to its prevalence in Spain, we may
reasonably infer that in other countries, where no such
1 Llorente, Historia Critica, cap. XXVIII. art. 1, n. 14.
2 Trimarchi, op. cit. p. 279.
3 Archivo histórico nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Legajo 233, MS. 108; Inqui-
sicion de Valencia, Legajo 66.-Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 1002,
SOLICITATION 295
machinery existed for its discovery and repression, it was
even more prevalent.
It is thus only in the records of the Inquisition that an
insight can be gained into this phase of ecclesiastical
development, which has always been shrouded from public
view with such anxious care. In exploring these records
One seems to live in a world of brutallust, where disregard
of the moral law is accepted as a matter of course by all
parties, where the aim of the confessor is to inflame the
passions by act and speech, or to overcome resistance by
coarse violence; where women regard it as natural that
the awful authority of the priesthood is to be exercised to
their undoing, and their consciences are to be soothed
with pardon granted in the name of God by the hypocrite
who has destroyed their honour; and where the inquisitor
busies himself, not with the moral and spiritual questions
involved, but with ascertaining whether certain technical
rules have been violated. I have spared the reader all
details, for the most debased pornographic literature can
have nothing more foul to offer, and the divorce of morals
from religion is complete.
Morals, in fact, have nothing to do with solicitation as
viewed by the Church. The priest can indulge his passions
with his penitents in safety, so long as he commits no
technical offence and so long as the danger of scandal
is not incurred. The Church sees nothing specially sinful
in solicitation itself, notwithstanding the vehement rhetoric
of papal utterances. In the forum of conscience it is
classed with simple fornication—a mortal sin indeed, for
in lust there is no parvitas materiae, but one not calling
for any special reprobation. Heinous offences are dis-
tinguished by being “reserved ’—that is, absolution for
them can be obtained only from the Holy See or from the
sinner's prelate. The Holy See has never reserved to
itself the sin of seducing a penitent in the confessional.
296 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Bishops have power in their dioceses to reserve to them-
selves what sins they choose, and occasionally some puritan
prelate has done so with this. In 1635, while the bull of
Gregory XV. was still the subject of discussion, Trimarchi
tells us that it was thus reserved in the provinces of
Geneva and Benevento, and in some dioceses of Naples,
but nowhere else." The consequence of this is that
absolution can be given by any confessor, and the culprit
is told that he need only confess to simple fornication,
without mentioning that it has been with his spiritual
daughter. He therefore obtains pardon from God on the
easiest possible terms, his conscience is clear, and he is
ready to repeat the offence. This forms a strange contrast
with the excommunication directed against the victim who
fails to denounce her seducer, for this is reserved to the
Holy See, and we are expressly told that the censures of
the bulls are directed against her and not against him.”
May we not attribute all this to a callousness engendered
by the prevalence of concubinage among a celibate priest-
hood, where the woman must in almost all cases necessarily
be the penitent of the priest and thus be his spiritual
daughter ?
1 Trimarchi, op. cit. p. 272.
2 Trimarchi, p. 273.−Ant. de Sousa, op. cit. Tract. II. cap. xx. —Joh. Sanchez,
Disputationes Selectae, Disp. xi. n. 3, 4 (Lugduni, 1636).-Potestatis Examen. Ecclesi-
asticum, T. II. n. 601 (Venetiis, 1728).
For the modern aspect of this subject see below, in chapter XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION
IF the Council of Trent had thus failed utterly in its
efforts to create that which had never existed—purity of
morals under the rule of celibacy—it had at length
succeeded in its more important task of putting an end
to the aspirations of the clergy for marriage. With the
anathema for heresy confronting them, few could be found
so bold as openly to dispute the propriety of a law which
had been incorporated into the articles of faith, and the
ingenious sophistries and far-fetched logic of Bellarmine
were reverently received and accepted as incontrovertible.
Urbain Grandier might endeavour to quiet the conscience
of his morganatic spouse by writing a treatise to prove the
lawfulness of priestly wedlock, but he took care to keep
the manuscript carefully locked in his desk." A man of
1 When Grandier was arrested and tried for sorcery, his papers were seized, and
among them was found an essay against Sacerdotal celibacy. Under torture, he
confessed that he had written it for the purpose of satisfying the conscience of a
woman with whom he had maintained marital relations for seven years (Hist. des
Diables de Loudun, pp. 85, 191). The manuscript was burnt, with its unlucky
author, but a copy was preserved, which has been printed (Petite Bibliothèque
des Curieux, Paris, 1866). In it Grandier shows himself singularly bold for a man
of his time and station. The law of nature, or moral law, he holds to be the direct
exposition of the Divine will. By it revealed law must necessarily be interpreted,
and to its standard ecclesiastical law must be made to conform. He evidently
was made to be burned as a heretic, if he had escaped as a sorcerer. The promise
of chastity exacted at ordination he regards as extorted, and therefore as not
binding on those unable to keep it ; while he does not hesitate to assume that
the rule itself was adopted and enforced on purely temporal grounds—“de crainte
qu’en remuant une pierre on n'esbranlat la puissance papale; car hors cette con-
sidération d'Estat, l'Eglise romaine pense assez que le célibat n'est pas d'institution
divine ni nécessaire au salut, puisqu’elle en dispense les particuliers, ce qu’elle ne
pourroit faire sile célibat avoit esté ordonné d'en haut” (pp. 34–5).
298 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
bold and independent spirit, fortified by unfathomable
learning, like Louis Ellies Du Pin, might secretly favour
marriage, and perhaps might contract matrimony.” Du
Pin's great antagonist, Bossuet, might incur a similar
imputation, and be ready to partially yield the point if
thereby he might secure the reconciliation of the hostile
Churches.* All this, however, could have no influence On
the doctrines and practice of Catholicism at large, and the
principle remained unaltered and unalterable.
Yet it was impossible that the critical spirit of inquiry
which marked the eighteenth century, its boldness of
unbelief, and its utter want of faith in God and man, could
leave unassailed this monument of primaeval asceticism,
while it was so busy in undermining everything to which
the reverence of its predecessors had clung. Accordingly,
the latter half of the century witnessed an active contro-
versy on the subject. In 1758, a canon of Estampes,
named Desforges, who had been forced to take orders by
his family, published a work in two volumes in which he
attempted to prove that marriage was necessary for all
1 Notwithstanding his Sorbonne degree, Du Pin is said to have been secretly
married, and to have left a widow, who even ventured to claim the inheritance of
his estate. He was engaged in a correspondence with William Wake, Archbishop
of Canterbury, with a view to arrange a basis of reconciliation of the Anglican
Church with Rome, and, according to Lafitau, Bishop of Sisteron, in that correspond-
ence he assented to the propriety of sacerdotal marriage.
2 I cannot pretend to decide the controversy as to the alleged marriage between
Bossuet and Mlle. Desvieux de Mauléon, nor to determine whether it is true that
she and her daughters claimed his fortune after his death. Much has been written
on both sides, and I have not the materials at hand to justify a positive opinion,
though the extracts from La Baumelle’s “Mémoires de Madame de Maintenon ’’
given by the Abbé Chavard (Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 474 sqq.) would seem to
show that there were good grounds for asserting the marriage. I believe, however,
that there is no doubt of Bossuet engaging with Leibnitz and Molanus in a negotia-
tion as to the terms on which the Lutherans could re-enter the Roman communion,
and that he promised, in the name of the Pope, that Lutheran ministers admitted to
the priesthood or episcopate should retain their wives. It is asserted that the pro-
posed arrangement was nearly agreed to on both sides, when the pretensions of the
House of Hanover to the English crown caused Leibnitz to withdraw from the under-
taking.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 299
ranks of ecclesiastics. The book attracted attention, and
by order of the Parlement it was burnt, 30 September,
1758, by the hangman, and the unlucky author was thrown
into the Bastile. These proceedings were well calculated
to give publicity to the work: it was reprinted at Douay
in 1772; a German translation was published in 1782 at
Göttingen and Munster, and an Italian one, with some
omissions, had already appeared in 1770, without an
acknowledged place of publication. The Abbé Villiers
undertook to answer Desforges in a weak little volume,
the “Apologie du Célibat Chrétien,” published in 1762,
which consists principally of long extracts from the Fathers
in praise of virginity. Even Italy felt the movement, and
an anonymous work, entitled “Pregiudizi del Celibato,”
appeared in Naples in 1765, and was reprinted in Venice
in 1766. Some more competent champion was necessary
to answer these repeated attacks, and the learned Abate
Zaccaria brought his fertile pen and his inexhaustible
erudition to the rescue in his “Storia Polemica del Celi-
bato Sacro,” which saw the light in 1774, and which not
long afterwards was translated into German. In 1781
appeared a new aspirant for matrimonial liberty in the
Abbé Gaudin, who issued at Geneva (Lyons) his work
entitled “Les inconveniens du célibat des prêtres,” a
treatise of considerable learning and no little bitterness
against the whole structure of Sacerdotalism and Roman
supremacy. This was followed, in 1782, by Andreas
Forster, in his “De Coelibatu Clericorum Dissertatio,”
published at Dillingen, and dedicated to Pius VI., for the
purpose of replying to the attacks of the innovating
Catholics.
The latter, indeed, had some hope for the approaching
realisation of their demands. The reforms which illus-
trated the minority of Ferdinand IV. of Naples excited the
priests of Southern Italy to petition him for the right of
300 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
marriage, and Serrao, the Jansenist Bishop of Potenza,
does not hesitate to say that the request' would have been
granted if the unfriendly relations between the courts of
Rome and Naples had continued much longer." The
Emperor Joseph II., amid his many fruitless schemes for
philosophical reform, inclined seriously to the notion of
permitting marriage to the priesthood of his dominions.
In an edict of 1783 he asserted incidentally that the
matter was subject to his control,” and the advocates for
clerical marriage confidently expected that in a very short
period they would see the ancient restrictions swept
away by the imperial power. A mass of controversial
essays and dissertations made their appearance throughout
Germany, and the well-known Protestant theologian
Henke took the opportunity of bringing out, in 1783, a
new edition of the learned work of Calixtus, “De Con-
jugio Clericorum,” as the most efficient aid to the good
cause. It is a striking illustration of the temper of the
times to observe that this work, so bitterly opposed to the
orthodox doctrines and practice, is dedicated by Henke
to Archdeacon Anthony Ganoczy, canon of the cathedral
church of Gross-Wardein and apostolic prothonotary.
The hope of success brought out other writers, and the
movement made sufficient progress to cause some hesi-
tation in Rome as to the propriety of yielding to the
pressure.”
1 Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, p. 31.4–5.-Davanzati, Bishop of Canossa, was
also in favour of abrogating the rule of celibacy.
2 This view of the competence of the temporal power to regulate the question
seems to have been widely received at this period. An anonymous work published
in 1769 under the title of “Recherches sur l’Etat Monastique et Ecclésiastique,”
written by a good Catholic, asserts (p. 204), “Si le cas de donner des citoyens à la
patrie devenoit urgent, le législateur, en autorisant le mariage des prêtres, n'entre-
prendroit rien sur le sacrement de l’Ordre.”
3 Zaccaria, in the introduction to his “Nuova Giustificazione” (p. ix.), denies
that the papal court entertained any idea of making the concession ; but, in con-
sidering the question as to the power or duty of the Pope to alter the law of
celibacy (Diss. IV. cap. 6), his remarks show clearly that the subject was discussed
in a tone to afford the partisans of marriage reasonable grounds for hope. .
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 301
Zaccaria again entered the lists, and produced, in
1785, his “ Nuova Giustificazione del Celibato Sacro,”
in answer to the Abbé Gaudin and to an anonymous
German writer whose work had produced considerable
sensation. To this he was principally moved by a report
that he had himself been converted by the facts and argu-
ments advanced by the German, an imputation which he
indignantly refuted in three hundred quarto pages.
The half-formed resolutions of Joseph II. led to no
result, and the subject slumbered for a few years until the
outbreak of the French Revolution. At an early period
in that great movement, the adversaries of sacerdotal
asceticism bestirred themselves in bringing to public
attention the evils and cruelty of the system. Already,
in 1789, a mass of pamphlets appeared urging the abro-
gation of celibacy. In 1790 the work of the Abbé
Gaudin was reprinted, and was promptly answered by
the prolific Maultrot. Even in Germany the same spirit
againi awoke, and a Hungarian priest named Katz pub-
lished at Vienna, in 1791, a “Tractatus de conjugio et
coelibatu clericorum,” in which he argued strongly for a
change. In Poland these doctrines made considerable
progress, for in 1801 we find a little tract issued at
Warsaw vehemently arguing against those who imperil
their souls by violating their vows and the laws of the
Church." In England a Catholic priest distinguished for
talents and learning, Dr. Geddes, published in 1800 a
work in which he denied the apostolic origin of celibacy,
and urged that, at most, delinquents should only be
punished by degradation from the priesthood, without
disgrace. Indeed, he argued that the rule caused more
proselytes to Protestantism than any other cause.”
i Vetus et Constans in Ecclesia Catholica de Sacerdotum Coelibatu Doctrina,
Warsaviae, 1801.
2 “A Modest Apology for the Catholics of Great Britain,” published anonymously
in 1800—a work singularly moderate and candid in its tone. Dr. Geddes had been
302 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
During this period it can hardly be supposed that the
defiant immorality which—eharacterised the eighteenth
century had been favourable to the purity of a celibate
priesthood. That the Church, indeed, had made but
scanty improvement in the character of its ministers is
visible throughout the literature of the age, and I need
only allude to a few instances where efforts at reform
revealed the prevailing corruption.
In France the attacks upon the vow of celibacy, to
which allusion has already been made, seem to have given
rise to a spasmodic attempt to regulate the Church. In
1760 an arrêt of the Parlement of Paris prohibited the
organisation of religious congregations without express
royal permission, verified by that body. The assembly of
the clergy in Paris in 1766 produced no notable improve-
ment, nor was greater success obtained when the temporal
power intervened in the edicts of 1766 and 1767. Further
effort apparently was requisite, and in the edict of March
1768, Louis XV. undertook to diminish in some degree
the causes of the more flagrant disorders among the
regular clergy. Men were not to be allowed to take the
vows under the age of twenty-two, nor women under nine-
teen; and as the smaller religious houses were especially
notorious for laxness of discipline, all were suppressed
which could not number at least fifteen professed monks
or nuns, except those attached to larger congregations.
The ecclesiastical authorities, moreover, were emphatically
commanded to make a thorough visitation, and to compel
the observance of the rules of discipline of the several
Orders." The enforcement of this edict created no little
excitement, and several of the smaller Orders narrowly
escaped destruction in their endeavours to evade its
suspended from his functions in consequence of a translation of the Bible which he
had published. See Allibone's Dictionary, I. 657.
1 Dupin, Manuel du Droit Pub. Ecclés. Française, 4th Ed. Paris, 1845, p. 274.—
Edit de Mars 1768, concernant les Ordres Religieux (Isambert, XXIII. 476).
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 303
provisions. That these efforts did not succeed in accom-
plishing their object we may well believe, even without the
testimony of an eye-witness." As for the secular clergy,
when Louis XV. amused himself by ordering the arrest of
all ecclesiastics caught frequenting brothels, the number of
victims in a short time amounted to 296, of whom no fewer
than 100 were priests actively engaged in the service of
the altar.”
When the Grand-Duke Leopold of Tuscany undertook
to reform the monasteries of his dominions and to put an
end, if possible, to the abuse of the confessional, it led to
a long diplomatic correspondence with the papal curia as
to the jurisdiction over such cases. A public document of
the year 1763 had already stated that the special crime in
question had become less frequent, and attributed this
improvement to the exceeding laxity of morals everywhere
prevalent, for few confessors would be so foolish as to
attempt seduction in the confessional when there was so
little risk in doing the same thing elsewhere.” Specious
as this reasoning might seem, the facts on which it was
based were hardly borne out by the investigations of
Leopold shortly after into the morals of the monastic
establishments. Nothing more scandalous is to be found
in the visitations of the religious houses of England under
Morton and Cromwell. The spiritual directors of the
nunneries had converted them virtually into harems, and
such of the sisters as were proof against seduction armed
with the powers of confession and absolution, suffered
every species of persecution. It was rare for them to
venture on complaint, but when they did so they received
no attention from their ecclesiastical superiors, and only
the protection of the grand-ducal authority at length
1 See Lasteyrie's Hist. of Auricular Confession, translated by Cocks, London,
1848, Book II. chap. iv., vi.
2 Bouvet, De la Confession et du Célibat des Prêtres, Paris, 1845, p. 504.
3 Archives of Florence—Segreterio di Stato nella Reggenza, Filza 194, No. 6.
304 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
emboldened them to reveal the truth. The prioress of
S. Caterina di Pistoia declared that, with three or four
exceptions, all the monks and confessors with whom she
had met in her long career were alike; that they treated
the nuns as wives, and taught them that God had made
man for woman and woman for man; and that the visita-
tions of the bishops amounted to naught, even though
they were aware of what occurred, for the mouths of
the victims were sealed by the dread of excommunication
threatened by their spiritual directors." When it is con-
sidered that the convents thus converted into dens of
prostitution were the favourite schools to which the girls
of the higher classes were sent for training and education,
it can readily be imagined what were the moral influences
thence radiating throughout society at large, and we can
appreciate the argument above referred to, as to the ease
with which the clergy could procure sexual indulgence
without recourse to the confessional. Leopold's chief
assistant in this struggle was Scipione de' Ricci, Bishop of
Pistoia and Prato, whose experiences in the investigation
caused him to induce the Council of Pistoia, in 1786, to
declare the duties of the confessional wholly incompatible
with the monastic state, and, in view of the improbability
of any permanent reform, to propose the abolition of the
monastic Orders by restricting vows to the duration of a
twelvemonth *—propositions which were not approved by
the congregation of Tuscan prelates held at Florence in
1787, and which were scornfully condemned by Rome.”
Leopold, however, sought to palliate the evil by raising to
the age of twenty-four the minimum limit for taking the
vows, which the Council of Trent had fixed at sixteen, but
1 De Potter, Mémoires de Scipion de' Ricci, I. 284 sqq.
3 Atti e Decreti del Concilio di Pistoja dell’ anno 1786, Pistoja, 4to, pp. 237,
239.
3 Acta Congr. Archiep. et Episc. Hetruriae Sess. XVIII. (Bambergae, 1790, T.I.
p. 453).-Bull. Auctorem fidei ann. 1794 §§ 80–84.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 305
the benefit of this salutary measure was neutralised by the
ease with which parents desiring to get rid of their
children could place them in the institutions of the neigh-
bouring states, such as Lucca and Modena."
Rome itself was no better than its dependent provinces,
despite the high personal character of some of the pontiffs.
When the too early death of Clement XIV., in 1774, cut
short the hopes which had been excited by his enlightened
rule, St. Alphonso Liguori addressed to the conclave
assembled for the election of his successor a letter urging
them to make such a choice as would afford reasonable
prospect of accomplishing the much-needed reform. The
saint did not hesitate to characterise the discipline of the
secular clergy as most grievously lax, and to proclaim
that a general reform of the ecclesiastical body was the
only way to remove the fearful corruption of the morals
of the laity.” When we hear, about this time, of two
Carmelite convents at Rome, one male and the other female,
which had to be pulled down because underground passages
had been established between them, by means of which
the monks and nuns lived in indiscriminate licentiousness,
and when we read the scandalous stories which were
current in Roman society about prelates high in the
Church, we can readily appreciate the denunciations of
St. Alphonso.” A curious glimpse at the interior of con-
ventual life is furnished by a manual for Inquisitors,
written about this period by an official of the Holy Office
of Rome. In a chapter on nuns he describes the scandals
which often cause them to fall within the jurisdiction of
the Inquisition, and prescribes the course to be pursued
with regard to the several offences. Among those who
were forced to take the veil, despair frequently led to the
1 Chiesi (Rivista Cristiana, Dic. 1876 p. 470).—Concil. Trident. Sess. xxv. De
Reg. et Mon. cap. xv.
2 Panzini, Confessione di un Prigioniero, p. 333.
3 Vie de Scipion de' Ricci I, 289: II. 373 sqq.
VOL. II. U
306 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
denial of God, of heaven, and of hell; feminine enmity
caused accusations of sorcery and witchcraft, which threw
not only the nunneries, but whole cities, into confusion;
vain-glory of sanctity suggested pretended revelations and
visions; and these latter were also not infrequently caused
by licentiousness, for in these utterances were sometimes
taught doctrines utterly subversive of morality, of which
godless confessors took advantage to teach their spiritual
daughters that there was no sin in sexual intercourse. As
in Spain, it was the practice of the Roman Inquisition to
treat the offenders mildly, partly in consideration of the
temptations to which they were exposed, and partly to
avoid scandal.” The contaminating influence on society
at large, emanating from a Church so incurably corrupted,
was vastly heightened by the overgrown numbers of the
clerical body. In 1775, for example, a census of the terra-
firma provinces of Venice showed in that narrow territory
no less than 45,773 priests, or one to every fifty inhabitants,
while in the kingdom of Naples, exclusive of Sicily, there
were, in 1769, one to every seventy-six.” Such over-
crowding as this was not only in itself an efficient cause
of disorder, but intensified incalculably the power of
infection.
The virtues of the clergy, therefore, could offer but a
feeble barrier to the spirit of innovation when the passions
of the French Revolution were brought to bear upon the
immunities and distinctive laws of the Church. The attack
commenced on that which had been the strength, but
which was now the weakness, of the ecclesiastical estab-
lishment. As early as 10 August, 1789, preliminary steps
were taken in the National Assembly to appropriate the
property of the Church to meet the deficit which had been
1 Prattica del Modo da procedersi nelle cause del S. Offitio, cap. xxv. (MS. Bibl.
Reg. Monacens. Cod. Ital. 598.)
2 Esaminatore, Firenze, April 15, 1867, p. 100. In Spain, the census of 1768
gave the number of ecclesiastics, male and female, regular and secular, as 183,965.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION. 807
the efficient cause of calling together the high council of
the nation. This property was estimated as covering one-
fifth of the surface of France, yielding with the tithes an
annual revenue of three hundred millions of francs. So
vast an amount of wealth, perverted for the most part
from its legitimate purposes, offered an irresistible tempta-
tion to desperate financiers, and yet it was a prelate who
made the first direct attack upon it. On 10 October, 1789,
Talleyrand, then Bishop of Autun, introduced a motion
to the effect that it should be devoted to the national
wants, subject to the proper and necessary expenses for
public worship ; and on November 2 the measure was
adopted by a vote of 568 to 346. This settled the
principle, though the details of a transaction of such
magnitude were only perfected by successive acts during
the two following years. One of the earliest results was
the secularisation of those ecclesiastics whose labours did
not entitle them to support, a preliminary necessary to
the intended appropriation of their princely revenues.
This was accomplished by an act of 18 February, 1790, by
which the religious Orders were suppressed, monastic vows
were declared void, and a moderate annuity accorded to
the unfortunates thus turned adrift upon the world.
The great body of the parochial clergy, patriotic in
their aspirations, and suffering from the abuses of power,
had hailed the advent of the Revolution with joy; and
their assistance had been invaluable in rendering the
Tiers-Etat supreme in the National Assembly. These
measures, however, assailing their dearest interests and
privileges, aroused them to a sense of the true tendency
of the movement to which they had contributed so power-
fully. A breach was inevitable between them and the
partisans of progress. Every forward step embittered the
quarrel. It was impossible for the one party to stay its
course, or for the other to assent to acts which daily
308 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
became more menacing and revolutionary. Forced,
therefore, into the position of reactionaries, the clergy ere
long became objects of suspicion and soon after of perse-
cution. The progressives devised a test-oath, obligatory
On all ecclesiastics, which should divide those who were
loyal to the Revolution from the contumacious, and lists
were kept of both classes." Harmless as the oath was in
appearance, when it was tendered, in December 1790,
five-sixths of the clergy throughout the kingdom refused
it. Those who yielded to the pressure were termed
assermentés, the recusants insermentes or réfractaires, and
the latter, of course, at once became the determined
opponents of the new régime, the more dangerous because
they were the only influential partisans of reaction belong-
ing to the people. To their efforts were attributed the
insurrections which in La Vendée and elsewhere threatened
the most fearful dangers. They were accordingly exposed
to severe legislation. A decree of 29 November, 1791,
deprived them of their stipends and suspended their
functions; another of 27 May, 1792, authorised the local
authorities to exile them on the simple denunciation of
twenty citizens. Under the Terror their persons were
exposed to flagrant cruelties, and a prétre réfractaire
was generally regarded, ipso facto, as an enemy to the
Republic.
Under these circumstances, sacerdotal marriage came
to be looked upon as a powerful lever to disarm or over-
throw the hostility of the Church, and also as a test of
loyalty or disloyalty. Yet the steps by which this con-
clusion was reached were very gradual. In the early
stages of the Revolution, while it was still fondly deemed
1 “D’être fidèle à la nation, a la loi, au roi, et de veiller exacterment sur le
troupeau confié à léurs soins.” It was not only the objections of the King and of
the Pope that rendered this oath unpalatable, but also the fact that it gave adhesion
to the law for the secularisation of ecclesiastical property and of the monastic
Orders. It was ordered in the Constitution civile du Clergé, Tit. II, Art. 21, 38
adopted July 12, and promulgated August 24, 1790.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 309
that the existing institutions of France could be purified
and preserved, the National Assembly was assailed with
petitions asking that the privilege of marriage should be
extended to the clergy.” These met with no response,
even after the suppression of the monastic Orders. As
late as September 1790, when the Abbé Professor Cour-
nand, of the Collège de France, made a motion in favour
of sacerdotal marriage in the assembly of the district of
St. Etienne du Mont in Paris, the question, after con-
siderable debate, was laid aside as beyond the competence
of that body. It was not until 3 September, 1791, that
Mirabeau introduced into the Assembly a decree pro-
viding that no profession or vocation should debar a
citizen from marriage or be considered as incompatible
with marriage, and forbidding the public officials and
notaries from refusing to ratify any marriage contract on
such pretext. Though no allusion was made in this to
ecclesiastics, its object was evident, and was so admitted
in the eloquent speech with which he urged its adoption—
a speech which contained a very telling résumé of the
arguments in favour of priestly marriage, but which, in
its glowing anticipations of the benefits to be expected
from the measure, affords a somewhat lamentable contrast
to the meagreness of the realisation.” The principle, when
once established, was considered of sufficient importance
to deserve recognition in the Constitution of September
1791, a section in the preamble of which declares that
the law does not recognise religious vows or any en-
gagements contrary to the rights of nature or to the
1 I have before me one of the pamphlets issued about this time (Le Mariage des
Prêtres, Paris, Laclaye, 1790, 8vo, pp. 102), addressed to the Assembly. It is a
tolerably calm and well-reasoned argument, basing its demand upon the usages of
the primitive Church, the precepts of Scripture, the rights of nature, and public
utility. The author asserts himself to be a priest well advanced in life, and he
assumes that the corruption of Society disseminated by the licentiousness of eccle-
siastics is generally recognised and understood.
2 This speech is printed in full from a MS. in the public library of Geneva, by
the Abbé Chavard (Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 483–500),
310 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
constitution *; and this was followed, as Mirabeau had
proposed, by a decree of 20 September, 1791, which, in
enumerating the obstacles to marriage, does not allude to
monastic vows or holy orders.
Professor Cournand was probably the first man of
position and character to take advantage of the privilege
thus permitted, and his example was followed by many
ecclesiastics who had won an honourable place in the
Church, in literature, and in science. Among them may
be mentioned the Abbé Gaudin of the Oratoire, the
author of a work already alluded to on the evils of celi-
bacy, who in 1792 represented La Vendée in the Legis-
lative Assembly, and who in 1805 did not hesitate to
publish a little volume entitled “Avis a mon fils àgé de
sept ans.”—although in the preface to his work in 1781
he had described himself as long past the age of the
passions. Even bishops yielded to the temptation.
Loménie, coadjutor of his uncle the Archbishop of Sens,
Torné, Bishop of Bourges, Massieu of Beauvais, and
Lindet of Evreux were publicly married. Many nuptials
of this kind were celebrated with an air of defiance.
Pastors announced their approaching weddings to their
flocks in florid rhetoric, as though assured of finding
sympathy for the assertion of the triumph of nature over
the tyranny of man. Others presented themselves with
their brides at the bar of the National Convention, as
though to demonstrate that they were good citizens who
had thrown off all reverence for the obsolete traditions
of the past.
A nation maddened and torn by the extremes of hope,
of rage, and of terror, which met the triumphal march of
three hundred and fifty thousand hostile bayonets with
the heads of its king and queen, which blazoned forth to
1 La loine reconnait ni voeux religieux, ni aucun autre engagement qui serait
contraire aux droits naturels ou A la constitution.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 311
Europe its irrevocable breach with the past by instituting
festivals in honour of a new Supreme Being and parading
a courtesan through the streets of Paris as the goddess
of reason, was not likely to employ much tenderness in
coercing its internal enemies, and chief among these it
finally numbered the ministers of religion. To them it
Soon applied the marriage test. To marry was to acknow-
ledge the supremacy of the civil authority and to sunder
allegiance to foreign domination; celibacy was at the least
a tacit adherence to the enemy and a mute protest against
the new régime. Matrimony, therefore, rose into impor-
tance as at once a test and a pledge, and every effort was
made to encourage it. Among the records of the revolu-
tionary tribunal is the trial of Mahue, curé of S. Sulpice,
13 August, 1798, accused of having written a pamphlet
against priestly marriage, and he was only acquitted on
the ground that his crime had been committed prior to
the adoption of the law of 19 July, 1793.” A decree of
19 November, 1793, relieved from exile or imprisonment
all priests who could show that their banns had been
published, and when, soon afterwards, at the height of the
popular frenzy, the Convention sent its deputies through-
out France with instructions to crush out every vestige of
the dreaded reaction, those emissaries made celibacy the
object of their especial attacks. Thus, in the Department
of the Meuse, deputy De la Croix announced that all
priests who were not married should be placed under sur-
veillance; while in Savoy the harsh measures taken against
the clergy were modified in favour of those who married
by permitting them to remain under surveillance. One
zealous deputy ordered a pastor to be imprisoned until
he could find a wife, and another released a canon from
jail on his pledging himself to marry. Many of those
thus forced into matrimony were decrepit with years,
1 Desmaze, Pénalités Anciennes, p. 222, Paris, 1866.
312 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
and chose brides whose age secured them from all sus-
picions of yielding to the temptations of the flesh. Such
was the venerable Martin of Marseilles, who, after seeing
his bishop and two priests, his intimate friends, led to the
scaffold, took, at the age of 76, a wife nearly 60 years old.
As an unfortunate ecclesiastic, who had thus succeeded
in weathering the storm, fairly expressed it, in defending
himself against the reproaches of a returned emigré
bishop, he took a wife to serve as a lightning rod.
These unwilling bridegrooms not infrequently deposited
with a notary or a trusty friend a protest against the
violence to which they had yielded, and a declaration that
their relations with their wives should be merely those of
brother and sister.
Yet in this curious persecution the officials only obeyed
the voice of the excited people. The press, the stage, all
the organs of public opinion, were unanimous in warring
with celibacy, ridiculing it as a fanatical remnant of
superstition, and denouncing it as a crime against the
state. The popular societies were especially vehement in
promulgating these ideas. The Congrès fraternel of
Ausch, in September 1793, ordered the local clubs to
enlighten the benighted minds of the populace on the
subject, and to exclude from membership all priests who
should not marry within six months. A petition to the
National Assembly from the republicans of Auxerre
demanded that all ecclesiastics who persisted in remain-
ing single should be banished; while a more truculent
address from Condom urged imperiously that celibacy
should be declared a capital crime, and that the death
penalty should be enforced with relentless severity. In
times so unsparing, when suspicion was conviction and
conviction death, and when such were the views of those
who swayed public affairs, it is not to be wondered at
if many pious Churchmen, unambitious of the crown of
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 313
martyrdom, thought matrimony preferable to the guil-
lotine or the noyade.
Indeed, the only source of surprise is that so few were
found to betray their convictions. In the vast body of
the Gallican Church it is estimated that only about 2000
marriages of men in orders took place after the Reign of
Terror had rendered it a measure of safety. In addition to
this, about 500 nuns were also married; and though this
proportion is larger, it is still singularly small when we
consider that these poor creatures, utterly unfitted by habit
or education to take care of themselves, were suddenly
ejected from their peaceful retreats and cast upon a
world which was raging in convulsions so terrible."
This is doubtless attributable to the steadfast resistance
which the better part of the clergy made to the innovation,
in spite of the danger of withstanding the popular frenzy,
and in disregard of the laws which denounced such oppo-
sition. Even the assermentés, who had pledged themselves
to the Revolution by taking the oath of allegiance, were
mostly unfavourable to the abrogation of celibacy, and the
position thus maintained by the clergy gave tone to such
of the people as retained enough of devout feeling still to
frequent the churches and partake of the mysteries of
religion. The existence of an active and determined oppo-
sition is revealed by an act of 16 August, 1792, guarantee-
ing the salaries of all married priests, thus showing that
in some places at least their stipends had been withheld.
1 I have not found it easy to form a satisfactory estimate of the number of
French ecclesiastics previous to the Revolution. Le Bas (Dictionnaire Encyclo-
pédique de l’Histoire de France, W. 218) gives a table showing an aggregate of
418,206 souls, of whom 235,147 may be considered as attached to the secular service,
and 183,059 to the regular Orders and canons. Of these latter, 100,451 were men
and 82,608 were women. On the other hand, M. Sauvestre (Congrégations Reli-
gieuses, pp. 5, 6) quotes from the Abbé Expilly a statement that in 1765 there were
79,000 monks and 80,000 nuns, while he shows that other contemporary authorities
reduce the number of members of religious Orders in 1789 to 52,000 of both sexes.
M. Charles Chabot (Encyclopédie Monastique, p. x., Paris, 1827) computes, after
elaborate tabulation, the number of ecclesiastics, regular and secular, at 407,753
persons, enjoying a revenue of 127,610,576 francs.
:
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tº
:
.
e
:
:‘.
;
;
314 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Many pastors, indeed, were driven from their parishes by
their congregations, in consequence of marriage, to put an
end to which a decree of 17 September, 1793, ordered the
communes to continue payment of salaries in all such cases
of ejection.
There were not wanting courageous ecclesiastics who
opposed the innovation by every means in their power.
Although Gobel, Bishop of Paris, a creature of the
Revolution, favoured the marriages of his clergy, a portion
of his curates openly and vigorously denounced them, and
Gratien, Archbishop of Rouen, addressed to him a severe
reproach for his criminal weakness. The same Gratien
excommunicated one of his priests for marrying, and pub-
lished, 24 July, 1792, an instruction directed especially
against such unions. For this he was thrown into prison,
where he was long confined. Fauchet of Bayeux, for the
same offence, was reported to the Convention, but was
fortunate enough to elude the consequences. Philibert
of Sedan issued, 20 January, 1793, a pastoral in which he
more cautiously argued against the practice, and, after a
long persecution, he was lucky to escape with a decree
of costs against him. Pastorals to the same effect were
also promulgated by Clément of Versailles, Héraudin of
Châteauroux, Sanadon of Oléron, Suzor of Tours, and
others.
The Convention was not disposed to tolerate proceed-
ings such as these. To put a stop to them, it adopted,
19 July, 1793, a law punishing with deprivation and exile
all bishops who interfered in any way with the marriage
of their clergy. For a while this appears to have put a stop
to open opposition, but when the Reign of Terror was past,
and the Catholics saw a prospect of reorganising the dis-
tracted Church, one of the earliest efforts was directed to
“the restoration of celibacy. On 15 March, 1795, some
assermentés bishops, members of the Convention, issued
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 315
from Paris an encyclical letter to the faithful, in which
they denounced sacerdotal marriage in the strongest terms.
Those who entered into such unions were declared un-
worthy of confidence; the fearful constraint under which
they had sought refuge in matrimony was pronounced to
be no justification, and even renunciation of their wives
was not admitted as entitling them to absolution for the
one unpardonable sin.” In a second letter, issued 15 De-
cember of the same year, this denunciation was repeated
in even stronger terms.
In these manifestoes the bishops did not speak by
authority. They could not threaten or command, for they
were acting beyond or in opposition to the law. With
the progress of reaction they became bolder. In 1797 the
Church ventured to hold a national council, in which it
forbade the nuptial benediction to those who were in
orders or were bound by monastic vows, thus reducing
their marriages to the mere civil contract, and depriving
them of all the sanction of religion. The local synods
which, encouraged by the fall of the Directory, were held
in 1800, adopted these principles as a matter of course,
and took measures to enforce them. That of Bourges
even prohibited the churching of women who were wives
of ecclesiastics.
This condemnation of the married clergy carried despair
and desolation into the households of those who had
offended, and upon whom the door of reconciliation was
so sternly closed. Grégoire of Blois, a leading actor in all
these scenes, records the innumerable appeals received
from the unfortunates, who, torn by remorse and thus
repudiated by the Church, begged in vain for the mercy
which was incompatible with the respect due to the
ancient and inviolable canons.
All this, however, was merely local action. The
1 Lett. Encyc. 15 Mars, 1795, art. IX. (Grégoire, p. 109.)
316 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Gallican Church had not yet been reunited to Rome. In
reconstructing a system of social order, Napoleon speedily
recognised the necessity of religion in the state, and,
despite the opposition of those who still believed in the
Republic, the Concordat of 1801 restored France to its
place in the hierarchy of Latin Christianity. There is
nothing in the Concordat interfering with the right of the
priest, as a citizen, to contract marriage; but as, in all
affairs purely ecclesiastical, the internal regulation and
discipline of the Church were necessarily, left to itself,
the rights of the priest, as a priest, became of course
subject to the received rules of the Church, which could
thus refuse the nuptual benediction, and suspend the
functions of any one contravening its canons. In conse-
quence of the power thus restored, when the question
soon after arose as to the legality of sacerdotal marriages
contracted during the troubles, the cardinal-legate Caprara
issued rescripts to those whose unions were anterior to the
Concordat, depriving them of their priestly character,
reducing them to the rank of laymen, and empowering the
proper officials to absolve them and remarry them to the
wives whom they had so irregularly wedded. This created
a strong feeling of indignation among the prelates who
had carried the tabernacle through the wilderness, and who
while opposing such marriages most strenuously, regarded
this intervention of papal authority as a direct assault upon
the liberties of the Gallican Church. Their time was past,
however, and their denunciations of this duplication of the
sacrament were of no avail. Yet the legality of such
marriages as civil contracts, and the unimpaired right of
priests to contract them, were asserted and proved by
Portalis, in his masterly speech of 15 April, 1802, before
the Corps Législatif, advocating the adoption of the
Concordat as a law, although he admitted that the Church
could withhold its sanction and could exercise its discipline
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 317
while the feeling of the people rendered sacerdotal celibacy
desirable.*
One phase of the situation thus created was aptly
illustrated in the curious affair of Prince Talleyrand's
marriage, which attracted at the time the attention of
Europe. Forced into the Church by family exigencies,
and elevated to the bishopric of Autun, he had earned the
permanent hatred of the hierarchy by throwing himself
into the revolutionary movement, where he bore a leading
part in the secularisation of ecclesiastical property and
utilised his episcopal functions in consecrating the Consti-
tutional bishops. This could not be condoned, even in
view ofthe active assistance which, as Minister of Foreign
Affairs, under the Consulate, he rendered in the negotia-
tions for the Concordat. In these he had vainly sought
to introduce a clause releasing from their obligations all
ecclesiastics who had contracted marriage or had other-
wise renounced their clerical status-a clause which would
1 This speech of Portalis père is an admirable commentary on the Concordat,
developing its causes and consequences with a rigidity of logic and an enlightened
spirit of faith which are equally creditable to the head and heart of the distinguished
orator. From the portion devoted to the subject of marriage I quote the follow-
ing, as embodying a clear exposition of the intentions of those who negotiated the
Concordat :
* Quelques personnes se plaindront peut-être de ce que l'on n'a pas conservé le
mariage des prêtres. . . .. En effet, d'une part nous n'admettons plus que les
ministres dont l'existence est nécessaire à l'exercice du culte, ce qui diminue con-
sidérablement le nombre des personnes qui se vouaient anciennement au célibat.
D'autre part, pour les ministres mêmes que nous conservons, et à qui le célibat
est ordonné par les réglements ecclésiastiques, la défense qui leur est faite du mariage
par ces réglements n'est point consacrée comme empêchement dirimant dans l'ordre
civil : ainsi leur mariage, s'ils en contractaient un, ne serait point nul aux yeux des
lois politiques et civiles, et les enfans qui en naîtraient seraient légitimes ; mais dans
le for intérieur et dans l'ordre religieux, ils s'exposeraient aux peines spirituelles
prononcées par les lois canoniques : ils continueraient à jouir de leurs droits de famille
et de cité, mais ils seraient tenus de s'abstenir de l'exercice du sacerdoce. Consé-
quemment, sans affaiblir le nerf de la discipline de l'église, on conserve aux individus
toute la liberté et tous les avantages garantis par les lois de l'état ; mais il eût été
injuste d'aller plus loin, et d'exiger pour les ecclésiastiques de France, comme tels,
une exception qui les eût déconsidérés auprès de tous les peuples Catholiques, et
auprès des français mêmes, auxquels ils administreraient les secours de la religion.'
(Dupin, Manuel du Droit Public Ecclés. Française, 4ème éd. pp. 196-8.)
3.18 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
have covered his own case—but Pius VII. was obdurate,
and, while promising to give to his legate Caprara faculties
to absolve simple priests, he refused to comprehend bishops
and members of the religious Orders."
The Concordat adopted in this shape left Talleyrand
in an awkward position. A fascinating woman with a
dubious past, known as Madame Grand, had for some
years been his acknowledged mistress, doing the honours
of his house. In the easy morality of the Directory this
had caused no scandal, but Napoleon, in re-establishing
order, insisted on external decency, and moreover, when
relations were resumed with foreign powers, ambassadorial
ladies murmured at being obliged to associate with a
concubine. He therefore offered Talleyrand the per-
emptory alternatives of marrying Madame Grand or of
dismissing her, and Talleyrand chose the former. Two
pressing applications were made to the Holy See and
urged with all the force that Napoleon could bring to
bear, but in each case the only outcome was a brief
enabling Talleyrand to be unfrocked, to be reduced to lay
communion, deprived of sacerdotal functions, and author-
ised to lead a secular life, without a word as to marriage.
Thus checked, Talleyrand made the best of the situation.
He caused the second brief to be laid before the Council
of State, which duly accepted it and ordered its registra-
tion, and it was officially gazetted in a concise form stating
that it restored citizen Talleyrand to secular life. All the
world assumed this as conferring on him the full privileges
of the laity, and it was in vain that the Holy See caused
the insertion in foreign journals of a statement that it
reduced him to lay communion without relieving him of
his vows. His civil marriage with Madame Grand was
celebrated on 10 September, 1802, and the lady had the
1 Bernard de Lacombe, Le Mariage de Talleyrand (Le Correspondant, Paris, 25
Aout et 10 Septembre, 1905).
It is to this exhaustive article that I owe the details of this celebrated case.
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 319
satisfaction of styling herself Talleyrand-Périgord, or
subsequently Princess of Benevento. A sacramental
marriage, it is said, followed, performed quietly by the
curé of Epinay, but the parish register of that place has
disappeared and the assertion cannot be confirmed, though
there is little reason to disbelieve it, for no one at the
time, save the Curia, doubted the legal validity of the
Ulſ]] Oſl.
The question of celibacy was not settled by the Con-
cordat. Notwithstanding the certainty of ecclesiastical
penalties following such infraction of the Tridentine
articles of faith, the practice which had been introduced
could not be immediately eradicated. Priests were con-
stantly contracting marriage, and the question gave con-
siderable trouble to the Government, which hesitated for
some time as to the policy to be pursued. Portalis, in
1802, as we have seen, declared the full legality of such
marriages, and the unimpaired right of ecclesiastics to
contract them; and the provisions of the Code respecting
marriage, adopted in 1803, make no allusions to vows or
religious engagements as causing incapacity.” Yet in
1805, when Daviaux, Archbishop of Bordeaux, opposed
the application of a priest named Boisset to the civil
authorities for a marriage contract, Portalis, then Minister
of Religious Affairs, on being appealed to, replied that
the Government would not allow its officers to register
such contracts. The local administrations sometimes
assented to such applications and sometimes referred them
to the central authority, until at length, in 1807, a definite
conclusion was promulgated. This was to the effect that
although the civil law was silent as regards such marriages,
yet they were condemned by public opinion. The
Government considered them fraught with danger to the
peace of families, as the powerful influence of the pastor
1 Code Civil, Liv. I. Tit. v.
320 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
could be perverted to evil purposes, and, if seduction
could be followed by marriage, that influence would be
liable to great abuse. The Emperor therefore declared
that he could not tolerate marriage on the part of those
who had exercised priestly functions since the date of the
Concordat. As for those who had abandoned the ministry
previous to that period and had not since resumed it, he
left them to their own consciences. Thus in practice,
although marriage was regarded as purely a civil institu-
tion, a limitation was introduced which was not authorised
by the Code, which rested solely upon the authority of the
Emperor, and which, far from indicating respect to the
Church, was a flagrant insult. As Napoleon withdrew
himself more and more from the principles of the new
order of things, we find him disposed to take even stronger
ground in opposition to the civil privileges accorded to the
priesthood by the Concordat. The question of sacerdotal
marriage continued to present itself under perplexing
shapes, and at length the Emperor, on the eve of his
downfall, perhaps with a view to propitiate the sacerdotal
power, proposed to apply to married priests the penalty
imposed by the law on bigamy.” It was too late, how-
ever : the Empire was rapidly vanishing, and these sug-
gestions were soon forgotten in the hurrying march of
events.”
1 In an address to the Council of State, December 20, 1813, Napoleon said : “Le
sacerdoce est une sorte de mariage ; le prêtre étant uni à l'église comme l’époux à
son épouse, il n'y aurait aucun inconvénient à appliquer au prêtre qui se marierait la
peine de la bigamie : un tel ecclésiastique ne mérite aucun sorte de considération.”—
Bouhier de l’Ecluse, de l’Etat des Prêtres en France, Paris, 1842, p. 17.
2 For many of the above details I am indebted to the curious but ill-digested
little work, “Histoire du Mariage des Prêtres en France,” published by Grégoire in
1826. Grégoire, though a priest of the ancien régime, was a sincere and consistent
republican. A member of the States General, of the Convention, and of the Council
of Five Hundred, elected Bishop of Blois by the voice of a people who knew and
respected him, he preserved his ardent faith through all the excesses of the Revolu-
tion, and his democratic ideas in spite of the injuries inflicted on his class in the
name of the people. The sincerity and boldness of his character may be estimated
by a single example. When, on 7 November, 1793, Gobel, Bishop of Paris, appeared
before the Convention with twelve of his vicars and publicly renounced his sacred
THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION 321
functions on the ground that hereafter there should be no other worship than that
of liberty and equality, almost all the ecclesiastics in the Convention followed his
example. To hold back at such a moment was dangerous in the extreme, yet Gré-
goire had the hardihood to utter a defiant protest. “I am a Catholic by conviction
and by feeling, a priest by choice, a bishop by the voice of the people, but not from
the people nor from you do I derive my mission, and I will not be forced to an
abjuration.” To him perhaps more than to any one else is attributable the skilful
management which carried the Church through the storms and persecutions of the
Revolution, but the same inflexibility which maintained his Catholicism through
the ordeal of 1793 and 1794 caused him to stand by his republicanism long after
it had gone out of fashion. He was not to be bought or bullied : the Legitimist
was less tolerant than the Terrorist, and under the Restoration he was reduced
almost to absolute indigence. Together with the other constitutional bishops, he
had been compelled to resign his bishopric by order of the Pope after the Concordat
of 1801, and he was too dangerous a man to be rewarded for his invaluable
services to religion. He died in 1831.
X
VOL. II.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY
THE question of sacerdotal marriage was left in France, on
the collapse of the Empire, in a curiously unsettled condi-
tion, giving rise to very remarkable contradictions in the
judicial decisions which since then have from time to
time been rendered by the tribunals as cases were brought
before them.
Under the Restoration, a priest named Martin, an old
réfractaire of 1792, committed the imprudence of marrying
in 1815. Not long after he died without issue. His
relatives contested the succession with the widow, and in
1817 the inferior court decided in her favour. The next
year the court of appeals reversed the judgment on the
ground that sacerdotal marriage had only been sanctioned
indirectly by the legislation of the Revolution, and that
the Charter of 1814 (Art. 6) had restored Catholicism as
the religion of the state. In 1821, however, the final
decision of the Court of Cassation settled the question in
favour of the widow, thus legalising such unions, for the
incontrovertible reason that the Code did not recognise
vows or holy orders as causes incapacitating for marriage."
Even yet, however, the matter was not held to be
finally disposed of. In 1828, Louis Thérèse Saturnin
Dumonteil, a priest of Paris, who desired to contract
marriage, failed to obtain from the courts the customary
assistance required by the law to set aside the refusal of
1 Grégoire, op. cit. p. 102.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 323
his parents, who declined their assent to his projected
union. The case was argued in all its bearings on civil
and ecclesiastical law, and he found the tribunals resolutely
opposed to him. When the Revolution of July unsettled
the public mind with visions of the revival of the principles
of '89, Dumonteil endeavoured to carry out his project.
The lower court decided in his favour, 26 March, 1831,
but the higher courts reversed the decision, and pro-
nounced definitely that priests could not contract civil
marriage," and this in spite of the Charter of 1830, which
simply affirmed Catholicism to be the religion of the
majority of Frenchmen, while that of 1814 had declared
it to be the religion of the state.
This curiously vexed question seemed incapable of
positive solution. The case of Dumonteil apparently dis-
couraged aspirants for clerical marriage during the next
thirty years, for I have met with no allusions to any
attempt in that direction until 1861. In that year
M. de Brou-Laurière, a priest already debarred from his
sacred functions, engaged himself in marriage with Mlle.
Elizabeth Fressanges, of Deuville near Périgueux. On
calling upon the mayor of the village to perform the
ceremony and register the contract, that functionary
refused to act. He was supported by the public authori-
ties, and the expectant bridegroom was obliged to appeal
to the tribunals to obtain his rights. The question was
warmly contested and thoroughly argued, and it was not
until a year had elapsed that the court of Périgueux
rendered a decision ordering the mayor to perform his
functions and to marry the patient couple. The case was
then carried to the superior court at Bordeaux, which
reversed the previous decision.
1 Bouhier de l'Ecluse, op. cit. It was apparently this case which led to the
publication, under date of Monaco, 1829, of the “Considerazioni imparziali sopra la
legge del Celibato Ecclesiastico, proposte dal Professore C. A. P.”—A tolerably well
written summary of the arguments against the rule.
324 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Again, in 1864, in the case of the Abbé Chataigneu,
the court of Angoulême decided that a priest was, under
the law of France, not competent to contract civil
marriage." On the other hand, in 1870 the court of
Algiers, in the case of a M. Q , delivered an elaborate
decision to the effect that in France there is no law for-
bidding the civil marriage of priests.” Yet in 1878 the
Court of Cassation confirmed a decision of the court of
Rennes, pronouncing null and void the marriage of a
priest, at the instance of his nephew and niece, to whom
he had bequeathed his property by a will anterior to the
marriage. When M. Loyson (Père Hyacinthe) married
Mrs. Merriman, in 1872, the ceremony was performed in
London, at the office of the registrar of marriages, and
M. Loyson gave as the reason of his seeking a foreign
land the refusal of the French officials to confirm the civil
ceremony. So the Abbé Chavard, vicar of Marseilles, in
1874 went to Geneva for the same purpose, where he con-
tinued his priestly functions; and this leads me to regard
as exceedingly improbable a public statement in the daily
journals that priestly marriages occur in France at the rate
of twenty or thirty a year. In fact, so lately as September
I883 there was before the courts a case which shows how
uncertain is the question still in France. A certain Abbé
Junqua was expelled from the Church and was condemned
to three months' imprisonment for continuing to wear the
priestly robes. He subsequently married and engaged in
trade, when he failed, and his wife sought to secure her
dowry from the bankrupt assets, but was resisted on the
ground that her marriage was illegal under the Concordat,
although the Church had itself deprived the husband of his
ecclesiastical character. Yet at last, when in 1888 the
Court of Cassation,--the supreme tribunal in France,
~~~~ *
- *~~~.
**-----
-- ----
1 Talmadge’s Letters from Florence, p. 166.
2 Chavard, Le Célibat des Prêtres, pp. 525–30.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 325
definitely decided in favour of priestly marriage, the
decision was acquiesced in with scarce a reñónstrance and
hardly attracted attention. It is evident that the world
moves.
In Switzerland I have met with two or three cases of
such marriages, but they have no special significance. In
One of them, occurring in Lucerne some fifty years ago,
the priest left the Church in order to marry, and lived with
his wife until her death, in 1880, when he permitted her to
be buried as a Catholic, and had the mortification of seeing
her name entered on the register, publicly exposed in the
parish church, as an unmarried woman.
In Wiesbaden, in 1821, a priest named Koch, with the
permission of the authorities, abandoned the priesthood
and applied to the curé of the place to marry him, when,
meeting with a refusal, he had the ceremony performed by
a Protestant pastor, and was promptly excommunicated by
the vicar of Ratisbon. Not deterred by this, in 1828 a
hundred and eighty priests of Baden petitioned the secular
power for permission to marry, and the Chamber of
Deputies showed a disposition to grant the request. This
effort was imitated in 1831 by the Catholic clergy of
Silesia, but the movement was repressed by the Prussian
Government; and in 1833, at Trèves, a clerical association
was formed to carry out the same object." These efforts led
Gregory XVI., in the encyclical Mirari vos (15 August
1832), to urge the bishops to constant vigilance and earnest
effort in defence of a law of the greatest importance,
against a foul conspiracy which was daily extending.
Some similar movements in Austria in the next decade
led Pius IX., almost immediately after his accession to
the papal chair, in his encyclical letter Qui pluribus
(9 November, 1846), to repeat the words of his predecessor.
In 1851, moreover, he took especial pains to stigmatise a
1 J. M. Cayla, Les Curés mariés par le Concile, Paris, 1869.
326 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
work, published in Lima by Francisco de Paula in 1848,
entitled “Defensa de la Autoridad de los Goberinos,”
which impiously sought to decentralise the Church, and
which took strong grounds against enforced celibacy.”
How immovable, indeed, is the position of the hier-
archy on this matter is shown by the case of Panzini.
Panzini is, or was, a Capuchin monk, who in 1854 con-
ceived the idea that the greater part of the evils under
which the establishment labours are the result of celibacy
and its attendant immorality. He addressed to the Pope an
anonymous memorial urging him to submit the question to
the bishops then assembled in Rome, and followed this with
two similar subsequent applications. Finally, in the troubles
of 1859, anticipating the assembling of a European congress,
he resolved to print an essay on the subject, addressed to
all the bishops of the Church, thinking that the congress
would afford him an opportunity of reaching them. The
printer to whom he confided his manuscript promptly
placed the dangerous matter in the hands of Cardinal
Antonelli, when Panzini was at once thrown into prison
and delivered to the Inquisition. After a trial which lasted
six months, he was condemned to twelve years' incar-
ceration and perpetual suspension from the sacerdotal
functions which were his only source of livelihood. After
two years of his sentence had expired, he was released at
the instance of the Italian Government, and in 1865 he
published his essay, rewritten from memory, under the
title of “Pubblica Confessione di un Prigioniero dell’
Inquisizione Romana ed origine dei mali della Chiesa
Cattolica.”
Now, Panzini's persecution arose solely from his affirm-
ing that enforced celibacy is impolitic and unnatural. He
professed unbounded reverence for the Church in all
matters of faith, and claimed that the point at issue was
1 Litt. Apostol. Multiplices inter.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 327
merely one of discipline on which the Church might make
a mistake. Even here, however, he was careful to declare
his measureless admiration for voluntary asceticism. Vir-
ginity he believed to be immensely superior to matrimony,
and he anathematised as cheerfully as the Council of Trent
could wish all who should proclaim the contrary. Even
monasticism he defended as a state of perfection recom-
mended by Christ. His sole objective point was the
rigidity of the law which renders the single state indis-
pensable to all ecclesiastics, and he essayed to prove that
this is in direct antagonism to all the general principles of
Catholic theology; that the purity which is its pretext is
impossible to enforce, and that the effort itself is most
disastrous to the Church and to the faithful. The authori-
ties were not disposed to consider that these opinions were
an allowable dissidence on matters of policy, and they
hastened to brand them as heretical. In the sentence
passed upon Panzini the Inquisition took occasion to
stigmatise as heresy the assertion that enforced celibacy is
contrary to nature, that it is a stumbling-block and the
cause of perpetual transgression.* That this theory was
enforced in practice so long as the Church could control
the secular power is shown in the case of an Italian priest
who, preferring to sanctify love by marriage rather than to
indulge in illicit intrigue, married and fled with his bride
to Africa, seeking among the infidel the liberty denied him
in Christendom. Three children blessed his union, but the
unresting vigilance of the Church discovered his retreat,
when, with the aid of the French consulate, he was seized,
carried back to Naples, and thrown into prison to repent
indefinitely of his errors.”
There evidently could be no reasonable ground for
expecting a change of policy in this respect on the part of
1 Panzini, pp. 16, 58, 102, 143, 201, 401.
2 Ibid. p. 123.
328 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the Roman Curia, and this was recognised in 1866 by
some Catholic priests of Hungary, who, desiring liberty of
marriage, and seeing the futility of anticipating it at the
hands of their superiors, united in petitioning the National
Diet for the requisite permission. Yet in spite of the
extravagance of supposing that a body which, since the
Council of Trent, has become so thoroughly centralised
as the Church, would listen to the wishes of its lower
classes, there were not wanting those who imagined that
the Council of the Vatican in 1870 would adopt the
discipline of the Eastern Church and permit marriage to
the inferior orders. Any such expectations were destined
to be disappointed as soon as the preliminary machinery
of the council became known. A congregazione centrale
was appointed by Pius IX. in advance, consisting exclu-
sively of cardinals connected with the Inquisition, and to
this body was delegated the sole determination of the
matters to be submitted to the council for discussion.
Under this congregazione, and presided over by its mem-
bers, were five consulte, to act as sub-committees on the
subjects respectively confided to their deliberations. The
consulta on faith and dogma was under the presidency of
Cardinal Bilio, notorious as the compiler of the Syllabus
of December 1864, and that on canons and discipline was
committed to Cardinal Catarini, whose whole career had
been passed in the Inquisition, and who had acquired a
sinister fame by his rigorous punishment of all attempts
at reform. If, as the Church asserts, the proceedings of
general councils are under the immediate operation of the
Holy Ghost, it will be seen what reverent care was
observed to keep Him in due subjection, and to spare the
Church the scandal of being brought by thoughtless
innovators into opposition with Him.
As the destined outcome of the council was simply the
dogma of papal infallibility, the hopes of the anti-celiba-
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 329
tarians were transferred to the schism precipitated by it,
and known as that of the Old Catholics. In 1875 a
Dean Suczinsky married the Baroness Gazewaska, and
joined the schismatics, when the Prussian Government
decided to protect him in the enjoyment of his temporali-
ties, and his new brethren agreed to receive him, and thus
committed themselves on the question of celibacy—a
decision confirmed in 1878 by the synod of Bonn, which
decreed, by a vote of 75 against 22, that the prohibition of
the canons is not an obstacle to the marriage of ecclesias-
tics, or to the cure of souls by married priests. It required
no common conscientiousness and strength of purpose for
men like von Döllinger, von Schulte, Reusch, and their
companions, upheld by their intimate knowledge of the
past, to sever themselves from the Church in which they
had been nurtured, when so many of those on whose co-
operation they had relied allowed themselves to be coerced
into subscribing to a doctrine the untenability of which
they had exposed." What, however, is to be the eventual
Outcome of their self-sacrifice time alone can determine.
The struggle in France over the separation of Church and
State shows that Ultramontanism is unyielding, and that
the Vatican is resolved to rule or ruin. It is irrecon-
cilable, and those who will not submit blindly to its
demands have no choice but heresy or schism. This can
scarce fail to broaden the movement of Los von Rom, which
in Austria has already cost the Church so many thousand
souls; and while most of these have gone over to the
Evangelicals, the Old Catholics in the German portions
of the Austrian Empire claim 23,000 members, and are
growing at the rate of a thousand a year. In Bavaria and
the Rhine lands they are said to be numerous, and in
Switzerland the canton of Geneva alone numbers them
* See Goetz, Franz Heinrich Reusch : eine Darstellung seiner Lebensarbeit,
Gotha, 1901.
330 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
at 4300. Holland has its share; and in the United States
they have long been organised, having had about four
thousand communicants as early as 1892. A cognate
movement is on foot in France, where the uncompromis-
ing stand of the Vatican on the Law of Separation is
directly provocative of schism. Akin to this is the
separatist Polish National Church of America, which at
the present moment is considering the question of abrogat-
ing priestly celibacy. It is useless to forecast the future,
but he is blind to the portents of the times who does not
recognise that there are elements at work which, if met
with the eternal non possumus, may seriously threaten
unity."
Another serious blow in the matter of marriage has
been dealt by the adoption in successive Catholic states of
what is known as civil marriage, by which matrimony is
withdrawn from the exclusive control of the Church, and
the sacrament and benediction are declared to be accidents.
not necessary to the legal status of husband and wife or to
the legitimacy and heritable capacity of children. We have
already seen that this was one of the legislative results of
the French Revolution, and the example thus early set by
France has been followed of late by Italy and Austria
after its adoption in 1853 by Sardinia, as one of the
earliest reformatory measures of Cavour. Yet the Church
positively refuses to regard such marriages as entitled to
respect. This is a trouble of old date, for when, in 1744,
Benedict XIV. was informed that in Belgium parties who
were obliged by the law to present themselves before the
civil magistrate and declare their intention to be man and
wife frequently neglected to invoke the ministration of
the priest, he pronounced such marriages to be invalid,
1 There may be possible promise of a new alignment in the report (January
1907), that Archbishop Messmer, of Milwaukee, publicly holds out the prospect
that Episcopal clergymen may be received as priests in the Catholic Church with-
out being obliged to abandon their wives.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 331
and this was repeated by Pius VI. in 1791 and Pius VII.
in 1808. It is therefore not surprising that when the
project was under discussion in Italy, the Unità Cattolica,
one of the papal organs, in its issue of 16 July, 1864, did
not hesitate to assert that the establishment of civil
matrimony was establishing the liberty of licentiousness,
and that, after having scattered houses of ill-fame through-
out Italy, it would convert the whole peninsula into one
brothel. In a similar spirit, the Papal Penitentiary,
15 January, 1866, issued instructions reciting a decision of
Pius IX. in secret consistory, 27 September, 1852, that
civil marriage without the sacrament was nothing but a
foul and destructive cohabitation, whence it was deduced
that the civil authorities have no power over marriage or
divorce, and Pius IX. followed this by an allocution of
30 October, 1866, denouncing it as leading to an organised
system of scandalous concubinage." When, in May 1868,
Austria followed the example of Italy, Pius within a
month delivered an allocution in which he not only
condemned the “abominable law,” but declared it to be
null and void; and Cardinal Rauscher, Archbishop of
Vienna, issued a manifesto in which he not only denied
that the civil contract constituted marriage, and directed
that children sprung from such unions should be entered
on the parish registers as neither legitimate nor illegiti-
mate, but gave positive instructions that absolution should
be denied, even in articulo mortis, to all parties who had
cohabited in such unions—thus stigmatising them as worse
than concubinage. In a similar spirit, when, in 1869, civil
marriage was proclaimed under the short-lived republic of
Spain, the clergy, under inspiration from the Vatican,
denounced it as concubinage, and threatened to suspend
the celebration of the Mass. The law, in fact, excited
much popular feeling, for it made the civil ceremony
1 Appendix ad Concil. Plenar. Americae. Latinae, pp. 739–42.
332 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
essential, and declared that without it the solemnisation in
church did not confer the legal status of man and wife,
so that with the restoration of the monarchy it was
promptly repealed, and an effort to restore it was rejected
by an emphatic vote of the Cortes in February 1883.
With the more liberal tendencies that have since prevailed,
the matter has been again taken up, and its recognition has
been the subject of fierce dissension. Leo XIII. was
vigorous in his opposition to the innovation. In his first
encyclical, issued 21 April, 1878, he declared that
“citizens, profaning the dignity of Christian marriage,
have adopted legal concubinage in place of religious
matrimony ”; and he returned to the attack in a special
encyclical on the subject, published 10 February, 1880.
In this he assumes that, as “by the will of Christ the
Church alone can and ought to legislate and decide con-
cerning Sacraments, so it is out of the question to attempt
to transfer any, even the smallest part, of her power to
the government of the state,” and therefore “judicial
sentences on conjugal contracts, as to whether they have
been entered upon rightly or wrongly,” are a direct
infringement of the rights of the Church, whether those
judgments be adverse or not to the canons."
The earlier passages of this encyclical are so warm and
eloquent a defence of the holiness of matrimony, as the
natural condition of man decreed by God, that it would
probably trouble its author to explain why so exalted and
divine a state should be prohibited to the ministers of the
God who devised it and fitted his creatures specially for it.
It is easy, however, to account for the bitter and persistent
opposition of the Church to the civil marriage laws without
attributing it to the control which the monopoly of the
sacrament gives it over the faithful, and the lucrative nature
of the business thus brought to the Curia. More important
1 Acta Leonis, PP. XIII., T. I. p. 54 ; T. II. p. 10.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 333
than these is the fact that under the laws the State has
the power to permit clerical marriage. For more than
half a century such laws had existed in France, but as the
French tribunals leaned towards upholding ecclesiastical
celibacy, they were acquiesced in comparatively in silence.
When Italy, however, followed the example, it was seen
that the temper of the Italian Government would lead to
construing them in a sense favourable to priestly liberty,
and hence the opposition, which has been justified and
intensified by the result. Immediately on the passage of
the Civil Marriage Act, Dr. Prota, of Naples, an energetic
reformer within the Church, in a letter of 30 October,
1865, advised all his clerical friends to marry and to persist
in the exercise of their functions, “and the more who do
so at once and simultaneously the safer for all, for the
bishops will venture the less to persecute you in the face
of public opinion.” Accordingly, cases of priestly marriage
commenced to occur, and when they were contested their
validity was confirmed by the tribunals. The superior
courts of Genoa, Trani, and Palermo successively decided
in this sense; and finally, in 1869, occurred the case of
Andrea Treglia, of the diocese of Salerno, which settled
the question in Naples. The municipal officers of Vietri
refused to marry him; the court of Salerno decided against
him, but when the matter was carried up to the court of
appeals of Naples judgment was rendered in his favour,
and he was married forthwith—thus legitimating the
unions of some fifty priests who had preceded him, with-
out the question having been settled by the tribunal of last
resort. In the organ of the reforming Catholics of Naples,
the Emancipatore Cattolica, it was not without interest to
see the successive marriages chronicled with the same
satisfaction as that evinced by Spalatin in the stormy days
of Luther." In Austria the Church succeeded better in
1 Naples was perhaps the first kingdom in Europe to promulgate a civil
334 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
maintaining its hold upon those who had once entered
its service. The Civil Marriage Law encouraged a
number of priests to marry, but in 1891 the journals
announced a decision by the High Court of Appeals, in
the case of one who abandoned the Catholic faith in 1870
and who married in 1879, to the effect that a man who
had vowed a life of celibacy could not be released from
his vow.
Yet the whole question is one of but slender practical
importance. In no country is the Catholic Church sub-
servient to the State. It controls its own sacraments, and
no government is likely to venture upon interference with
it in its own sphere. While therefore it may be deprived
of the power to persecute and punish those of its members
who enter upon civil marriage, it yet possesses the ability
to deprive them of their functions, which in most cases is
equivalent to depriving them of bread; and it has an
unquestioned right to expel them from its communion.
The priest who marries, therefore, is virtually separated
from his Church and deprived of his means of livelihood—
motives which, combined with the moral forces at work
to keep men within the accustomed bounds, are quite
sufficient to prevent defection from growing common, or
to render marriage with a priest attractive to women above
the lowest class. Even in the United States, where there
is no legal impediment to priestly marriage, and the tone
of society is such as rather to welcome those who escape
from the pale of Rome, such cases are rare, although of late
years they seem to be increasing. While, therefore, the civil
marriage laws of Europe unquestionably loosen the ties
which in this respect bind the priest to his Church, there
are still sufficient material and moral forces at work to
marriage law and to withdraw matrimonial cases from ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
This was one of the reforms of the minority of Ferdinand IV. about the year 1760.
See Colletti’s History of Naples, Horner’s translation, I. 107.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 335
prevent desertions from this cause from assuming any
serious proportions.
The monastic Orders have not escaped the innovating
spirit of modern times, and Catholic lands have followed,
to a large extent, the example set in the sixteenth century
by Henry VIII. and the German Protestant princes.
The excessive multiplication of the “religious * and the
enormous accumulation of property in mortmain were
recognised as an evil calling for repression as soon as
the old-time veneration for the Church declined in
the irreverential spirit of the eighteenth century. The
expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, France, and
Spain, between 1759 and 1767, and the suppression of
the Order by Clement XIV. in the bull Dominus ac
Redemptor, 24 July, 1773, gave the impulse. The Em-
peror Joseph II., in a series of measures from 1772 to
1784, greatly reduced the religious Orders in his own
dominions and suppressed the contemplative ones, which
contributed nothing visible to the benefit of society."
His brother, Leopold of Tuscany, desired to abolish all
the Orders and replace them with one which should serve
as a retreat for pious souls, but he felt himself not strong
enough, and ventured only on partial measures.” The
French Revolution followed, with its decisive action of
secularising all Church property by the decree of the
National Assembly of 2 November, 1789, and the sup-
pression of the Orders, 13 February, 1790. Germany
yielded to the temptation, and by the Reichsrecess of
25 February, 1803, secularised the bishoprics and monastic
foundations; everywhere but in Austria the religious
houses were gradually suppressed, and their buildings
1 Wetzer und Welte, Encyclopädie, VI. 1853.-Herzog, Real Encyclopädie,
XIV. 50.
2 Scaduto, Stato e Chiesa sotto Leopolde I. p. 296 (Firenze, 1885).
336 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
were converted into barracks, prisons, insane asylums,
and the like." In Spain, the Napoleonic invasion laid
waste many convents, and the Cortes of Cadiz in 1813
decreed that none should be restored which had less than
twelve inmates, and that there should not be more than
one of each Order in any one place.” The Revolution of
1820 went further, suppressing the monastic Orders and
consolidating the houses of the mendicants, all of which
was revoked by the reaction of 1823.” In the troubles
following the death of Ferdinand VII. in 1833, the Regency
was forced to rely on the Liberals: a policy was adopted
of suppressing the religious Orders and secularising
Church property, which during the ensuing fifteen years,
amid various fluctuations, gradually destroyed them. The
process was by no means always peaceable. In 1885 the
revolutionary juntas rose against them, burning many of
the houses, ejecting the inmates and slaying some of them.
The decrees of 8 March, 1836, and 29 July, 1837, extin-
guished the convents with few exceptions; even the nuns
were turned out and left to perish in misery, although the
funds of their convents consisted largely of the dowers
which they had brought.” The Concordat of 1851, how-
ever, re-established the Orders devoted to works of charity
and education ; but the royal decrees issued in execution
of these provisions placed them under Government super-
vision and subject to strict limitations," in spite of which
they have flourished and multiplied largely, leading to
political vicissitudes of which the end is not as yet apparent.
In Portugal the process was more summary. The Emperor
1 Wetzer und Welte, X. 1528–9.-Herzog, XIV. 52.-Brück, Kathol. Kirche in
Deutschland, I. 3, 192.
2 Lafuente, Hist. Gen. de España, XXV. 412.—Collecion de los Decretas de las
Cortes, III. 211.
3 Lafuente, XXVII. 207. –Castillo y Maiyone, Frailesmonia, II. 236–7.
4 Castillo y Ayensa, Negociaciones con Roma, I. 120.—Wicinte de la Fuente,
Hist. Eclesiastica de España, III. 497.
5 El Concordato de 1851, pp. 125–8, 145–6 (Madrid, 1882).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 337
Pedro I. of Brazil, as regent for his daughter, Maria da
Gloria, by decree of 15 August, 1833, suppressed the
convents and the military Orders; the promised pensions
of the ejected inmates were not paid, and they suffered the
extremity of want.” When Italy ceased to be a geo-
graphical expression and was consolidated under Victor
Emanuel, the law of 28 June, 1866, with its supplements
of 15 August, 1867, and 19 June, 1873, completed the
destruction of the religious houses, confiscated their
property, and pensioned the inmates with from 144 to 600
lire per annum, according to their position. Two excep-
tions were made : Monte Cassino, the venerable mother
of Western monachism, was spared, and provision was
made for its maintenance as a national monument ; while
Savonarola's convent of San Marco was preserved, rather
perhaps on account of its frescoes than of its associations.
The process of ejectment was summary. Panzini speaks
with indignation of the files of soldiery sent to drive from
their houses the terrified nuns, who were thrown upon
a world with which they were by their training utterly
unfit to cope;” and early in 1867 the journals reported that
nearly all the inmates of the monasteries were dispersed,
some of them returning to their families, some of them
accepting refuge offered to them by the charitable, but
most of them clubbing together and hiring houses in
which to live as of old.
In France, under the Concordat of 1801, the re-estab-
lishment of monachism was strictly prohibited, but some
organisations succeeded in forming themselves. Charitable
associations of females were encouraged and flourished,
while male brotherhoods which proved politically dan-
gerous were crushed without ceremony. Even under the
Restoration popular antagonism was still so strong that
1 Wetzer und Welte, X. 1533.
2 Panzini, op. cit. pp. 596–7.
VOL. II. Y
V
338 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
the efforts made by Charles X., from 1825 to 1827, to
introduce the Jesuits and other male Orders aroused strong
opposition, and the elections of 1827 settled the question
definitely in the negative." The constitutional Government
of Louis Philippe, from 1830 to 1848, showed itself per-
sistently hostile; but the Second Republic was more liberal,
and the Second Empire ostentatiously sought the alliance
of the Church. After the fall of Louis Napoleon, the
reactionary Government of Marshal MacMahon continued
this alliance, and the result was seen in the enormous
growth of the regular Orders in wealth, members, and
influence. This, after republicanism had been firmly
established by the will of the people, became a serious
menace to the tranquillity of the State, for by its vital
principle monachism owes its allegiance first to the Holy
See and secondarily to the land from which its members
are drawn. A long struggle ensued, commencing with
the Ferry laws on education in 1879—a struggle in which
the expatriation of the monastic Orders became merely an
incident, and culminating in the separation of Church and
State. The struggle thus has assumed the wider aspect
of the internecine conflict between mediaeval theocracy on
the one side and civil and religious liberty on the other.
The issue is still undecided, and it is not for us to predict
the result.
Nor has this anti-monastic movement been confined to
the Old World, for the example of Europe has been fol-
lowed in many of the former Spanish colonies. Paraguay
led the way, in 1824, by suppressing all monasteries as use-
less, and Brazil, in 1829, prohibited the entrance of men
devotees, thus condemning the existing institutions to
gradual extinction. Mexico, by a series of laws from
1856 to 1863, suppressed the religious Orders and confis-
1 Dutibleul, Histoire des Corporations religieuses, pp. 411 sqq. (Paris, 1846),—
Dupin, Droit ecclésiastique, pp. 285–98.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 339
cated their property. New Granada was even more
prompt, by legislation commencing in 1852 and culminat-
ing in 1868. Venezuela did the same in 1874. Ecuador
in 1899 secularised all ecclesiastical property, and Nicaragua
is Jaſiderstood to be preparing for similar action.
So general a movement in both hemispheres, by nations
professing Catholicism, cannot be explained simply by
greed for the overgrown possessions of the Church,
although that has unquestionably borne its share in
tempting governments to replenish their exhausted
treasuries. It is an evidence that mediaeval monasticism
has outlived the influences which fostered its growth to
such enormous proportions, and that, whatever may have
been its services of old, they no longer correspond to the
wants of the present sufficiently to justify its absorption
of so large a portion of the resources and productive
energies of society. It further indicates the convictions
of statesmen that such corporations, dissociated from their
environment by the vow of celibacy, having interests dis-
tinct from those of their fellow citizens, indissolubly bound
together and owing allegiance, not to their own rulers but
to a foreign chief, are politically as well as economically
undesirable.

It only/remains for us to consider what is the present
effect of celibacy on the moral condition of the Church,
and whether it has succeeded, after fifteen centuries of
fruitless effort, in at last obtaining a priesthood whose
chastity is more than nominal. At the commencement
of the struggle, the great apostle of asceticism, St. Jerome,
calmed the fears of those who dreaded a diminution of
population from the spread of vows of continence, by
assuring them that few would be found to persevere to the
end in a task so difficult as the maintenance of virginity."
1 Noli metuere ne omnes virgines fiant ; difficilis res est virginitas, et ideo rara,
340 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Has, then, human nature changed during the interval, and
has the Church been justified in its assertion at the Council
of Trent that God would not withhold the gift of chastity
from those who rightly seek it, or permit us to be tempted
beyond our strength ?" It is certainly not so easy to
answer this question now as we have seen it in former
ages, when men were more plain-spoken and less decent,
when offences against morality were committed more
openly, and when they were denounced both by the
Church and its enemies with a distinctness of utterance
unfit for modern ears. Yet it is not impossible to find
some evidence bearing on the question which may enable
the impartial inquirer to arrive at a conclusion.
The Church is unquestionably violating the precept
“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” when, in its
reliance that the gift of chastity will accompany ordination,
it confers the sub-diaconate at the age of twenty-two and
the priesthood at twenty-five *—or even earlier by special
dispensation—and then turns loose young men, at the age
when the passions are the strongest, trained in the seminary
and unused to female companionship, to occupy a position
in which they are brought into the closest and most
dangerous relations with women who regard them as
beings gifted with supernatural powers and holding in
their hands the keys of heaven and hell. Whatever may
have been the ardour with which the vows were taken,
the youth thus exposed to temptations hitherto unknown
finds his virtue rudely assailed when in the confessional
female lips repeat to him the story of lustful longings, and
quia difficilis. Incipere plurimorum est, perseverare paucorum.—Hieron. adv. Jovin.
I. 36.
1 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXIV. De Sacrament. Matrim. o. ix.
2 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXIII. De Reform. c. xii. The Abbé Chavard relates
(Le Célibat des Prêtres, p. 269) that be once asked the directors of a seminary
whether the age for assuming the burdens of the priesthood ought not to be post-
poned to the fortieth year, and he was told that the Church must have priests, and
that there were few indeed who would submit to its conditions after the age of
illusions was passed.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 341
he recognises in himself instincts and passions which are
only the stronger by reason of their whilom repression.
That a youthful spiritual director, before whom are thrown
down all the barriers with which the prudent reserve of
society surrounds the social intercourse of the sexes, should
too often find that he has over-estimated his self-control,
is more than probable.
This, of course, is merely d priori reasoning, and of
itself proves nothing, except the extreme imprudence of a
system which applies fire to straw and assumes that com-
bustion will not follow. Doubtless there are cases in
which the assumption is justified by the result—whole
countries, indeed, where scandals are few. In Ireland, for
instance, we rarely hear of immoral priests, though such
cases would be relentlessly exposed by the interests adverse
to Catholicism, and the proverbial chastity of the Irish
women may be both a cause and a consequence of this.
In the United States, also, troubles of the kind only come
occasionally to public view ; but here again the Church
is surrounded by antagonistic Churches. At the same
time it must be borne in mind that the extreme care with
which the Church avoids scandal renders it impossible for
one not within the pale to ascertain what may really be
the relations between ecclesiastics and the female ser-
vants whom, as we shall see, they are permitted to keep
in their houses.”
1 Possibly some insight into the moral status of the American priesthood may
be obtained from the work of Father Müller, a zealous Redemptorist, which bears the
approbation of Cardinal McCloskey and of the Redemptorist Superior. As regards
chastity, he tells us that “God calls no man to any state or office without giving
him at the same time the necessary graces” (Part II. p. 260). In spite of this he
utters the warning, “The good priest should also beware lest he become too affec-
tionate and familiar with some favourite niece or cousin, because she may easily
become pitch and bird-lime” (Ibid. p. 278). One may gather from his long and
fervid exhortation to beware of drink that intemperance is the besetting sin of the
priesthood (Part IV. pp. 98–112), and he couples wine and women together in a
manner to imply that the combination produces many blasted careers. “How
many have renounced the priesthood altogether on account of women and drink 2
How many have apostatised and even turned preachers on account of women and
342 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
In lands where Catholicism is dominant I fear that
there can be little doubt as to this, although Ernest
Renan, a witness of unquestionable impartiality, whose
clerical training gave him every opportunity of observa-
tion, declares emphatically that he has known no priests
but good priests, and that he has never seen even the
shadow of a scandal." In spite of the Nicaean canon, on
which the rule of celibacy has virtually rested, the
Church, after a struggle of more than a thousand years,
was forced to admit the “subintroducta mulier’’ as an
inmate of the priest's domicile. The order of Nature
on this point refused so obstinately to be set aside that
the Council of Trent finally recognised women as a
necessary evil, and only sought to regulate the necessity
by forbidding those in holy orders from keeping in their
houses or maintaining any relations with concubines or
women liable to suspicion.” It is true that the severe
virtue of St. Charles Borromeo refused to grant to a
septuagenary priest a licence for more than a year for
the residence of a sister equally aged, and forced him to
apply annually for its renewal; it is also true that the
Council of Rome, in 1725, allowed the residence of
women only within the first and second degrees of kin-
dred ; * but in modern times the Tridentine canon has been
interpreted as allowing the residence of female servants or
housekeepers, in view of the hardship of doing without
domestics and the expense of employing men. In order
drink 7 How many have met an untimely end on account of women and drink?”
(Part II. p. 275.) Müller’s The Catholic Priesthood, New York, 1885. -
1 Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse, Paris, 1883, p. 139. “Le fait est que ce
qu'on dit des moeurs cléricales est, selon mon expérience, dénué de tout fondement.
J'ai passé treize ans de ma vie entre les mains des prêtres, je n'ai pas vu l'ombre
d’un scandale ; je n'ai connu que de bons prêtres. La confession peut avoir, dans
certains pays, de graves inconvénients. Je n'en ai pas vu une trace dans mon
jeunesse ecclésiastique.”
2 Concil. Trident. Sess. XXV. De Reform. cap. xiv.
3 Convent. Episco. Mediolanens. ann. 1849 Sess. III. No. 18 (Collect. Iacens.
VI. 717).—Concil. Roman. ann. 1725 Tit. XVI. c. iii. (ib. I. 372).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 343
to meet the Tridentine caution to avoid suspicion, efforts
have sometimes been made to define a minimum “canoni-
cal * age for these women, varying from thirty to fifty
years, but usually placed at forty—a palliative which, as
might be expected, accomplishes little, even when, as is
not always the case, the rule is observed more scrupulously
than by the device of dividing the canonical age and
keeping two girls of twenty." The careful provisions as to
the age and character of these “Marthas,” and the prohibi-
tions of manifestations of undue familiarity with them—
especially in public—are scrupulously enumerated in the
latest assembly of Catholic prelates, the Plenary Council
of Latin America, held in Rome in 1899.” These pre-
cautions are not uncalled for if there is truth in the state-
1 For the varying legislation on this subject the reader may refer to C. Bene-
ventan. ann. 1693 Tit. XVIII. c. iii. (Collect. Lacens. I. 44.)—Synod. Bahiens. ann.
1707 Lib. III. (I. 854.)—C. Tarracon. ann. 1717 c. xxxi. (I. 779.)—C. Avenionens.
ann. 1725 Tit. xxxvii. c. iii. (I. 554).-Synod. Firmanens. ann. 1726 Tit. Ix. (I. 599.)
—C. Ebredunens. ann. 1727 c. v. No. 5 (I. 626).—Synod. Nat. Hungar. ann. 1822
De Discip. renov. 3 (V. 940).—C. Baltimor. IV. ann. 1840 Decr. x. (III. 72.)—Conv.
Episco. Mediolan. ann. 1849 Sess. III. No. 18 (VI. 717). —C. Turon. ann. 1849 Decr.
XI. i. (IV. 268–9.)—C. Avenionens. ann. 1849 Tit. VI. c. v. No. 16 (IV. 348).-C.
Remens. ann. 1849 Tit. XII. c. ii. (IV. 129.)—C. Albiens. ann. 1850 Tit. I. Decr. v.
No. 1 (IV. 411).-C. Burdigal. ann. 1850 T. IV. c. xii. No. 3 (IV. 588).-C. Bituricens.
ann. 1850 Tit. VI. (IV. 1122.)—C. Tolosan. ann. 1850 Tit. Iv. c. iv. No. 126 (IV.
1069).-C. Senonens. ann. 1850 Tit. IV. c. iv. (IV. 904.)—C. Aquens. ann. 1850
Tit. v. § 2, c. ix. No. 1 (IV. 985).-C. Rothomag. ann. 1850 Decr. xI. No. 3–5 (IV.
525).-C. Lugdunens, ann. 1850 Decr. XVIII. No. 1–3 (IV. 475).--Synod. Thurlesiens.
ann. 1850 Decr. XVII. No. 14 (III. 785).-Conv. Epp. Lauretan. ann, 1850 Sect. I. v.
(VI. 778.)—Conv. Epp, Siciliae Tit. II. c. i. No. 9 (VI. 815).-C. Auscitan. ann. 1851
Tit. IV. c. i. No. 147 (IV. 1200).-C. Quebecens. I. ann. 1851 Decr. XIV. (III. 615.)—
C. Westmonasteriens. I. ann. 1852 Decr. XXIV. No. 4 (III. 939).-C. Quebecens. II.
ann. 1854 Decr. XIV. No. 20 (III. 652).--C. Armacens. ann. 1854 Decr. xXIII. (III.
852.)—C. Portus Hispaniae ann. 1854 Sect. II. No. 5 (III. 1100–1).—C. Ravennat.
ann, 1855 P. IV. c. iv. No. 3 (VI. 198).-C. Scti. Ludovici II. ann. 1858 Decr. VII.
(III. 318.)—C. Viennens. ann. 1858 Tit. v. c. vi. (V. 197).-C. Strigonens. ann. 1858
Tit. VI. No. 9 (V. 53).-C. Venetic. ann. 1859 P. II. c. xvii. No. 10–11 (VI. 317).-C.
Urbinatens. ann. 1859 P. II. Tit. vii. No. 148 (VI. 51).-C. Pragens. ann. 1860 Tit. I.
c. vi. No. 1 (V. 426).-C. Coloniens. ann. 1860 Tit. II, c. xxxiv., xxxviii. (V. 378-80.)
—C. Cincinnatiens. III. ann. 1861 Decr. Ix. (III. 226.)—C. (Coloniens, ann. 1863
Tit. IV. c. iv. (V. 670.)—C. Quitens. ann. 1869 Decr. Iv. No. 2 (VI. 403).-C.
Ultrajectens. ann. 1865 Tit. VIII. c. iv. (V. 905.)—C. Pl. Baltimor. II. ann.
1866 Tit. III. c. vi. No. 164 (III. 446).-C. Halifaxiens. ann. 1868 Decr. xvi.[I.
(III. 751.)
2 Acta et Decreta Concil. Plenar. Americae Latinae, p. 281 (Romae, 1900).
344 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
ment that statistics submitted to the council showed that
in Latin America, of 18,000 priests three thousand were
living in regular wedlock, four thousand in concubinage
with their so-called housekeepers, and some fifteen hundred
in relations more or less open with women of doubtful
reputation.
Few priests, it may be assumed, have the self-denial to
live without this female companionship, which is per-
mitted by the Church as a matter of course. Indeed, the
census paper officially filled in at the Vatican and returned
in January 1882 stated the population of the palace to
be 500, of which one-third were women. While, of
course, it does not follow that the relations between these
women and the grave dignitaries of the papal court may
not be perfectly virtuous, still, considering the age at
which ordination is permitted, it would be expecting too
much of human nature to believe that, in at least a large
number of cases among parish priests, the companionship
is not as fertile of sin as we have seen it to be in every
previous age since the ecclesiastic has been deprived of
the natural institution of marriage. The “niece” or other
female inmate of the parsonage throughout Catholic
Europe still excites the smile of the heretic traveller, and
is looked upon as a matter of course by the parishioner,
while the prelates, content if open scandal be avoided,
affect to regard the arrangement as harmless, knowing
that it serves as a preventive of more flagrant and more
public trouble, though the fact that this companionship is
made the subject of discussion and regulation at virtually
every council or synod or episcopal convention held by the
Church shows that privately it is recognised as a necessary
evil at best. Yet the old sophistry is not forgotten,
which proves that such sin is less than the infraction of
ecclesiastical laws. In a tract in favour of celibacy, pub-
lished at Warsaw in 1801, with the extravagant laudation
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 345
of the authorities, argument is gravely made that as
priestly marriage is incestuous, such adultery is vastly
worse than simple licentiousness, the latter being only a
lapse of the flesh, while marriage would be schism and
arrogant disobedience, involving sin of a far deeper dye."
It would, of course, be vain to expect at the present
day, from the rulers of the Church, the outspoken candour
of the Middle Ages, when evils were denounced openly
and in the coarsest terms. In those days councils could
speak, because none but those connected with the Church
were likely to be cognisant of their proceedings, while in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the immorality of
ecclesiastics was so notorious that no harm could *
from admitting it in the efforts made for its correction |
In modern times, however, when an external veil of f
decency is to be maintained before the eyes of antagonistic |
critics, when scandal is of all things to be avoided, and
when the proceedings of ecclesiastical bodies are carefully
revised at Rome before they are allowed to become
public, with the consciousness that they may be spread
by the press before a world of hostile mockers, ready to
jeer at the woes of the Church, only the most guarded
allusions can be made to such subjects, and these only
when the case is urgent.” When, therefore, we see that
almost every council held in modern times has deemed it
necessary to insist on the Supreme importance of preserv-
ing chastity—lying, Swearing, stealing, and other sins not
being even alluded to ; when the caution against undue
familiarity with women, even devotees, is constantly
urged; and when the relations between the priest and
his servant are frequently indicated by directions that he
1 De Sacerdotum Coelibatu Doctrina, Warsoviae, 1801, pp. 62–3.
2 There is in Rome a standing congregation for the revision of provincial
councils, consisting of twenty-five members—viz., seven cardinals, a secretary, and
seventeen “consulters.” It is connected with the Congregation of the Council of
Trent.—Herzog's Real Encyclopädie, VII. 253. —Bangen, Die Romische Curie,
p. 180 (Munster, 1854).

346 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
must not admit her to companionship at the table, or on
walks and journeys, and especially in visiting fairs and
merrymakings, it would be difficult not to recognise under
this guarded phraseology an admission of the actual
relationship existing between the good pastors and their
female inmates, and a friendly warning, si non caste saltem
caute."
It is not often that we can obtain an inside view of
these matters, especially from a source that is at once well
informed and not hostile, but such a view is afforded by
an indignant remonstrance addressed, in 1832, to Mon-
seigneur Sterckx, Archbishop of Mechlin, by the Abbé
Helsen, who for twenty-five years had been a popular
preacher in Brussels.” The abbé calls upon his prelate to
enforce the Tridentine canon by banishing the women
who are universally inmates of the houses of priests, and
thus put a stop to the sin and the scandal which destroy
the influence of the Church and spread immorality among
the faithful. Even the bishops and dignitaries of the
Church are not spared, and the archbishop himself is
summoned to dismiss the “Petronilla’’ who had accom-
panied him from the curacy of Bouchout to the cathedral
of Antwerp, and from Antwerp to the metropolitan See
of Mechlin.” Throughout this plain-spoken epistle the
author assumes as a matter of course not only that the
relations between the clergy and their servants are guilty,
but that they are so recognised by every one—so notorious,
indeed, as to need no proof; and as a natural conse-
quence he regards the priesthood as a source of infection
destructive to public morals. The cure is to be found in
1 The Council of Ausch, in 1851, even ventures to allude to the grave incon-
veniences which may arise from the residence of a sister or aunt if young, and if
there is not also the mother or a female servant in the house.
2 Helsen, Avis à l’Archevêque de Malines, Monseigneur Sterckx, sur les abus du
Célibat des Prêtres, 4to, Bruxelles, 1833.
3 Helsen, pp. 19–20.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 347
putting a stop to these irregular unions: “If women were
for ever banished from the houses of ecclesiastics vowed to
celibacy, I think we should not see so great a number of
prostitutes who ply their trade at night in our great cities,
nor so many illegitimate children who curse their destiny
as they multiply more and more around us. We ridicule
the seraglio of the Grand Turk and the polygamy of the
Moslem, but they too, on their side, ridicule the infinite
number of strumpets with whom Christian Europe is
deluged, and the custom of keeping as many concubines
as can be afforded. Whence comes to us this shameful
trade, so hurtful to society, which is found under our
religion more than under any other ? We dare not doubt
that it is the result of our own misconduct ; we dare not
accuse only the heretics and the philosophers of modern
times. No, no l the most poisonous spring is in us, among
us, with us, and it will not dry up without us. Let us
blush to our eye-balls; let us hide ourselves from public
sight ! Oh for the times and the virtues of the primitive
Church Why come ye not again 2 * That this sort of
scarcely veiled concubinage is, in fact, a fruitful source of
prostitution can scarcely be doubted if, as Helsen asserts,
the ordinary custom is, when one of these priest's servants
becomes pregnant and cannot be saved by a prudent
absence, to dismiss her and take another, perhaps younger
and more attractive; and that this may occur repeatedly
without the ecclesiastic being subjected to any special
annoyance or supervision—unless, indeed, he is so ill-
advised as to take pity on the unfortunate girl and refuse
to send her away. In that case he becomes a public con-
cubinarian, liable to the canonical penalties, with which he
is sometimes disciplined. As Helsen indignantly exclaims,
“Would the Mahometans tolerate such infamy in their
fakirs and dervishes 2 The Japanese, the Chinese, the
1 Helsen, pp. 74–5.
348 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Hindus in their bonzes : The pagans in their Vestals :
Our ancestors in their Druids 2 Even the Jews and Pro-
testants have blushed for it, since they advise their Rabbis
and ministers to marry rather than thus to contaminate
themselves.” Helsen does not fail to allude to the public
familiarity of these servants with their employers—the
familiarity condemned in almost the same words by many
of the councils cited above—and it would seem the
extreme of Pyrrhonism to doubt that almost universal
concubinage is tolerated, even where on the surface there
are no public scandals to attract the attention of the
malicious.
There would therefore seem no reason to call in ques-
tion the remarks of the Rev. William Chauncy Langdon,
whose long residence in Italy as the agent of the American
Episcopal Church gave him ample opportunity of observa-
tion. “I learned to regard a priest who had lived all his
mature life openly and faithfully with a woman to whom
of course he had not been married, by whom he had
children now grown up, and for all of whom he was faith-
fully providing—with a relative respect as one who had
greatly risen above the morality of his Church and of the
society around him, and whose life really might be con-
sidered, on the dark moral background behind him, a
source of relative light.”
All this in fact may be inferred from sundry propositions
presented to the Vatican Council in 1870. The Neapolitan
bishops asked for legislation to check the frequency with
which priests entered into civil marriage. They argued
that the existing rule under which such offenders cannot
be deprived until they have lain for a year under excom-
munication is inefficient, and that it would be much better
to suspend them at once from office and benefice while
1 Helsen, pp. 13, 16, 100.
2 Report to the Italian Committee of the American Episcopal Church (The
Episcopalian, Philadelphia, September 11, 1867).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 349
awaiting the expiration of the year. The French bishops
proposed that priests should be required to exclude women
from their houses, or, if their services were indispensable,
at least they should be of undoubted good repute and not
less than forty years of age, except the near kindred per-
mitted by the ancient canons. The German bishops also
desired this question to be settled, and further suggested
that, to avert the serious evils arising from the scandalous
lives of priests, such offences as notorious fornication,
manifest concubinage, drunkenness, and incorrigible pro-
digality he added to the legitimate causes for deprivation
of benefice." From all this it would appear that the old
scandals still flourish, and that something more efficacious
is needed than the reformatory legislation of Trent. The
managers of the council were of the same mind, and pre-
pared a constitution De vita et honestate clericorum, in
which Chapter III. provided that a cleric living in concu-
binage or keeping a suspected woman in his house or
elsewhere should be subjected to the Tridentine penalties
enforcible without the formalities of justice and solely on
the strength of the facts; but bishops were warned that,
to prevent the too facile aspersion of priests and the
reproach to themselves of inconsiderate action, the evidence
both of the offence and of the three warnings provided by
the Council of Trent should be carefully preserved, to be
used in case of appeal.”
Slender as was this provision for the cure of imme-
dicable evils, it was not adopted. The work for which
the council was assembled was accomplished, 16 July, 1870,
when it accepted the Constitutio dogmatica de Ecclesia
Christi, defining the infallibility of the Pope and his supreme
jurisdiction over the whole Church. Its further existence
was superfluous, and before another session was held the
1 Concil. Collect. Lacensis. T. VII, pp. 813, 835, 873, 875.
2 Ibid. p. 664.
of & Leº &
-)- }
<ta ſee.” * . 24.6, 42. tº-e-tº-Z,
350 SACER DOTAL CELIBACY
Italian occupation of Rome, September 20, afforded an
ostensible reason for its dissolution, which was effected
October 20 by its suspension."
The fact is that if the priesthood is to be purified, some
more summary process must be devised than the existing
cumbrous formalities of ecclesiastical procedure. Few
reforming bishops can be expected to undergo the expenses
and delay incident to prosecutions, if we may judge from
the recent case of Luigi Bidone, parish priest of Oliva
Gessi. In 1901 he was accused before the Bishop of Tortona
of keeping as a servant, with suspicion of evil relations,
Angela Chiappano, a girl of twenty-two, in contravention
of the synodal constitutions. The bishop ordered her
dismissal, but Bidone retained her, in spite of the three
successive commands, whereupon the bishop suspended
him and deputed another priest to replace him. Other
charges were brought against him of dissipating the
parochial temporalities, and of having received 5071 lire
for Masses never celebrated: the case was tried by the
episcopal court, but it was not until 11 February, 1904,
that he was formally deposed, nor till 17 June, 1905, that
this judgment was confirmed by the Congregation of the
Council of Trent.” The laws exist, as of old, and can be
enforced, but more than common tenacity is requisite for
their enforcement, in face of the labour involved and the
dread of scandal.
It is not to be supposed that the Church suffers less
than formerly from the solicitation of female penitents by
confessors. Indeed, the numerous utterances on the sub-
ject during the last half-century would perhaps justify
the assumption that the evil is increasing rather than that
the Church is more alive to the duty of its repression, for
in the forum of conscience it is not regarded as a more
1 Concil. Collect. Lacensis. T. VII, p. 498.
2 Il Consulente ecclesiastico, Ottobre 1905, 353.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 351
Heinous sin than of old. It is still not a reserved case, its
commission does not incur excommunication, and absolu-
tion for it can be obtained from any confessor whom the
culprit may select." Even the disability to celebrate Mass,
prescribed in 1745, was virtually nullified by a decision of
the Congregation of the Inquisition, 18 March, 1863, that
it is not latae sententiae, but ferendae—that is, that it does
not operate of itself, but as the result of a conviction and
sentence pronounced.” As formerly, scandal is the one
thing dreaded. All other considerations are of minor
importance, and the subject is treated on the basis of the
principle laid down by the Glossator: “Nothing is to be
done that creates scandal . . . to avoid scandal the rigour
of ecclesiastical law often yields.” To this end, the pro-
ceedings in all cases are conducted with the most im-
pressive secrecy from the beginning to the end. When
a priest obtains a delegation to receive a denunciation
from an accusing penitent, which we shall see is a neces-
sary preliminary, he is sworn in presence of his bishop to
perform the duty faithfully and to observe inviolate secrecy,
and this oath is taken on the gospels and not by merely
touching the breast, as is customary with priests. All
names are scrupulously suppressed, and what testimony
is shown to the accused is to be so carefully disguised as not
to give him an inkling as to the witness. All papers are
to be kept by the bishop in a special cabinet to which even
his vicar-general is debarred access, the accuser is kept in
1 Il Consulente ecclesiastico, Vol. IV. p. 19 (1898). —Berardi, De Sollicitatione et
Absolutione Complicis, p. 129.
This latter work, of which a second edition was issued at Faenza in 1897, shows
the attention which the subject is attracting in recent times, and furnishes a con-
temporary view of the light in which it is regarded, with the received practice
under late decisions.
2 Il Consulente ecclesiastico, loc. cit. p. 20.
* Gloss. in Cap. 5 Extra, Lib. I. Tit. xi.-Quoted approvingly by Berardi, p. 127
as also Liguori's dictum, “Superior peccata subditi saepe potest dissimulare ad
vitandas turbas et majora mala, quae alioquiteneretur punire.”—Theol. Moral. Lib. II.
Tract. iii. Cap. 2, Dub. 5, Art. 2, n. 52.
352 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
ignorance of the result, and when the case is ended it is
to be buried in oblivion.” Under these circumstances it is
impossible even to guess what may be the frequency of
either the crime or its detection, but that it is kept in
mind as an ever-present possibility is suggested by the
recommendation that priests engaged in “missions” or
revivals should always provide themselves with the neces-
sary faculties to receive denunciations,” and by the
frequent recurrence, in the councils of the nineteenth
century, of injunctions that the confessions of women shall
always be heard at times and in places open to public
observation.” ~
There is the same difficulty as of old in defining the
exact limits to which the confessor may go without
subjecting himself to the definitions of the bulls of
Gregory XV. and Benedict XIV. The licence allowed
in the confessional is necessarily great, and the discretion
of the confessor is a variable quantity. Even without evil
intention on his part, the pure-minded penitent may be
scandalised, and indecency, though perhaps not so common
as in former times, would still seem to exist. We are
told that some confessors are so habitually scurrilous that
they forget themselves without seeking to corrupt their
penitents, but the law is not simply for the punishment
of guilt, but for the prevention of scandal. Yet impru-
1 Instruct. S. Inquisit. Roman. February 20, 1867 (Collect. Concil. Lacensis. III.
553–6). —Berardi, op. cit., pp. 134, 160, 223–4.
2 Berardi, p. 190.
3 Concil. Baltimor. I. ann. 1829, Decr. XXV. (Collect. Lucens. III. 30–1.)—C.
Baltimor. W. ann. 1843, Decr. ix. (III. 90.)—C. Australiens. I. ann. 1844, Decr. xii.
(III. 1051).-C. Thurlesens. ann. 1850, Decr. xii. 41 (III. 782).-C. Rothomagens.
ann. 1850, Decr. xvii. 3 (IV. 530).-C. Tolosan. ann. 1850, Tit. iii. cap. 1, n, 70 (IV.
1054).-C. Casseliens. ann.1853 Tit. iii. (III. 837.)—C. Tuamens. ann. 1854, Decr. viii.
(III. 860,)—C. Quebecens. II. ann. 1854, Decr. ix. $ 7 (III. 639).-C. Port. Hispan.
ann. 1854, Art. iv. n. 1, 2 (III. 1098).-C. Halifaxiens. I. ann. 1857, Decr. xiv. (III.
745). —C. Viennens, ann. 1858, Tit. iii. cap. 7 (V, 169), —C. Coloniens. ann. 1860, Tit. ii.
cap. 15 (V. 351).-C. Pragens. ann. 1860, Tit. iv, cap. 7; Tit. v. cap. 8 (V. 508, 548).
—Synod. Ultraject. ann. 1865, Tit. iv. cap. 8 (V. 830.)—C. Plenar. Baltimor. II. ann.
1866, Append. x. (III. 553.)—Concil. Plenar. America Latinae, ann. 1899, Tit. v.
cap. 5, n. 549 (Roma, 1900, p. 239).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 353
dence is so exceedingly common and inevitable that, if
it were subject to denunciation, who would venture to
hear the confessions of women : * The discussion still
goes on, as it did in the seventeenth century; there are
still opposing opinions of greater or less laxity, into the
details of which it is scarce worth while again to enter.
We may content ourselves with the general impressions
derived from the debate that the kind of talk which seems
to be common between the confessor and his penitent must
frequently lead to temptation difficult for average human
nature to resist ; that, amid the mass of conflicting
opinions, the priest who avoids the grosser and more direct
forms of seduction has the opportunity of attaining his
object without running much risk, and that it is not the
flagitious character of the act but the disrespect to the
sacrament which is still the subject of repression.”
The offence thus is still technical and not moral, for
the priest who learns the frailty of a penitent and visits
her the next day is not subject to denunciation.” The
laxity of this strict construction is seen in the decision of
a case, 6 June, 1898, in which the laundress of a priest
was accustomed to confess to him. On one occasion she
confessed to adultery, when he told her to wait for him in
the ante-room of the monastery. There, after some talk
about his clothes, he made indecent advances, and subse-
quently when she attended Mass he would beckon to her
from his confessional and make appointments to visit her
at her house, finally taking her and supporting her as
his mistress. The decision by the Congregation of the
Inquisition was that he was not guilty of solicitation
under the bulls, for although some authorities hold that a
priest is guilty who makes use of knowledge gained in the
confessional, this cannot be accepted in practice, for the
1 Berardi, pp. 28–9, 39–40.
2 Ibid. pp. 32–43. 3 Ibid. p. 147.
VOL. II. 2.
354 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
somewhat significant reason that it would hinder the full
confession of such sins because of its imposing on the
penitent the obligation of denouncing the confessor who
takes advantage of the knowledge." Liguori lays down
the rule that, where there is doubt, the confessor is not to
be denounced; there must at least be moral certainty:
appearances may deceive, while on the other hand solici-
tation may be so shrewdly disguised as to render it
difficult of recognition or proof.”
When these preliminary difficulties are solved by the
confessor to whom the woman reveals the fact of her
having been solicited—for it is assumed that denunciations
are made only under pressure of a refusal of absolution for
not denouncing—the rules of procedure are not such as to
facilitate conviction and punishment. In 1867 the Con-
gregation of the Inquisition addressed all archbishops,
bishops, and ordinaries, complaining that the papal
constitutions on the subject were neglected, and that
abuses had crept in, both as to penitents denouncing guilty
confessors and as to the punishment of the latter. It
therefore urged the prelates everywhere to greater vigi-
lance and vigour, and gave a summary of the current
practice of the Inquisition, which affords us an insight into
the methods deemed sufficient for the repression of this
persistent and perennial abuse.” The success of the Holy
See since the seventeenth century in making good its
claims on the obedience of the faithful is warrant sufficient
for assuming that this utterance has been accepted as
authoritative, and that it has nowhere been treated with
the contempt shown by France and Germany for the
decrees of Gregory XV.
As formerly, the woman Solicited is compelled to accuse
1 Il Consulente ecclesiastico, III. 373.
2 S. Alph. le Ligorio, Theol. Moral. Lib. VI. Tract. iv. n. 702.
3 Instruct. S. Inquisit. Roman, 20 February, 1867 (Collect. Concil. Lacens. III.
553).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 355
the culprit, and Pius IX. in the great bull Apostolicae Sedis,
12 October, 1869, which superseded the old bulls In
Coena Domini, included among those subject to excom-
munication latae sententiae women who neglected to do so
within a month after the commission of the offence.” It
is, however, apparently impossible to induce them to do
this, and it is only when they chance to confess their sin
to some other confessor and are refused absolution that
they are compelled to do it, although the rule is absolute
that they are not to be interrogated as to consent.
Strictly speaking, the denunciation should be made before
a notary, but it is excessively difficult to secure this, and
a special faculty must be obtained from the bishop to
enable the confessor to take it. When obtained he
forwards it to the bishop, keeping no copy, burning all
memoranda and returning the faculty, so that all trace of
the matter shall be destroyed. The denunciation is then
sent to the Roman Inquisition, and its orders are awaited.”
Strict as are the injunctions to denounce, there are
various ways in which they can be eluded. Dispensations
relieving the penitent from the duty can be obtained from
the bishop, the Inquisition, or the Papal Penitentiary.
Danger to life, reputation, or property, whether of herself
or her near kindred, relieves her of the obligation; even
close kinship, gratitude for favours received, and friendship
serve as an excuse.” Confessors who do not admonish
their penitents of this duty are liable to punishment, but
they are advised to abstain from initiating inquiries about
the matter; they are warned not to be over-zealous in
starting denunciations without close investigation, and are
told not to admonish the penitent if, on the one hand, they
1 Acta Pii PP. IX. T. V. p. 66.
2 Berardi, op. cit. pp. 85, 89–94, 224.
3 Ibid. pp. 154–7, 164, 175–8.-Consulente ecclesiastico, IV. 13–15.
Schieler, however (Theory and Practice of the Confessional, pp. 374–5), is much
stricter as to the reasons exonerating the penitent from denunciation.
356 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
feel convinced that she will not obey, and thus incur
mortal sin, or, on the other, if her character is such as to
cause apprehension that she may talk about it and thus
create scandal. Anything, in fact, which may lead to a
knowledge of the affair is sufficient to prevent its prosecu-
tion." In 1880 the Inquisition issued further instructions,
saying that it often happened that denunciations contained
allusions to other solicited penitents, who had not been
examined, as they should have been and must be in future;
also that prosecutions frequently failed because the
denunciations were not in proper form, wherefore it sent
a formula to be followed in all cases. In 1897 additional
instructions were issued, relative to the investigations as
to the character of the accuser and accused, which were
necessary as a guide in weighing the credibility of the
denunciation.*
It is evident that there is no little difficulty in obtaining
denunciations and in formulating them properly, but when
this is accomplished the culprit is still reasonably safe, for
no action is taken, except to have him watched, until
three separate ones have been transmitted against him—a
thing which can happen but rarely.” When such an
accumulation occurs, they are duly investigated, and if
he is found guilty the only punishment indicated is de-
privation of the faculty of hearing confessions, leaving to
the bishop the commutation of the other penalties into
spiritual exercises. In practice, however, we are told that
when the offender is a parish priest he is simply forbidden
to hear confessions outside of his parish, and is required
to resign it within a given time.” Inadequate as these
1 Berardi, pp. 180, 182, 189.—Consulente ecclesiastico, IV. 13, 14, 16.
2 Berardi, pp. 116, 225.
3 Instruct S. Roman. Inquis. ubi sup.
4 Ibid.—Berardi, pp. 126, 128. -
Schieler, however (op. cit. p. 375), says nothing about episcopal commutation
of the other penalties prescribed in the papal briefs, which are assumed to be
still in force.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 357
provisions must seem for an offence so grievous, they can
be greatly reduced by self-denunciation. One who accuses
himself before any evidence has been received against him
escapes with spiritual penances and the advice to avoid
confessing those whom he has solicited, and it is the same
if a single accusation has been sent in ; if there are
several accusations against him and he presents himself
and confesses before the trial is ended, he obtains a miti-
gation of the customary sentence." It would appear from
all this that the active legislation on the subject of
recent years is rather an indication of the prevalence of
the trouble than of a sincere desire to eradicate it by
measures of suitable vigour and severity.
Even the long-standing abuse of the absolution of the
accomplice is still existent. Various councils in the nine-
teenth century felt impelled to call attention to the pro-
hibitions uttered by Benedict XIV.,” and the Inquisition
of recent years has found it necessary to issue repeated
decrees on the subject. An obscure decision, 16 May, 1877,
led to the assumption that the censures of the bull Sacra-
mentum Poenitentiae could be eluded by the confessor
leading his accomplice to omit allusion to their mutual
sin in the confession to him in which he absolved her—
either persuading her that it was no sin, or that, as it
was already known to him, there was no necessity of
mentioning it. To meet this the Inquisition, 19 February,
1 Instruct. S. Roman. Inquisit. ubi sup.–Cf. Benedicti PP. XIV. De Synodo
Dioecesana, Lib. WI. cap. xi. n. 8.
2 Concil. Tuamens. ann. 1817, Decr. xvii. (Coll. Lacens. III. 765).—C. Austra-
liens. I. ann. 1844, Decr. xiii. (III. 1052).-C. Remens. ann. 1857, cap. vi. n. 57
(IV. 211).
While it is admitted that, since Benedict XIV., the jurisdiction of the seducer
over the seduced is forfeited, still it revives when she is absolved of the sin by
another priest ; but she should be admonished not again to resort for confession,
to her accomplice, which assumes that he is undisturbed in the performance of
his sacred duties, although his guilt has been revealed. When some too zealous
dioceses adopted a rule forbidding seducers from hearing the confessions of their
accomplices, the Congregation of the Council of Trent emphatically ordered it to be
withdrawn.—Schieler, op. cit. pp. 355–6.
358 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
1896, decided that the excommunication could not be
thus evaded, as it would virtually neutralise the bull.
A decree of 9 November, 1898, specified certain cases in
which the delinquent was excused from personal appli-
cation to the Papal Penitentiary for absolution, but when,
in 1899, a bishop in a foreign land asked whether this
applied to one of his priests who had confessed to absolving
an accomplice, but who declared that his duties and his
poverty precluded him from appearing before the Peniten-
tiary, the answer was in the negative." Evidently in the
struggle with human nature the Church is not wholly
successful.
Perhaps its success might be greater if it exerted its
powers unreservedly, but such is its dread of scandal that
rather than incur the risk of publicity it prefers to shield
the criminal. If the punishment cannot be secret, there
must be no punishment and no admission of priestly
weakness.
How powerfully and how unscrupulously its influence
is exerted to this end may be judged from a few examples.
In 1817, at Availles, in France, the sacristan complained
to the mayor that his daughter was received every night
by the curé, to the scandal of the people. The mayor
thus invited entered the priest's house suddenly one night,
and found the girl in déshabille, hidden in a corner. He
drew up an official statement of the facts and forwarded it
to the authorities, and the response to this was his summary
dismissal from office on the ground of having violated the
domicile of the curé and increased the scandal.” A case
which attracted much attention at the time was that of
Antoine Mingrat, who as priest of Saint-Aupe, near
Grenoble, created scandal by his amours, when, in place
of being punished, he was transferred to Saint-Quentin.
1 Consulente ecclesiastico, I. 78; IV. 296. \
2 Bouvet, De la Confession et du Célibat des Prêtres, p. 516 (Paris, 1845).
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 359
Here he was attracted by a young married woman
named Marie Gérin. An unsuccessful attempt upon
her virtue rendered it necessary to despatch her. He
choked her to death in the parsonage, and dragged the
body three-quarters of a league to the Isère, where he
cut off the legs and threw the fragments into the river.
Suspicion pointing to him, he was about to be arrested,
when he escaped across the frontier and found refuge in
Savoy. Protected by a mysterious influence, he was never
surrendered, although he was condemned to death in
absentia by the court of Grenoble, 9 December, 1822, and
the only result was the persecution of the family of his
victim, who had dared to complain." Similarly, in 1877,
the Abbé Debra, condemned at Liége in default, for no
fewer than thirty-two offences, was, after proper seclusion in
a convent, given a parish in Luxembourg by the Bishop
of Namur.” In the case of the Abbé Mallet, which
occurred in 1861, the Church was unable to save the
culprit from punishment, but did what it could to conceal
his crimes from the faithful. As a canon of Cambray, he
seduced three young Jewish girls and procured their con-
finement in convents under pretext of labouring for their
conversion. One of his victims lost her reason in conse-
quence of her sufferings, and the court of Douay condemned
him to six years at hard labour—a sentence which was
announced by an Orthodox journal thus : “M. le chanoine
Mallet de Cambrai, accusé de détournement de mâneurs
pour cause de prosélytisme religieux, a €té condamné à six
ans de reclusion”—where the skilful use of the masculine
“mineurs” and the characterisation of his offence as re-
ligious proselytism elevate the worst of criminals into a
martyr for the faith.” It is quite within the bounds of
1 L'impunité de Mingrat, ou la police de Charles X., Paris, 1830.
* Wahu, op. cit. p. 423.
3 Sauvestre, op. cit. p. 144. It is by this policy that the Church renders itself
responsible for the evil committed by its members. No human organisation is
360 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
probability that, as such a martyr, he may since the
expiration of his sentence have been enjoying, in some
cure of souls, the opportunity of repeating his missionary
experiments.
It is evident from these various causes that the criminal
records can give only the barest suggestion as to the
extent of crimes thus committed in secret by a class
shielded by influences so powerful. The records of the
ninistère de la justice, moreover, are not in France open
to the public, and the only mode of obtaining even an
approximate idea of the number of prosecutions in these
cases is to gather them from the journals in which they
chance to appear as items of news. An attempt to effect
this has been made by Dr. Wahu, and though from the
nature of the case necessarily imperfect, it affords some
interesting and suggestive statistics. His list extends from
the beginning of 1861 to April 1879, and is thus tabu-
lated :—
1861 . 3
1862 . 2
1863 . I
1864 . I
1866 . 2
1867 . e tº tº ſº e tº ºs 3
1868 . º º * e ‘º & º 3 ,
1869 . e ſe * e tº tº ve 3
1872 . te e * g e . . 10
1873 . 6
1875 . 5
1876 . g tº tº º tº . . 1
1877 . . © g * > g . . 16 ,
1878 . e † e e & . . 35 ;
1879 (January to April) . e * . 19 ,
without its share of the weak or vicious, and there is no lack of scandals in the
Protestant denominations; but in these there is a wholesome jealousy which
usually seeks at once to cast out and punish the offender. Thus when, in July
1867, the Rev. Mr. Wendt, at an orphan institution near Philadelphia, was dis-
covered to be tampering with the virtue of the children under his charge, those
who were most nearly connected with the management of the asylum were the first
to take steps for his prosecution, and, as soon as the necessary legal proceedings
could be had, he was undergoing a sentence of fifteen years’ solitary confinement
without a voice being raised in palliation of his crime.
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 361
In all 110 cases, of which nearly one-half were brethren
connected with educational institutions.
The earlier years of this list must be necessarily
imperfect, and, indeed, M. Charles Sauvestre has given
details of nine cases occurring in schools in 1861," all
which have escaped Dr. Wahu, but, even making allow-
ance for the impossibility of hunting up all the fugitive
records of the past, the increase during recent years is not
to be regarded as indicating an increase of immorality. It
rather proves how powerful were the forces protecting the
Church and repressing publicity under the Second Empire.
The absence of cases in 1870–1 is probably attributable to
the preoccupations of the Franco-Prussian War and its
consequent troubles. While the presidency of M. Thiers,
in 1872, yielded 10 cases, the reactionary government of
Marshal MacMahon showed but 12 cases in four years.
After the fall of MacMahon the number rapidly increases,
the first four months of 1879 affording no fewer than 19
cases. Whether since then this rate of progression has
been maintained I have no means of knowing, but it is
to be hoped that the breaking up of the unauthorised
orders and the increased vigilance of the authorities, aided
by an aroused public sentiment, have led to a decrease in
the dismal record. One deplorable feature of many of
these cases is the large number of victims frequently
represented in a single prosecution, and that the perpe-
trator had often been afforded the opportunity of continu-
ing his crimes in successive situations. Thus, in the affair
of the Abbé Debra, at Liége, in 1877, there were 32
offences charged against him; and, of those occurring in
the single year 1878, Frère Marien was condemned for
no fewer than 299, Frère Mélisse, at Saint-Brice, for 50,
Frère Climène at Candé, Mazé, and Martigné-Ferchaud,
for 25, and Frère Adulphe at Guipry, Saint-Meloir-des-
1 Op. cit. pp. 138–44.
362 SACERDOTAL CELIBACY
Ondes, and Pleurtuit, for 67. It would be a libel on
human nature to assert that this catalogue of sin does not
represent more than an average of wickedness, and the
responsibility for the existence of so shocking a condition
of morality must, at least in part, be attributed to the rule
of celibacy.
| Irrespective of questions of morality, the rule of celi-
bacy in modern society is harmful to the State in pro-
portion as it contributes to the aggrandisement of those
who enforce it. A sacerdotal caste, divested of the
natural ties of family and of the world, with interests in
many respects antagonistic to the communities in which
its members reside, with aims which, from the nature of
the case, must be for the temporal advancement of its
class, is apt to prove a dangerous element in the body
politic, and the true interests of religion as well as of
humanity are almost as likely to receive injury as benefit
at its hands, especially when it is armed with the measure-
less power of confession and absolution, and is held in
strict subjection to a hierarchy. Such a caste would seem
to be the inevitable consequence of compulsory celibacy
in an ecclesiastical organisation such as that of the
Catholic Church, and the hierarchy based upon it can
scarce fail to become the enemy of human advancement,
so long as the priest continues to share the imperfections of
our common nature. How little the aims of that hierarchy
have changed with the lapse of ages may be seen in the
pretensions which it still advances, as of old, to subject
the temporal sovereignty of princes and peoples to the
absolute domination of the spiritual power. The temper
of Innocent III. and Boniface VIII. is still the leading in-
fluence in its policy, and the opportunity alone is wanting
for it to revive in the twentieth century the all-pervading
tyranny which it exercised in the thirteenth. Even the
THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY 363
separation of Church and State is condemned as a heresy,
and as the State is denied the privilege of defining
the limits of its own authority, and as the right of the
Church to use force is asserted, it would be difficult to
set bounds to the empire which is its rightful heritage,
and of which it is deprived by the irreligious tendencies
of the age.”
Yet, in spite of its reactionary efforts, and of its
antagonism to the progress which has made the centuries
since the Reformation the most important in the annals
of civilisation, the Church has still a part to play, more or
less beneficent as its rulers may be more or less sagacious.
Conservatism has its uses, and mankind at large has not
outgrown the necessity of the bridle as well as of the spur.
There were ages in which the Church was the leader in
knowledge and enlightenment; that it has become obscu-
rantist is due to the use which it made of its leadership to
so organise its temporal and spiritual domination that
further development of human intelligence could only be
accomplished through revolt, and it thus became the
enemy in place of the friend of advancement. The policy
then adopted rendered a reactionary position inevitable,
because in support of its theocratic aspirations it framed a
system of dogma assumed to be of divine revelation and
therefore unalterable as the will of God. Entrenched
behind this, it has, with varying success, defended its
position for more than three centuries. From the storms
of the Revolution it emerged with centralised Ultra-
montanism triumphant over the particularism known as
Gallicanism and Jansenism—a triumph which culminated
in the Council of the Vatican. This was too complete,
and since then signs have not been lacking of a growing
restlessness which may be provoked to schism or may be
soothed by wise concessions. The spirit of the age is not
1 Syllab. Dec. 1864, No. xix., xlii., liv., lv.
364 SAGERDOTAL CELIBACY
propitious for relentless discipline which will tolerate
nothing but blind obedience, and the Church may find
that only by yielding can it preserve its unity. The lesson
of the sixteenth century should not be forgotten, when
unwisdom cost it nearly half of its membership.
IND E X
ABBEY lands, disposition of, in Germany,
ii. 63–4, 66; England, ii. 91–2, 130;
Scotland, ii. 164–5; confiscated in
France, ii. 306–7; Italy, ii. 337
Abbo, St., of Fleury, inculcates beauty of
purity, i. 176; murdered by his monks,
i. 177
Abbot of Crossed Friars, immorality of,
ii. 9
Abbot of Langdon, immorality of, ii.
88
Abbot of Walden, secret marriage of,
ii. 105
Abbots, of Hungary in fifteenth century,
ii. 19 ; execution of English, ii. 97;
parliamentary, ii. 98
Abelard, description of monastic life by,
i. 319; marriage of, i. 324; “Sic et
Non " by, i. 389; speculations ad-
dressed to Heloise by, i. 433, note ; on
abuse of confessional, i. 436, note
Abingdon, abbey of, i. 193
Absalom of Scania, i. 301
Absolution, marketable commodity in
Rome, i. 443; given by “soliciting ”
priests to penitents,ii. 272; by “solicit-
ing” priests forbidden by Benedict
XIV., ii. 274; by “soliciting” priests
forbidden in Greek Church, ii. 274; by
guilty confessors denounced, ii. 273
Abstinence (sexual) in pagan priesthood,
i. 42
Abstinentes, heresy of, i. 20
Abuse of confessional (see Confessional)
Abyssinian Church, customs of, i. 99
Accomplice, immunity of, i. 355, note
Acephali, vagabond monks, i. 122
Adalbero of Metz ordains sons of priests,
i. 178
Adam de la Halle on Alexander IV., i.
414
Adamites, i. 470
Adam of Marisco, i. 357
Adela of Flanders, seeks to enforce celi-
bacy, i. 312; miraculous cure of, ii.
23, note
Adelaide of Savoy, Damiani asks inter-
position of, i. 239
Adolph of Nassau, ii. 34, note
Adrian I. asserts morality of his clergy,
i. 153
Adrian VI., receives complaint, Diet of
Nürnberg, ii. 34, note ; reproaches Diet
of Nurnberg, ii. 49 ; compares Luther
to Mahomet, ii. 60
Adulphe, Frère, prosecuted for 67 offences,
ii. 361–2
Adultery by ecclesiastics, Council of
Mexico on, ii. 250
Adulterous wives, of priests to be put
away, i. 27; of Calvinist ministers
ii. 152
Ælfric, St., of Canterbury, pastoral letter
of, i. 199
AEneas, Sylvius (see Pius II.)
Africa, Church of, Siricius enforces celi
bacy on, i. 64; celibacy not openly
resisted in, i. 74
African Church, celibacy discussed in
Carthage, i. 74; Donatist monks in,
i. 118, note
Agapetae, scandals of, condemned by
Council of Elvira, i, 43; Council of
Ancyra in 314, i. 47 ; arouse St.
Jerome's indignation, i. 47–8; Epi-
phanius testifies against, i. 48; worthy
attention Nicene fathers, i. 48
Age, minimum, for vows, in early Church,
i. 109, 116; in eighteenth century, ii.
302; for subdiaconate and priesthood,
ii. 340; canonical, for women resident
with priests, ii. 343
Agen, Manichæism in IIoo, i. 244
Agnes, Empress, made regent, i. 224;
deprived of regency, i. 235
Agumanes, Diego de, indecency of, in
confessional, ii. 269
Agrippa, Cornelius, on the clergy, ii. 37;
licences to sin, ii. 55, note; character
of Roman prelates, ii. 57, note
Aix la Chapelle, Council of, in 836, i. 156;
817, i. 156, note
Alain Chartier, Archdeacon of Paris, on
clerical morals, ii. 9
Alain de l'Isle, “Universal Doctor,” on
clerical morals, i. 396–7
366
INDEX
Alberic, Cardinal, and heretics, i. 463
Alberic of Marsico, crimes of, i. 176
Alberic of Ostia, legate to England, i. 341
Albero of Liége permits priestly mar-
riage, i. 295
Albero of Mercke, heresy of, i. 230, note
Albero of Verdun, efforts at reform by,
i. 318
Albert II. (Emperor) fines concubinary
priests, ii. 12
Albert of Bavaria, asks for clerical mar-
riage, ii. 195; presents request to
Pope, ii. 208 ; letter from Pius V. to,
ii. 223
Albertof Brandenburg, becomes Lutheran,
i. 457, ii. 63 ; founds hereditary duke-
dom of Prussia, i. 457
Albert, Primate of Germany, ii. 63, note
Albert of Hamburg, exhorts clergy to
continence, i. 211; measures of reform
by, i. 221
Albert of Mainz, addresses Frederic of
Saxony on marriage, ii. 42 ; imprisons
married priest, ii. 43
Albert, Miguel, and Mass of immoral
priest, ii. 245, note
Albigenses, heresy of, i. 245; attacked
by St. Bernard, i. 409 ; tenets of, i.
459–60
Alboin defends sacerdotal marriage, i. 51
Alby, heresy in, i. 464
Alcántara, Order of, i. 454
Alcobaça, Abbot of, head of Order of
St. Michael, i. 456
Alcuin on disorders of Saxon nunneries,
i. 190
Aldebert of Le Mans, shameless licen-
tiousness of, i, 318
Aldhelm, St., on errors of faith and disci-
pline, i. 188
Alemanni, unchastity of, i. 131, note
Alexander II., estimate of St. Peter
Damiani, i. 217 ; addresses Milanese
on heresies, i. 253; suppresses the
Liber Gomorrhianus, i. 219, note ; en-
forces reform, i. 237; is discouraged,
i. 241; protects the Jews, i. 242 ;
authorises war against priestly mar-
riage, i. 254 ; sends legation to Milan,
i. 256; efforts in Spain by, i. 371 :
sends letter to William the Conqueror,
i. 329; death of, i. 242; enforcement
of celibacy attributed to, i. 266
Alexander III., on married canons, i.
326; ceaselessly attempts reform in
England, i. 342 ; strives with Bar-
barossa, i. 393; on dissolution of mar-
riage, i. 396 ; thinks of introducing
discipline of Greek Church, i. 402; on
hereditary transmission of benefices,
ii. 174, note
Alexander IV., on licentious ecclesiastics,
i. 413 ; on corruption of laity by
priests, i. 436
Alexander VI., character of, i. 428 ;
grants marriage to Portuguese mili-
tary Orders, i. 455
Alexander VII., on love-letters in confes-
sion, ii. 267; on denunciation of a con-
fessor, ii. 273
Alfonso the Wise admits clerical celi-
bacy not apostolic, i. 14
Alfonso VI. (Castile) asks for a legate,
i. 372
Alfonso VIII., expedition of, to Portugal,
i. 374; becomes a canon and marries
following year, i. 375-6
Alfonso I. (Portugal) founds Orders of
St. Avis and St. Michael, i. 455, 456
Alfred on chastity of nuns, i. 191
Algiers, court of, decides on civil mar-
riage of priests, ii. 324
Alphonso Liguori, St., on clerical cor-
ruption, ii. 245, note
Altmann of Passau, enthusiastic papalist,
i. 271 ; renowned for piety, i. 273 ;
expelled by Henry IV. i. 273; returns
to diocese, i. 273
Alva, Duke of, success of, ii. 73 ; issues
commands to prelates at Utrecht, ii.
230
Alvarez Pelayo on Spanish clergy, i.
412
Amalfi (see Melfi)
Amandus of Maestricht, i. 141, note
* Bishop, papal legate to Spain,
i. 371
Amaury of Bène, i. 469
Ambrogio Caterino disputes with Lu-
ther, ii. 41
Ambrose, St., admits ancient custom of
non - celibacy, i. 66 ; synod under
auspices of, condemns Jovinian, i. 69;
general of Order of Camaldoli, ii. 8;
succeeds in labours for celibacy, i. 81
Ambrose, St., of Camaldoli and amorous
abbot, ii. 8
Amedeus of Savoy, ii. 27
America (see United States, Canada,
and Spanish Colonies)
Ammonius Saccas and Neo-Platonic
philosophy, i. 28
Ammonius, St., triumphs over the flesh,
i. 220, note
Amort, Dr., on morals in eighteenth
century, ii. 266
Anabaptists, ii. 68
Anaclet (anti-pope) enforces celibacy,
i. 294
Anastasius (Emperor),
against, i. 118
Anathema for disbelief
ii. 204
Ancarono, opinion of, upon concubines
of priests, i. 421
Ancyra, Council of, in 314, allows mar-
riage of priests, i. 47; denounces
agapetae, i. 47
insurrection
in celibacy,
INDEX
367
Andrea of Wallombrosa on Milanese
clergy, i. 247, note
Andreas of Lunden on concubines, i. 231,
ºn,0te
Andrew, Bishop of Tarentum, case of,
i. 138, note
Angelric, priest of Wasnaw, publicly
married, i. 162
* demoralisation of clergy in,
ll.
Anglican bishops, marriage of, ii. 146
Anglican clergy, restrictions on marriage
of, ii. 122; flexibility of faith of,
ii. 140; evil influence of marriage of,
ii. 145–6; position of, according to
Macaulay, ii. 149
Anglican Church, the, ii. 77–149; Queen
Elizabeth, estimate of the, ii. 141
Anglican ritual, marriage service in,
ii. 122
Anglo-Irish Church, disorders of, i. 361
Anglo-Saxon Church, disorders of, i. 168;
celibacy enjoined in, i. 39
Angoulême, amour of Archdeacon of,
i. 325
Anjou, Council of, in 453, i. 82
Ann of Cleves, marriage of, ii. 115
Annates, increase of, by Popes, ii. 33;
withdrawn by Henry VIII., ii. 85
Anse, Council of, in 990, i. 181
Anselm, St., on Sacraments of sinful
priests, i. 229, note; reforms by, i. 331,
332 ; exiled, i. 334 ; death of, i. 337
Anselmo di Badagio, afterwards Pope
Alexander II., i. 235, 246; sent to
Milan, i. 251 (see Alexander II.)
Anthony, Bishop of Ephesus, crimes of,
i. 90
Anthony, Archbishop of Prague, ii. 232,
235
Antony, St., retires to the desert, i. 105;
has many followers, i. 117
Antichrist, anticipation of, ii. 9
Antidicomarianitarians, heresy of, i. 68
Antoin, married canons of, i. 326
Antonelli, Cardinal, imprisons Panzini,
ii. 326
Antwerp, synod of, in 1610, ii. 236
Apel, John, punished for marrying, ii. 49
Apocalypsis Goliae, i. 345
Apollinaris of Rhodez, i. 132, note
Apollo, compulsory celibacy of priest-
esses of, i. 43
Apostolic canons on digami, i. 24; permit
priestly marriage, i. 40, 44
Apostolic constitutions on digami, i. 24;
allow retention of wives married before
ordination, i. 28; regarding widows,
ii. 27
Apostolici, heresy of, i. 105, note
Apologie du Célibat Chrétien, ii. 299
Appeals to Rome, immunity caused by,
i. 158–9 ; effect of, i. 398; forbidden
by Alexander IV., i. 414 ; forbidden in
cases of immorality by Council of
Trent, ii. 206
Ap Rice visits monastic houses in
England, ii. 87, 105
Aquinas, St. Thomas, admits that Christ
did not enforce celibacy, i. 13; on sac-
raments of sinful priests, i. 229, note ;
on vows, i. 396, note
Arab monachism, nature of, i. 46, note
Arabic version of Nicene canons, i. 111
Aranda, Council of, in, 1473 ii. 17
Arbuckle, Friar, disputes with Knox, ii.
167
Archembald of Sens, evil example of,
i. 175
Archives, Spanish, researches in, ii. 249,
note ; recent access to, ii. 283
Arechis of Beneventum, edict of, i. 143
Aretino, abuses in Church of, i. 168
Arfastus of Thetford, i. 329
Arialdo, St., candidate for archbishopric,
Milan, i. 246; accompanies Erlembaldo
to Rome, i. 254 ; is excommunicated,
i. 250; procures excommunication of
Archbishop Guido, i. 255; put to death
by satellites of Guido, i. 256; miracles
at tomb of, i. 256
Arianism, celibacy under, i. 135
Arith, William, on abuses, ii. 155,
Arles, Council of, in 314, i, 43, note ; in
443, i. 82
Armagh, hereditary Archbishops of, i.
361
Armagnac, Cardinal of, Pius V. urges
reforms on, ii. 241
Armenia, Council of, in 1362, i. 96, note;
hereditary priesthood in, i. 96
Arnaldo de Peralta attempts reforms,
i. 379
Arnold of Brescia drives Eugenius III.
from Rome, i. 388
Arnolfo, a reformer, fate of, i. 424
Arran, Regent, favours Reformation,
ii. 158; power wrested from, ii. 162
Artemis, celibate priestesses for, i. 43
Arthur of Brittany, a canon of Tours,
i. 376, note
Artices, Thirty-nine, clerical marriage in,
ii. 140
Aiºlº Forty-two, clerical marriage in,
II.
Articles, the Six, enacted by Parliament,
ii. 111 ; heretics burned under, ii. 97,
note ; modification of, ii. 115; repeal
of, ii. 117; popular call for restoration
of, ii. 120 ; virtually revived under
Mary, ii. 137; repealed under Eliza-
beth, ii. 137
Arundel of Canterbury on Lollards, i. 476
Asceticism, foreign to Hebrew tradition,
i. 4 ; of early Christians, i. 17 ; of
heretical sects, i. 20; stimulated by
Buddhism, i. 22; growing tendency
towards, i. 22; Neo-Platonism borrows
368
INDEX
from, i. 28; is influenced by Mani-
chaeism, i. 34 ; after combat, Church
virtually assents to, i. 36; triumph of,
is not undisturbed, i. 39–40; of pagans
of the Empire, i. 42; furthered by
prohibition of women as ministers, i.
56; demands artificial purity, i. 57; not
yet an article of faith and discipline,
i. 57; Bonosus, Jovinian, and Vigilan-
tius, leaders against, i. 67; voluntary,
in fourth century, i. 53 ; becomes obli-
gatory, i. 59; voluntary in the East, i.
88–9; not adopted in Armenia, i. 96;
fanciful views regarding, i. 269, note;
gains adherents among laity, i. 287;
in Irish Church, i. 184, 360; virtually
ignored in Spain in twelfth cen-
tury, i. 376 ; in middle ages, i. 431;
rigid, of monk of Wallis Dei, i. 448; of
military Orders, i. 451, 454; of Albi-
genses, i. 463; of Petrobrusians, i. 463;
opposed by Brethren of the Free Spirit,
i. 470; of Wickcliffe, i. 475; of Hussites,
i. 479 ; Clement VII. on Lutheran stig-
matising of, ii. 151 ; Hosius, Bishop of
Ermeland, on, ii. 192
Ashera, worship of, i. 4
Assembly, National, secularises Church
property, ii. 306–7 ; legalises clerical
marriage, ii. 309
Assermentés, ii. 308
Assideans, i. 8
Astorga, Bishop of, on Tridentine canons,
ii. 207
Astrolabius, son of Abelard, i. 324
Athanasius, St., testifies to freedom of
priests to marry, i. 52–3
Athenagoras, references by, to chastity
and marriage, i. 19 ; on second mar-
riage, i. 23; on asceticism, i. 113
Athravas, hereditary transmission by,
i. 6
Atto of Vercelli, on female ministration,
i. 57; on marriage of priests, i. 167
Attys, myth of, i. 42
Auditors, Manichaean, i. 37
Augsburg, Council of (tenth century), i.
48, note; in 952, i. 171 ; Diet of, in
1530, ii. 64; “Confession ” of, ii. 65;
synod of, in 1548, ii. 187; Diet of
adopts code of reformation, ii. 186
Augsburg formula of reformation, ii. 188;
formula published, ii. 191; confession
of, examined by Cochlaeus, ii. 210, note
Augustin of Canterbury and celibacy, i.
185–6
Augustin, St., special pleading of, on
Jewish priesthood, i. 5, note; on mar-
riage, i. 38; promotes asceticism, i. 75;
succeeds in labours for celibacy, i. 81;
describes morals of wandering monks, i.
1.12; says that marriage of nuns is
binding, i. 114; on danger arising from
female residence, i. 157, note
Augustin, rule of, adopted by military
Orders, i. 451
Augustinians, of Gloucester, suppression
of, ii. 96; Martin Luther belongs to
Order of, ii. 43, 44; of Wittenberg
throw open their doors, ii. 44; enfran-
chise themselves at Nürnberg, ii. 51
Aunts, residence of, forbidden for priests,
i. 156
Aurelian, St., of Arles, rule of, i. 125
Aurelius, St., advocates celibacy, i. 74 ;
proposes canon ordering married
priests to leave wives, i. 75
Auricular confession, commencement of,
ii. 252, note
Ausch, Congrès fraternel of, in 1793, ii.
312
Austin Friars of Gloucester suppressed,
ii. 96
Austria, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
300; “Old Catholics" in, ii. 329; civil
marriage in, ii. 330
Autun, Prince Talleyrand Bishop of, ii.
317; marries, ii. 317
Auvergne, Council of, in 535, i. 84, note
Auxerre, Council of, in 578, i. 84, note ;
persecution of celibates in, ii. 312
Availles, case occurring at, in 1817, ii. 358
Avellana, monks of, i. 217
Avesbury, nunnery of, shamelessness of
abbess of, i. 343
D'Avesnes, case of, i. 399–400
Avignon, residence of Popes in, i. 425;
scandalous morals of, i. 425; Council
of, in, I594, ii. 241
Avila, Pedro de, ii. 214; envoy of Philip
II. to Pius IV., ii. 216–17
Avis, Order of, i. 455
Avranche, Council of, in 1172, i. 394
Ayenbite of Inwyt, i. 434, note
BABEUS grants ecclesiastical marriage,
i. 98–9
Babueus, Patriarch of Seleucia, excom-
municates Barsuma, i. 98
Bachelors ineligible for episcopate, i. 27,
720te
Badegisilus of Le Mans, i. 132, note
Baden, priests of, petition for leave to
marry, ii. 325
Baithusin, hereditary priesthood of, i. 5
Baldric of Dol, i. 312
Bale, Bishop of Ossory, controversial
writing of, ii. 118
Bâle, Council of, in 1432, i. 477, note ;
Hussites reconciled at, i. 477, note ;
clerical marriage suggested at, ii. 26,
canons of, affirmed in Scotland, ii. 159
Balfour, Andrew, ii. 157
Balsamon on legislation of Greek Church,
i. 93, note
Balthazar Cossa, afterwards John XXIII.,
i. 426
Balthazar Sturmius, married monk, ii. 45
INDEX
369
Baltimore, Council of, in 1829, ii. 352
Bamberg, troubles of, in 1431, ii. 11;
morals of clergy in 1505 in, ii. 58,
720te
Bandello, Bishop, on clerical immorality
in Italy, ii. 57
Bangor, morals of clergy in, ii. 105-6
Baptism by immoral priests, i. 187, 437;
repetition of, refused by Ecgberht, i.
187
Baptisma igneum, ii. 68
Barba, Canon Miguel, superintendent of
convents, ii. 286
Barbarians, the, and the Church, i. 130–
40; superior morality of, i. 86
Barbarossa, strife of, with Alexander III.,
i. 393; not allowed to enter Fulda, ii.
23, note
Bardsey, Culdees of, i. 367, note
Bari, military Bishop of, i. 209
Baronius on Gregory of Nazianzum, i. 53,
72Ofé
Barrios, Bishop of Santafé, regulations of,
ii. 246
Barry, Mr., researches of, in Spanish
archives, ii. 249, note
Barsuma, Metropolitan of Nisibi, i. 98
Bartelot, John, on bribes by Abbot of
Crossed Friars, ii. 97, note
Bartholomew of Bracara demands re-
forms, ii. 198
Barzi, Vincenzo, has light punishment
for solicitation, ii. 282
Basil, St., strict enforcement of canonby,
i. 88, note
Basilica of Leo the Philosopher, quoted
by Photius, i. 93
Basilides, heresy of, i. 21
Basinus of Treves, i. 145
Bastardy increased by enforced celibacy,
ii. 347
Bathing, promiscuous,
Cyprian, i. 31
Baumgartner, August, speaks at Council
of Trent, ii. 178, 221
Bavaria, marriage of nuns forbidden in
772, i. 153, note; demand for clerical
marriage in, ii. 75, 194–6 ; rising in,
to demand priestly marriage and cu
for laity, ii. 201, note; “Old Catholic ’’
movement in, ii. 329
Beards, clergy insist on wearing, ii. 231
Beatoun, Cardinal, immorality of, ii.
157–8
Beauvais, Massieu, Bishop of, publicly
married, ii. 310
Bede, the Venerable, on Aaron’s linen
breeches, i. 63, note ; praises St.
Columba's disciples, i. 185
Beggars’ Petition, the, ii. 90
Beggars, legislation against,
Henry VIII., ii. 94
Begghards in Germany, i. 469; errors
of, i. 471, note
VOL. II.
rebuked by
under
Béguines, brotherhood of, i. 469
Belgium, Mgr. Sterckx, Archbishop of
Mechlin, addressed on morals in, ii.
346
Bellarmine, Cardinal, on story of Paph-
nutius, i. 51 ; far-fetched logic of, on
celibacy, ii. 297
Beltis, Babylonian, i. 4
Benchor, monastery of, i. 360, note
Benedict VIII. enforces celibacy, i.
206
Benedict IX., scandalous life of, i. 208;
driven out of Rome, i. 214 ; returns,
and sells papal dignity, i. 214 ; re-
instated as Pope, i. 218
Benedict XIII. canonises St. Toribio of
Peru, ii. 247
Benedict XIV., bull on “solicitation ”
by, ii. 267, 274 ; denounces inquiry of
name of partner in guilt, ii. 276 ; on
civil marriage, ii. 330
Benedict of Camin on clerical morals,
ii. 19
Benedict the Levite on residence of
female relatives, i. 157, note
Benedict, St., of Nursia, i. 122, note, 123;
rule promulgated by, i. 124–5; be-
comes universal, i. 125; supplemented
by Louis le Debonnaire, i. 154;
adopted by military orders, i. 451
Benedictine Order, saints in the, i. 126;
contentions of, with Franciscans, i.
415 ; peaceful arts owe preservation
to, i. 445
Benefices held, by tenure of chastity, i.
382; bestowal of, on servants, ii. 173;
hereditary (see Hereditary transmis-
sion)
Benefit of clergy extended to concubines
of priests, i. 421
Benevento, “Madame Grand ” becomes
Princess of, ii. 318–19
Benzo, Bishop, account of Hildebrandby,
i., 231, note ; use of term “Paterini.”
by, i. 249, note; on Nicolitism, i.
284, note
Berardi, on confessional, ii. 267, note,
351, note; on laxity in Liguori, ii.
268, note
Berengaria of Barcelona, i. 376
Bºr of Tours, on priestly marriage,
i. 30
Bernald of Constance disputes on celi-
bacy, i. 50-1; disbelieves story of
Paphnutius, i. 51
Bernard, St., reforms by, i. 319; miracle
wrought by, i. 321–2; on barbarism
of Ireland, i. 361, note; hymn by, on
St. Malachi, i. 362, note ; on dissolu-
tion of priestly marriage, i. 389 ; on
the Albigenses, i. 409; on Petrobu-
sians, i. 463 ; on licentiousness of
Rome, i. 430; on revival of Mani-
chaeism, i. 409
2 A
370
INDEX
Bernard of Font Cauld on Waldenses,
i. 468
Bernard of Tiron preaches reform, i.
311
Bernhardi, Bartholomew, pastor, mar-
riage of, ii. 42
Bernhardus Baptisatus, ii. 4
Beroalde de Verville, ii. 241
Bertolf, Duke of Carinthia, has menacing
letter from Pope Gregory, i. 277
Bertrand, St., of Comminges, miracle of,
i. 325
Berytus, synod of, i. 86
Besançon, synod of, in 1689, ii. 274
Beth Sopherim uphold doctrine of future
life, i. 8
Beverege, John, burnt, ii. 166
Beza, Theodore, on Anglican priestly
marriage, ii. 139, note
Bèze, charter to monastery of, i. 320
Bhagavad-gita and Christianity, i. 99,
720te
Bhikshus and Bhikshunis (Buddhist), i.
101
Bidone, Luigi, priest of Oliva Gessi, case
of, ii. 350
Bigamy of priests in tenth century, i.
194; in eleventh century, i. 200; in
twelfth century, i. 295 ; caused by
celibacy, i, 338
Bigorre, legalised concubinage in, i. 231,
720te
Bilio, Cardinal, author of the Syllabus,
ii. 328
Bird, Bishop of Chester, repudiates wife,
ii. 126, note
Bisantio of Bari, i. 209
Bishops, marriage of (see Marriage)
Bishop of Le Mans son of priest, i. 241
Bishops, to be husband of one wife, i.
26 ; number of digamous, i. 26, 183;
retain wives, in Coptic Church, i. 100;
must have witnesses to purity of living,
i. 147; nominated by Merovingians, i.
132; immoral character of many, i. 133;
to provide security for diocesan pro-
perty, i. 137; increase of power for, i.
152; military, i. 175, note; debate in
assembly of German, i. 178; warlike
character of, in tenth century, i. 175,
note; in eleventh century, i. 209;
openly married in Rome itself, i. 210;
Damiani declaims against depravity
of, i. 233; disaffected at synod of
Pavia, i. 259; Scandinavian, take con-
cubines to visitations, ii. 2; ordered
to eject concubines or lose prefer-
ment, ii. 6; ordered by Henry VIII.
to arrest married priests, ii. 107; de-
prived under Edward VI. and Mary,
ii. 126; under Elizabeth, ii. 126;
French, ordered not to interfere with
priests’ marriages, ii. 314
Bishoprics, hereditary in Brittany, i. 312;
in Ireland, i. 361; created from English
monasteries, ii. 99–100
blº Bishop, persecutes Lollards,
ii. 155
Blanca, Sor Antonio, illicit relations in
confessional, ii. 286
Blas Ortiz, Vicar General of Toledo, tries
immoral priest, ii. 254
Blood-letting of monks, i. 156
Boccaccio, plain speaking of, i. 432
Bodonus on “intention” in confessional
questions, ii. 267
Bohemia, enforcement of celibacy in,
i. 293–4 ; Calixtins in, i. 480; Maxi-
milian of, ii. 199, 210, 211; communion
in both kinds for, ii. 212
Bois le Duc, synod of, in 1612, ii. 237
Boisset, Father, appeals to civil au-
thorities for marriage, ii. 319
Bºº. Balthazar Cossa legate in,
i. 42
Bºe. Niccolò, Bishop of Chiusi,
ii. 1
Bonaventura, on absolution, i. 431, note ;
on abuse of confessional, i. 436, note;
quoted by Boussard, ii. 27–8; on
priests and female penitents, ii. 253
Boniface of Canterbury, i. 353
Boniface of Lausanne, i. 423
Boniface, St., asceticism of, i. 142; as-
sists Carloman to reform morals, i. 144;
relations with Gervilius, i. 146; admits
universal licentiousness, i. 146; ad-
vised by Pope Zachary to leave Milo
to divine vengeance, i. 145; reforms
Frankish clergy, i. 147; falls under
sword of Frisians, i. 150; appeal of, to
Cuthbert of Canterbury, i. 188
Bonizo deposed and martyred, i. 263
Bonn, “Old Catholic” synod of, in 1878,
ii. 329
Bonner, Bishop, deprives married priests,
ii. 125, note ; visitation of London by,
ii. 126; scandals concerning, ii. 135
Bonosiacs, i. 67
Bonosus opposed to ascetic spirit, i. 67;
denounced by Siricius, i. 67 ; and fol-
lowers, by Council of Capua, i. 67–8;
followers of, referred to in Penitential
St. Columban, i. 68
Book of Discipline, Knox, ii. 164
|Books of canon law burned by Luther,
ii. 41
Bora, Catharine von, escapes from con-
vent of Nimptschen, ii. 50 ; marries
Luther, ii. 51
Bordeaux, Council of, in 1624, ii. 240
Borgia, Roderic, character of, i. 428
Borromeo, St. Charles of, ii. 227
Bosnia, heretics of, i. 462, note
Bossaert d’Avesnes, case of, i. 398–9
Bossu d'Arras, Le, on Alexander IV.
i. 414
Bossuet, probable marriage of, ii. 298
INDEX
371
Botoa, monastery of, i. 374
Bouhier de l’Ecluse, ii. 323, note
Bourbon, Cardinal of, ii. 241
Bourges, Council of, in Io91, i. 207; in
1528, ii. 173; in 1800, ii. 315; Torné,
Bishop of, publicly married, ii. 310
Bourne, Sir John, complains of dean and
chapter, Worcester, ii. 142; quarrels
with Dr. Sandys, ii. 148
Boussard, Geoffroi, dissertation of, on
priestly continence, i. 15, ii. 27
Boyer on “droit de marquette,” i. 441,
720te
Bracton on position of concubines, i. 231,
'note
Bracara, Archbishop of, ii. 198
Braga, Councils of, i. 84, note
Brahmanism, asceticism of, i. 7
Branda, Cardinal, reforms of, ii. 7
Brantôme, on shameless papal court, i.
426 ; on Cardinal de Châtillon, ii. 153,
note ; on morals under Catherine de
Medicis, ii. 241
Brazil, suppression of monasteries in, ii.
338
Brecislas of Bohemia, i. 290
Bremen, Council of, in 1266, i. 303
Bremen, Archbishop of, receives letter
from Pius IV., ii. 222, note
Breslau, Council of, in 1416, i. 419 ; in
1580, ii. 233
Brethren of the Free Spirit, i. 469; re-
suscitation of, ii. 68
Bribes to avert suppression of monas-
teries, ii. 93, note
Brice, St., story of, concerning paternity
of child, i. 79–80
Bridfrith, Life of St. Dunstan, i. 192, note
Bristol, see of, created, ii. 100
Brittany, Church of, i. 134, note ; priestly
marriage in, i. 312
British clergy, corruption of, i. 183;
Church, discipline of, i. 184; in ninth
century, i. 198
Briviesca, Sebastian, guilty priest, quietly
sent away, ii. 216
Brothels, kept by prelates, ii. 57; Louis
XV. orders arrest of priests frequent-
ing, ii. 303
Brou-Laurière, M. de, case of marriage
of, ii. 323
Brixen, schismatic synod of, in Io8o,
i. 284
Brück, “Kirche in Deutschland,” ii. 336,
*ote
Brunhilda appeals to Gregory the Great,
i. 139
Bruno of Toul created Pope as Leo IX.,
i. 218
Bruno, St., reforms by, i. 319; founds
Grande Chartreuse, ii. 23, note
Brunswick, chapter of, in 1476, ii. 18
Brut y Tywysogion on married priests,
i. 198
Buccer insists on priestly marriage, ii.
72, note
Buchanan, David, on Langlande, ii. 78,
710te
Buddha, reduces Sankhyism to religious
system, i. 6–7; supposed virgin birth
of, i. 22
Buddhism, many observances of Latin
Christianity derived from, i. 23; mo-
nastic orders of, i. 101–2
Bulgaria, Manichaeism transmit t e d
through, i. 244, 459
Bulgarian Church, rules for, i. 161
Bull, Pius III., suppressed, ii. 185
Bull, papal, Exsurge Domine, ii. 40 ; In-
junctum nobis, ii. 131; Ad canonum,
ii. 174, note ; Quenadmordum sollicitus,
ii. 229, note ; Cum sicut nuper, ii. 258,
note; Universi Dominici Gregis, ii. 264;
Sacramentum Poenitentia, ii. 267, 275,
357; Etsi pastoralis, ii. 275, note;
Apostolicae sedis, ii. 277; Dominicus
ac Redemptor, ii. 335 ; In coena Do-
mine, ii. 355 -
Burchardi Decretorum, ii. 251, note
Burchard, master of ceremonies to Alex-
ander VI., i. 429
Burckhardt of Worms on celibacy, i. 206
Burdino, Maurice, anti-pope, i. 385
Bure, Idelette de, wife of Calvin, ii. 151
Burghley tries to restrain Queen Eliza-
beth, ii. 143
Burgos, Council of, in Io&o, i. 372
Burial, Christian, denied to married
priests, i. 225; to concubines, i. 380
Burmah, number of “lamas” in, i. 103
Burnet, Bishop, on English monasteries
ii. 90,98, 99; on date of Beggars’ Peti-
tion, ii. 91, note ; on matrimonialists
under Edward VI., ii. 118; on Anglican
doctrine and worship under Edward
VI., ii. 121 ; on Articles of English
Church, ii. 140, note
Burning alive threatened for married
priests in 1524, ii. 48
Bussy-Rabutin, ii. 242
Butler, John, on priestly marriage, ii.
109, note
CABASSUT on apostolic canons, i. 41, note
Cadalus, elected anti-pope, i. 235; party
of, broken up, i. 237
Cadam, transaction of, in 1553, ii. 69–70
Cadiz, Cortes of, in 1813, ii. 336
Caesarea, synod at, i. 58
Caesarius, St., of Arles, on marriage of
nuns, i. 123; rule of, i. 125
Caesarius of Heisterbach, on influence of
priesthood, i. 431; on priestly “solici-
tation,” ii. 276
Caietano, Cardinal, at Diet of Augsburg,
ii. 46
Cain Patraic, i. 360
Caisho, priest of, ii. 134, note
372
INDEX
Calabria, celibacy enforced in, i. 78, 395
Calatrava, Knights of, allowed to marry,
i. 454
Calini, Archbishop, reports from Trent, ii.
202
Calixtins, the, i. 479
Calixtus I., Hippolytus enumerates evil
ways of, i. 25
Calixtus II., enforces celibacy in France,
i. 323; scanty success of, i. 385 ; lines
written on, i. 349 ; sermon of, on abuse
of confessional, ii. 253 ; declares mar-
riage dissolved by orders, i. 385-6
Calixtus, work on celibacy by, ii. 300
Calne, Council of, in 978, i. 198
Calvi, Donato, on religious orders, i. 104–
5, note
Calvin, Confession of Faith, ii. 151 ; mar-
riage of, ii. 151
Calvinism, ii. 150–170
Calvinists, marriage of, ii. 152; dispute
with Lutherans and Philippists, ii. 225,
note; marriage of Calvinist woman to
priest, ii. 238
Calvo, Fray Francisco, denounces him-
self for improper flagellation, ii. 279
Camaldoli, monks of, i. 213; demoralisa-
tion of, ii. 8
Cambrai, Manichaeism at, in IO25, i. 244;
man burned at, for Hildebrandine
doctrine, i. 282,312 ; neglects to adopt
Augsburg Formulary, ii. 191 ; Council
of, in 1300, ii. 244 ; 1550, ii. 191 ; I565,
ii. 239; 1661, ii. 273
Camin, synod of, in I454, ii. 20, note
Campeggi, Cardinal, persecutes married
priests, ii. 48 ; sent to Germany to
check heresy, ii. 57; co-legate in Queen
Katherine's divorce, ii. 83 ; assists in
suppression of monasteries, ii. 83
Canonical age for women resident with
priests, ii. 186
Canons, apostolical (see Apostolical)
Canons, regular, institution of, i. 152; of
Fécamp, expulsion of, i. 179, note ; dis-
cussion on marriage of, i. 317; forced
to cloistered life, i. 319; marriage of,
in twelfth century, i. 326; hereditary in
England, i. 330; replace Culdees, in
Scotland, i. 367; laxity of rule of, i.
375–6; demoralisation of, in fifteenth
century, ii. 15; unclerical habits of
German, in fourteenth century, i. 422,
note; morals of, in Brunswick in 1476,
ii. 18; Gardiner ordered to eject from
Westminster, ii. 126, note
Canterbury, Christ Church, in eleventh
century, i. 199; number of married
clergy in archdeaconry of, ii. 139, note
“Capacities” given to ejected monks, ii.
93
Capito, Wolfgang Fabricius, persecutes
married priests, ii. 43 ; is married, ii.
Caprara, Cardinal, legate, on married
priests, ii. 316
Capua, Council of, in 389, i. 68
Caraffa, Cardinal, becomes Pope, ii. 131 ;
head of commission for reform, ii. 183
Cardinalate, childlessness requisite for,
ii. 227
Cardinal’s College,
foundation, ii. 83
Cardinal’s College,
foundation, ii. 82
Carloman seeks aid of Church, i. 144 ;
endeavours to reform Church, i. 148;
enters monastery of Monte Casino, i.
151
Carlostadt, advocates priestly marriage,
ii. 43; treatise of, ii. 43 -
Carlovingians, the, i. 141–63
Carmelites, miraculous scapular of, i.
415 ; Franciscan attacks in “Creed of
Piers Ploughman,” i. 439, note
Carmelite convents, male and female, at
Rome, with underground communica-
tion, ii. 305
Carnarvonshire, complaint
priests in, ii. 16–17
Carpocrates, heresy of, i. 20
Carracioli, Bishop of Troyes, married, ii.
152, mote
Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, on
“solicitation,” ii. 255
Carterius, Bishop, case of, i. 26
Carthage, Council of, in 348, i. 109; third
and fourth Councils, in 397 and 398, i.
74; fifth Council of, in 4or, i. 75
Carthusian asceticism, i. 448
Carthusians of London resist Henry VIII.,
ii. 85–6
Cashel, Archbishop, interrogates Clement
III. on children of bishops, i. 363
Cashel, Council of, in 1171, i. 364
Cassander, George, advocates priestly
marriage, ii. 210
Cassation, Court of, ii. 322, 324
Cassianus, heretical views of, i. 20
Cassianus, John, abbot of St. Victor,
Marseilles, i. 122
Cassiodorus relates story of Paphnutius,
i. 52
Caste, priestly, hereditary transmission
would create, i. 347
Castel-Fuerte, Marques del, ii. 248
Castillo y Ayensa, ii. 336, note
Castration of Galli, i. 42
Casuistry, applied to “solicitation,” ii.
; 271 ; effect of, on morality, ii.
6
Catalini, work on Congregation of Index,
ii, 184, note
Catarini, Cardinal, president of Consulta,
on canons and discipline, Vatican
Council, ii. 328
Catarino, Ambrogio, controversy with
Luther, ii. 41
Ipswich, Wolsey's
Oxford, Wolsey's
regarding
INDEX
373
, Celibates, disabilities of, removed, i. 107
Caterina, St., de Pistoia on immorality of
confessors, ii. 304
Cathari, heresy of, i. 245, 459
Catharine von Bora, ii. 50, 51
Catherine de Medicis and the Council of
Trent, ii. 221–2; request on priestly
marriage and cup for laity, ii. 239
Catholicism, observances of, borrowed
from Buddhism, i. 23
Catholics “Old,” ii. 329
Catholics, persecution of, in Scotland,
ii. 169–70
Caumont, case of married priest in, i. 310
Cavour introduces civil marriage in
Sardinia, ii. 330
Cayetana de la Providencia, Sor, case of,
ii. 285–6
Céle-dé or Culdee, i. 366
Celestin III. sends legate to Bohemia,
i. 293 ; on hereditary transmission of
benefices, i. 404
Celestin I. (pseudo) on abuse of confes-
sional, ii. 252
Celibacy, argument as to early practice
of, i. 12; St. Jerome admits lack of
injunction for, i. 13; first command to
clergy to practise, i. 59, 62 ; decretal
of Siricius to Archp. Himerius on, i.
63; evidence that discipline of, was
new, i. 65; Jovinian denies efficacy of,
i. 69; decretal of Siricius opposed by
Vigilantus, i. 71 ; decretal of Siricius
made compulsory in Gaul and Spain, i.
72; progress of, not effectually resisted,
i. 74 ; not enforced by third or fourth
Council of Carthage, 74–5; Church in
Gaul neglects rule of, i. 78; resisted
after decretals of Siricius, i. 78;
Western Church committed to, i. 81;
numerous councils discuss, i. 83; in
West, matter of discipline, not doc-
trine, i. 94 ; canons of Quinisext on,
i. 94; laxity of practice of, i. 96 ;
views of Abyssinian and Coptic Chris-
tians on, i. 99–100; Saxon Church re-
gardless of, i. 203; zeal of Gregory
VII. for, i. 260; attributed to Gregory
I. and Gregory VII., i. 139, 266 ;
Alexander II. and Leo IX. on, i. 266 ;
great influence of, upon Church, i. 267;
enforcement of, causes riots in Passau,
i. 273 ; of military orders, i, 451, 454 ;
of heretical sects, i. 459 ; Wickcliffe’s
views upon, doubtful, i. 474 ; attacked
by John Laillier, ii. 29; Luther stig-
matises rule of, ii.41; Bernhardistigma-
tises rule of, ii. 42 ; numerous books in
sixteenth century ridicule, ii. 103; a
point of faith, in Council of Paris,
I528, ii. 172; dispensations from vows
of, ii. 173–4; supported by better part
of clergy, Reign of Terror, ii. 313; ques-
tion of, not settled by Concordat, ii.
319
Celsus of Armagh, i. 361
Celtic Churches, original pure simplicity
of, i. 360
Cenobites, beginning of society of, i. 105 ;
janizaries of Cyril, i. 117
Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ii. 242, note
Ceres, celibacy of priestesses of, i. 43
Cesarini, Cardinal, refuses to dissolve
Council, ii. 10
Ceuta, hard labour in, ii. 291
Ceylon, number of monks in, i. 103
Chabot, M. Charles, computes number of
French ecclesiastics, ii. 313, note
Chalcedon, Council of, in 451, i. 118
Chaldean and Mazdean belief in future
life, i. 8
Chalons, Council of, in 893, i. 162
Charibert, laws of, on forcible marriage,
i. 134
Charity of monastic orders, i. 446,
ii. 101
Charity and education,Concordat of 1851
re-establishes orders devoted to, ii. 336,
337
Charlemagne, carries out Church organi-
sation, i. 152—3; representations to
Adrian I. by, i. 153
Charles, Archduke, asks for clerical mar-
riage, ii. 212
Charles Borromeo, St., ii. 227 ; orders
use of confessional box, ii. 255
Charles-le-Chauve argues against papal
pretensions, i. 159
Charles the Lame, i. 420
Charles Martel, oppresses the Church,
i. 145 ; condemned to eternal torture,
i. 146; tomb of, opened, i. 146
Charles IV. (Emperor) urges reform,
i. 422, mote
Charles V., policy of, in 1530, ii. 64;
temporises with Reformation, ii. 69,
72 ; issues the Interim, ii. 73 ; demands
dispensations for married priests, ii.
74; accepts Reformation, ii. 75–6;
demands reassembling of Council of
Trent, ii. 75; objects to transfer of
Council to Bologna, li. 74; seeks to
reform German Church, ii. 179, note
Charles VII. (France) fines concubinary
priests, ii. 12
Charles VIII., Neapolitan conquest by,
ii. 31
Charles IX. (France) favours clerical
marriage, ii. 197
Charles X. tries to introduce Jesuits,
ii. 338
Charles de Valoisintervenes in Flanders,
i. 400
Charter House, fate of monks of, ii
85–6
Charter of Oswald’s Law, i. 195
Chartrier, Alain, on condition of Church.
ii. 9
374
INDEX
Chartreuse, strictness of rule of, ii. 23,
quote
olºdim (Assideans of the Vulgate),
l
Chastity, of barbarians praised by Sal-
vianus, i. 131 ; feudal tenure by, i.
176; gift of to be obtained by seeking,
i. 409; Archbishop of Trèves on, ii.
187; sacrifice of, i. 4; vows of, intro-
duced, i. 30 ; perversion of vows of,
i. 142–3; vow of, necessary for holy
orders, i. 207
cºity, proverbial, of Irish women, ii.
Chataigneu, Abbé, court of Angoulême
on, ii. 324
Chatelleraut, Duke of, ii. 163
Châtillon de, Bishop of Beauvais, mar-
ried, ii. 153, note
Chaucer, description of priest's wife and
children, i. 420; plain speaking of, i.
432 ; Personne's Tale, i. 437
Chavard, Abbé, Le Célibat des Prêtres, ii.
298, note, 300, 309, 340, notes : marries
at Geneva, ii. 324
Chelsea, Council of, in 787, i.
canons of, i. 190
Chepstow, Abbess of, accuses Dr. Lon-
don, ii. 97
Cheregato, legate, on priestly immunity,
ii. 49, note
Chertsey, reformation of monastery of,
i. 195
Chester, see of, created, ii. 100
Chichester, Bishop of, on commission to
try married bishops, ii. 125
Chiericato and religious scandals, ii.
244
Chºrt, laws of, on forcible marriage,
i. 13
Children cause ineligibility to episco-
pate, i. 93; to cardinalate, ii. 227
Children of ecclesiastics (see also Here-
ditary transmission), in tenth century,
i. 165, 166, 170; Otho the Great issues
edict on, i. 170; Church stripped to
benefit, i. 175; Adalbero of Metz does
not refuse ordination to, i. 178; dis-
abilities of, in the eleventh century,
i. 207; yet openly provided for, i.
210; considered ineligible for ordina-
tion, i. 215; admitted to holy orders
by Alexander II., i. 241; Archdeacon of
Salzburg bewails ordination of, i. 295;
follow father's profession in Poland,
i. 301; pronounced infamous, i. 303;
given as hostages in Friesland, i.
304; Paschal II. addresses Anselm on,
i. 335; Thibaut of Etampes on, i. 335;
treated as legitimate in deed of thir-
teenth century, i. 354; Gwentian code
on, i. 358; Archbishop of Cashel ques-
tions Clement III. on, i. 363; recog-
nised in diocese of Salamanca, i. 379;
190;
ineligible for knighthood, i. 404;
fathers not to officiate at marriage of,
ii. 17; not to assist fathers in the
Mass, ii. 17; dispensations for, ii. 21;
taxes of penitentiary for, ii. 55; posi-
tion under Edward VI., ii. 122; Queen
Mary repeals Act legitimating, ii.
124; formally legitimated under Eliza-
beth, ii. 138; may inherit property of
parents, ii. 153–4 ; promotion of, pro-
hibited in Scotland, ii. 160; daughters
not to be married to barons or lairds,
sons not to be barons or lairds, ii.
160; dispensations for legitimation of,
ii. 219; not to live with parents in
Salzburg, ii. 231–2; prohibited from
holding father's benefices, ii. 234;
enriched with patrimony of Church,
ii. 237
China, development of Buddhism in,
i. 102
Christ College, Oxford, founded by
Wolsey, ii. 82; endowed by confis-
cated monasteries, ii. 82
Christian Church, puritanism of early, i.
19
Christianity, purifying influence of, i.
441
Chrodegang, St., of Metz, rule of, i.
152
Chrysostom, St. John, extravagant praise
of virginity, i., 90
Church, Catholic, morals of (see Morals)
Church, the Ante-Nicene, i. 17; the
Latin, great fact in history of civilisa-
tion, i. 1; accession of property due
to celibacy, i. 61; early characteristics
of Greek, i. 87; severity of discipline
in Latin, i. 93 ; independent organi-
sation of Latin, i. 130; oppressed by
Austrasian mayors of palace, i, 142 ;
grows independent of secular control,
i. 163; responsibility of, i. 442; corrup-
tion of, discussed in Vienna, ii. 193,
note; subservient in no country to
State, ii. 334; present reactionary
efforts of, ii. 363; part still to be
played by, ii. 363
Church lands, fate of, in Scotland, ii.
163-4; in England, ii. 90 ; in France,
ii. 306–7
Churching of priests' wives forbidden, ii.
315
Ciempozuelos, case of Sor Cayetana in,
ii. 285–6
Circilliones, vagabond monks, i. 122
Circular discipline, ii. 289
Cirita, Juan, case of, i. 124, note
Cistercian discipline, St. Malachi ini-
tiates his attendants in, i. 362
Cities, monks not allowed to enter, i.
119
Citra, justiciary of, fines clerical concu-
bines, i. 420–1
INDEX 375
Civil marriage, ii. 330; absolution denied
to parties contracting, ii. 331 ; made
essential by law, ii. 332
Civilisation helped by monachism, i. 126,
445; helped by puritanism, i. 445
Olair sur Epte, treaty of, i. 158
Clairvaux, story of monk of, i. 321-2
Clarembald, Abbot, evil reputation of, i.
342
Claude of Evreux attempts reform, ii.
240
Claude of Macon, ii. 173
Clemanges, De, on condition of Church,
i. 426, ii. 1, 4
Clement II., appointed by Emperor Henry
III., i. 214; tries to suppress simony,
i. 215
Clement III., on self-mutilation, i. 30,
note; on children of bishops, i. 363
Clement IV., enforces celibacy in Austria
and Denmark, i. 303; bulls from, to
Wolsey, ii. 82, 83, 84; on hereditary
transmission, ii. 174
Clement VIII. on jurisdiction of Spanish
Inquisition, ii. 261
Clement X., i. 415
Clement III. (anti-pope), on concubinage,
i. 284 ; death in IIoo, i. 288
Clement of Alexandria, on heresies, i. 20,
note ; on the Virgin, i. 67–8, note
Clement, Bishop, a “pestilent heresiarch,”
i. 149
Clement of Versailles, pastoral of, on
priestly marriage, ii. 314
Clement XIV. suppresses Order of Jesuits,
ii. 335 -
Clergy, Anglican, Macaulay’s estimate of,
ii. 149; French, antagonistic to Revo-
lution, ii. 307; resistance to celibacy,
i. 211, 249, 263, 270, 273
Clermont, Councils of, in Io95 and 1130,
i. 317, 387
Cleves, Duke of, asks for priestly mar-
riage, ii. 194
Climène, Frère, prosecuted for 25 offences,
ii. 361
Clotair I., law on forcible marriage, i. 134
Clotair II. on monastic excesses, i. 128,
quote
Clovesho, Council of, in 747, i. 189
Cnut, ecclesiastical laws of, i. 201
Cochin China, Apostolic Vicar of, appeals
to Pius VI., ii. 275
Cochlaeus, John, on Confession of Augs-
burg, ii. 210, note
Coelestin III. on hereditary transmission,
i. 404
Coklaw, Thomas, marriage of, ii. 166
Colet, John, good work of, in sixteenth
century, ii. 78; on vices of the Church,
ii. 78-9
Colloquy of Poissy in 1561, ii. 238-9
Colmenas, Padre, illicit relations in con-
fessional, ii. 286
Cologne, Manichaeism in, in 1146, i. 245;
Council of, in 1260, i. 418; 1306, i.470;
I423, ii. 7 ; 1527, ii. 171, note; speech
of “Orator’’ at Council of, ii. 171,
note ; Herman von Wied, Archbishop
of, ii. 176; Archbishop of, issues
Augsburg Formula, ii. 188; deplores
licence of times, ii. 188
Coloman, King, enforces celibacy in
Hungary, i. 298
Colonies, Spanish, immorality of clergy
in, ii. 245, 247–8
Columba, St., asceticism of, i. 142; rule
of, i. 185; establishes Christianity in
Scotland, i. 185
Columban, St., Penitential of, i. 68
Comedians forbidden to perform in
nunneries, ii. 189
Commendone, legate, holds out hope
of clerical marriage, ii. 194; sent by
Pius W. to Augsburg, ii. 218
Comminges, miracle in, i. 325
Communion in both elements, in early
Church, i. 35 ; refused to laity, i. 35;
demanded in Bohemian Church, i. 480,
ii. 212; open question at Diet of Augs-
burg, ii. 66; people of Merseberg de-
mand, ii. 72; demanded by Emperor
Ferdinand, ii. 193; by Duke of Bavaria,
ii. 75; granted to Germany, ii. 209;
withdrawn, 212
Comparative merits of virginity and
marriage, i. 37, 38, 432; ii. 204
Comparative morality of secular and
regular clergy, ii. 294
Compiègne, marriage of priests in, i. 326
Compostella, Council of, in III.4, i. 376
Concordat, of 1516 with Francis I.,
ii. 55; 1801, ii. 316; re-establishment
of monachism forbidden by, ii. 337;
of 1851, ii. 336 -
Concordia discordantium canonum, i.
390
Concubinage, punishment for, under
Justinian, i. 92; less objectionable
than matrimony, i. 166; prohibited in
Councils of Anse and Poitiers, i. 181 ;
less odium attached to, in Middle
Ages, i. 230, note ; of escaped priest of
Clairvaux, i. 321 ; denounced by John
of Crema, himself guilty of, i. 338–9;
not defended as a right in thirteenth
century, i. 357; condemned under
pressure in Spain, i. 378; difficulty in
suppressing, i. 379; attempts to sup-
press, in thirteenth century, i. 380;
scale of confiscation for those guilty
of, i. 381 ; Antonio Fluviano upon,
i. 456; priest practising, guilty of
heresy, i. 478 ; curious German tract
against, ii. 54 ; capital punishment for,
changed to confiscation, ii. 115; uni-
versality of, a reason for condoning,
ii. 176; clergy of Mainz, Trèves, and
376
INDEX
Cologne in league to defend, ii. 178;
pronounced heretical, i. 478; for-
bidden by Augsburg code, ii. 186;
Archbishop of Trèves, mandate
against, ii. 187; provision against, in
Council of Trent, ii. 206; forbidden at
Utrecht, ii. 230–31 ; callousness con-
cerning, ii. 296 ; in United States,
ii. 844; toleration of, almost universal,
ii. 348
Concubines of clergy, in Spain, i. 136;
to be visited with stripes and shaving,
i. 171 ; openly kept by canons, St.
Ursman and Antoin, i. 326; a bishop
confesses to keeping, i. 355; position
of, less odious in Middle Ages, i. 230,
note ; in Scotland, i. 231, note; excom-
munication and “burial of asses” for,
i. 380; Cortes of Castile on shameless-
ness of, i. 382; Pedro the Cruel, orders
Concerning, i. 382; not to be kept
openly, i. 411 ; Ferdinand and Isabella
fine, ii. 17; legends concerning, i. 414 ;
fined by Charles the Lame, i. 420 ; de
Jamilia clericorum, i. 421; scourged in
Trani, ii. 15–16
Confessio Goliae on celibacy, i. 353, note
Confession of Augsburg, ii. 65; refutation
of, ii. 66
Confession of Faith, Calvinistic,ii. 151,169
Confession, auricular, commencement of,
ii. 252, note ; dispensation from, ii.
173–4
Confessional, abuse of, in Middle Ages,
i. 435 ; celebrants ordered to use daily,
ii. 244; Council of Trent on, ii. 245;
Miguel, Albert, on priest misusing, ii.
245, note; scandals of, ii. 251 ; casu-
istry regarding solicitation in, ii. 263;
difficult to determine limits of inde-
cency in, ii. 268–9; filthy contagion
spread in, ii. 269–70; secrets of, in
Spanish archives, ii. 283
“Confessional, Theory and Practice of
the,” Schieler, ii. 277, note
Confessional box, first evolved, ii. 255;
to be used in all churches, ii. 256;
priests oppose seclusion of, ii. 256
Confessors, exempt from torture by
rack, ii. 284 ; denounced, not in secret
prison during trial, ii.286; St. Caterina
di Pistoia on immorality of, ii. 304;
rules for, with regard to “denuncia-
tion,” ii. 355–6
Confiscation of estates of married priests,
i. 92
Congregation of the Index, Fr. Catalini
on, ii. 184, note
Congregation, of the Inquisition, ii. 219;
Lords of (Scotland), ii. 168
Conjo, convent of S. Maria in, i. 376
Conrad, King of Lombardy, i. 260
Conrad, legate, holds Council of Mainz,
i. 418
Conrad of Prague, the Hussite, i. 47
720te
Conrad of Wurzburg, imprisons two
married canons, ii. 49; on immorality
of clergy, ii. 58, note
Consilium de emendanda ecclesia, ii.
183; on Index Librorum Prohibi-
torum, ii. 184; translated by Luther,
ii. 184
Constance, enforcement of celibacy in,
i. 272; Assembly of, in Io94, i. 290;
CEcumenical Council of, deposes John
XXIII., i. 426–7 ; Council of, orders
burning of Huss and Jerome of Prague,
ii. 3.; failure of Council of, ii. 5;
marriage of clergy suggested at Coun-
cil of, ii. 25 ; synod of, in 1567, ii. 58,
note; synod of, in 1609, ii. 236
Constantine, assembles first General
Council (of Nicaea), i. 46; encourages
monachism, i. 107
Constantine Copronymus
monks, i. 97, note
Constantine of St. Symphorian, i. 178
Constantinople, Council of, in 381, i.
88–9; in 4oo, i. 90 ; in 680, i. 94
Constat Venaissin, ii. 241
Constitutions, apostolical (see Apostoli-
cal)
Constitution of 1791, clerical marriage
in, ii. 309
Contarini, Cardinal, on commission for
reformation, ii. 183; on evils of celi-
bacy, ii. 241, note
Continence overbalanced by pride, i. 19
Continence, vows of (see Chastity)
Consulento Ecclesiastico, il, ii. 245, mote
Convention, National, on bishops and
priestly marriage, ii. 314
Convents (see Nunneries and Monachism)
Conventuals, ii. 21
Converts from Catholicism, marriage of,
ii. 152
Convocation of 1536 on heresy and celi-
bacy, ii. 106; of 1538 on celibacy,
private Masses, and communion in one
kind, ii. 109; of 1554 enforces celibacy,
ii. 127; of I557, legislation of, ii. 133
Coptic Church, customs of, i. 99
Cordova, Fray Francisco di, on success
of Lutheranism, ii. 224
Cormecte, Thomas, wandering preacher,
ii. 25; burned at stake, ii. 26
Cornelius Agrippa, ii. 37
Cornaro, Cardinal, ii. 202
Corruption of laity by clergy, i. 323, 370,
ii. 237
Cosmo, Bishop of Prague, i. 290
Cosmo, Dean of Prague, married, i. 293;
relates case of married priest, i. 293
Cossa, Balthazar, afterwards John XXIII.,
i. 426
Councils vary on canonical age for
women, ii. 343
persecutes
INDEX
377
Councils, revision of proceedings at
Rome, ii. 345, note
Countesses, priests' wives rank as, i.
312
Cournand, Abbé, proposes clerical mar-
riage, ii. 309; marriage of, ii. 310
Court of Augmentations, ii. 92
Courts, mixed, for married priests, i. 308
Coutances Cathedral, no Mass in, for
seventy years, i. 158
Cowl, Luther's wearing of, ii. 44–5
oº: ; Source of ecclesiastical revenue,
1.
Cox, Bishop, on Queen Elizabeth's In-
junctions, ii. 143
Cozza, Cardinal, on abuse of confessional,
ii. 269, note ; on papal decrees on con-
fessional, ii. 278
Cranach, Lucas, present at Luther's
marriage, ii. 51 ; portrait of Luther's
bride by, ii. 52
Cranmer, Confutation of Unwritten Veri-
ties, ii. 81; intercedes for Patmore, ii.
104; secret marriage of, ii. 105; on
celibacy for ejected monks, ii. 113;
ºna wife of, niece of Osiander, ii.
Creed of Piers Ploughman, on foreign
prelates, i. 354, note ; on corruption of
clergy, i. 438; on Carmelites, i. 439,
ºmote
Cremona, reform of priesthood in, i. 256,
70te
Cristofori di Vercelli, ii. 228
oº:: de Septiſveda and solicitation,
ii. 2
Cromwell, Thomas, and English religious
houses, ii. 87–8; exaggerated accounts
of monasteries sent to, ii. 88–9; bribes
tendered to, ii. 93, note; favours priestly
marriage, ii. 105, does not enforce
hºheit measures, ii. 115; fall of, ii.
l
Crossed Friars, case of abbot of, ii. 97
Culdees, i. 366; rule of, relaxed, i. 366 ;
disappearance of, i. 367
Cullagium (see Licences) -
Cumad Espuc, virgin bishop, i. 360
Cunegunda, St., asceticism of, i. 204,
720te
oº:: of Turin reproached for laxity,
l.
Cuno of Ratisbon, i. 215
Curia, denounced by Cormecte, ii. 26 ;
power of, in Germany, ii. 39
Cuthbert of Canterbury, reforms Saxon
Church, i. 188; holds Council of
Clovesho, i. 189
Cuthbert of London prohibits Beggars'
Petition, ii. 91, note
Cuyck, Bishop Ruremonde of, on cor-
ruptions, ii. 236
Cºok of, rules for married priests,
i. 3
Cyprian, St., rebukes promiscuous bath-
ing, i. 31 ; shows consideration for
human weakness, i. 32; compares vir-
ginity and marriage, i. 37
Cyril, St., Cenobites, janizaries of, i. 117
Cyrillus converts Bohemia, i. 290, note
DABRALIS of Spalatro degraded by
Leo IX., i. 220
Daimbert of Sens and conduct of his
dignitaries, i. 317
Dalmatia, priestly marriage in tenth cen-
tury, i. 220 ; relaxation of canons in, i.
241; enforcement of celibacy in, i. 299;
synod of, in 1199, i. 300
Damasus I. (Pope) asserts clerical celi-
bacy, i. 63
Damasus II., pontificate of twenty-one
days of, i. 218
Damhouder, jurisconsult of Flanders, on
character of clergy, ii. 237
Damiani, St. Peter, relates
Alberic of Marsico, i. 176; bewails
fate of responsible abbots, i. 177 ;
goads Clement II. to efforts for reform,
i. 216; story of life of, i. 216–18; essay
of, paints depravity of time, i. 219;
supports Alexander II. against anti-
pope, i. 235; nearly loses life while on
mission, i. 237; in deadly peril at
Milan, i. 251
Dampierre, Guillaume de, case of, i.
399
Dancing mania considered due to vitiated
baptism, i. 437
Danes, effect of incursions of, i. 158
Danes, Pierre, Bishop of Vaur, repartee
of, at Council of Trent, ii. 34, note
Darius, Silvester, papal collector in
England, ii. 39
Daughters (see Children)
Davanzati, Bishop, favours clerical mar-
riage, ii. 300, note
Daviaux of Bordeaux forbids clerical
marriage, ii. 319
David I., reforms of, i. 367
Deacons, allowed to marry, i. 28, ii. 121 ;
marriage of, forbidden, i. 77, 92, 171,
299, 300, 303, 331, 394
Deacon, case of married, left in peace,
i. 327 -
Deaconesses, ordination of, in early
Church, i. 56 ; marriage of, forbidden,
i. 104, note
Deans of Friesland, i. 304
Death penalty, for marrying a nun, i. 109;
for seducing a nun, i. 154; for clerical
marriage under Six Articles, ii. 112
Déaz de Luzo, Bernardius, canon lawyer,
ii. 176
Débra, Abbé, case of, ii. 359; 32 offences
of, in one year, ii. 361
Decretals, false, on clerical celibacy, i.
154–5 -
story of
378 *
INDEX
Decretum Gratiani, compilation of, i. 13;
denies apostolic origin of celibacy, i. 13
Defilement for Jewish priests, i. 5
De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae, ii. 41
De la Croix on immoral priests, ii. 311
De Matrimonia Sacerdotum, ii. 29
De Vanitate Scientiarum, ii. 37, note
Delfini, nuncio, ii. 201
Demeter, hierophants of, maintain conti-
nence, i. 42–3
Democratic element in Church, i. 268
Denis, St., Council of, in 995, i. 177
Denmark, position of concubines in, i.
231, note
Denunciation, duty of, by seduced women,
ii. 270, 272,281 ; often slighted or dis-
believed. ii. 284 ; decision on case of,
in 1898, ii. 353
Denunciation, self-, ii. 291, 292, 357
Denunciations, two required for case to
be heard in Italy, ii. 283 ; second often
after delay of years, ii. 284
Desforges, on clerical marriage, ii. 298;
book of, burned, ii. 299
Desiderius of Monte Cassino, afterwards
Pope Victor III., i. 210
Devonshire rebels demand the Six Ar-
ticles, ii, 120
Devotees allowed to return to the world,
i. 30
Diabolic possession of priests' wives, i.
280
Diaconate, women admitted to, i. 56
Dialogus Naturae et Sophiae de Castitate
Clericorum, i. 440
Diego Gelmirez, commanded to reform
diocese, i. 373; reforms of, do not in-
clude celibacy, i. 374 ; accompanies
Alfonso VIII. to Portugal, i. 374–5;
experiences of, on expedition, i. 374–5;
founds convent of S. Maria of Conjo,
i. 376
Diet, German, complaints of, in I5 Io, ii.
32
Diet, Hungarian, in 1498, ii. 19
Diether, Archbishop, case of, ii. 34, note
Digami, subject to penance, i. 24; not
admissible to holy orders, i. 25, 91,
94, 138; Eastern Church preserves
early tradition concerning, i. 91 ; nu-
merous in Church, i. 94; Gregory I.
enforces neglected laws on, i. 138 ;
Theodore of Canterbury, orders con-
cerning, i. 187; prevalence of, in
British Church, i. 183; condemned by
Council of Spalatro, i. 170; ineligible in
Anglo-Saxon Church, i. 187; recogni-
tion of, in eleventh century, i. 238;
not allowed in Milan, i. 247; con-
demned in Hungary, i. 297; some re-
formers condemn, ii. 53 -
Plºtion of Church property, i. 165,
ii. 71
Dimetian Code on sons of priests, i. 358
Dimitri of Dalmatia assumes crown, i.
299
Dionysius of Corinth reproves attempt to
make celibacy compulsory, i. 21-2
Dionysius, King, founds Order of Jesus
Christ, i. 455
Disabilities of married priests, i. 358–9 ;
of “soliciting ” confessors nullified,
ii. 351
Dispensations, papal, evil influence of
sale of, i. 397, ii. 14–15 ; power of, de-
bated, ii. 27 ; for unchastity, i. 148;
for married priests, ii. 74, 183; for
concubinage, ii. 55; from vows of
chastity, ii. 173–4; for marriage in
England, ii. 209, note ; for priests
abusing confessional, ii. 253–4, 281-2;
relieving penitents from obligation to
“denounce,” ii. 355
Diversity of opinion, Act for abolishing,
ii. 111 -
Divorces of married priests in England,
ii. 114–15, 128 .
Dogma, celibacy a matter of, ii. 172
Dolcino, leader of heretical sect, i. 471
Döllinger and “Old Catholic ’’ move-
ment, ii. 329
Dominicans, influence of, i. 467
Donati, Girolamo, engaged to murder St.
Charles Borromeo, ii. 228
Donatist heresy, i. 118, note ; approached
by Theodore of Canterbury, i. 186—7;
Nicholas II. trenches upon, i. 228, see
note; revived by Innocent II., i. 294;
condemned by Lucius III. i. 229, note
Döringk on sale of indulgences, ii. 14,
70te
Dormitantius, nickname of St. Jerome
for Vigilantius, i. 72
Dorothea of Denmark, marriage of, ii. 63
Dortmund, synod of, in Ioos, i. 178
Pº, St. Malachi’s episcopate of, i.
361
Dracontius, marriage of, acknowledged
by St. Athanasius, i. 53
Dress, clerical, regulated at Constance,
ii. 5
Drogo of Terouane persecutes Brethren
of Watton, i. 313
Droit de marquette, i. 441 -
Douai, Faculty of, ii. 270; Desforges’
book on priestly marriage reprinted at,
ii. 299
Dualistic theory in Manichæism, i. 33 ;
recognised in Catharan creed, i. 459
Pºlº Council of, in 1186, i. 364; 1217,
i. 365
Dumonteil, Louis Thérèse Saturnin, case
of, ii. 322–3 -
Pº Bishop of, immorality of, ii.
15
Dunstan, St., monastic vows of, i. 192 ;
exacts severe penance for King Edgar,i.
193; summons Council which punishes
INDEX
379

unchastity, i. 196; preserved from ac-
cident at Calne Council, i. 198
Du Pin, Louis Ellies, on clerical mar-
riage, ii. 298
Dupin on discipline of Orders, ii. 302,
note; on Droit ecclésiastique, ii. 338,
70te
Prº Cardinal, efforts at reform by,
ii. 172
Durand, Bishop William, advocates cleri-
cal marriage, ii. 25
Durham, Council of, in 1220, i. 350, note
Durham, Bishop of, to report on married
priests, ii. 125 º
EADMER on canons enforcing celibacy,
i. 334–5, note, 337–8 /
* #sº defence of monasteries in,
1.
Eastern Church, divergence of, i. 87;
rules as to celibacy, i. 91; monachism
of, i. 116–17
Easter, different computations of, i. 185,
'note -
Ebionim (or Poor Men), i. 11; honour
virginity, i. 12; tainted by heresies
allowing immorality, i. 21
Ebrard, history of Watten by, i. 313, note
Ecclesiastical procedure and immunity,
i. 159–60
Ecclesiastics, children of (see Children);
immorality of (see Morals)
Ecgberht (King) and St. Boniface, i. 146
Ecgberht of York, condemns priestly
irregularities, i. 187; appealed to by
Bede, i. 188
Eck, Dr. John, views of, on clerical
celibacy, i. 15; confers with Melanch-
thon, ii. 72
Ecuador, ecclesiastical property secular-
ised in, ii. 339
Edgar the Pacific, remorse of, i. 192—3 ;
St. Dunstan's condition for absolution
of, i. 193; charter of “Oswald's Law'”
by, i. 195; purifies many religious
houses, i. 195-6 ; restores obsolete
discipline, i. 196; charter of last year
of reign of, i. 196
Edict of Faith, “solicitation” in, ii.
259, 270
Edict of Pacification, ii. 153
Edict of Rousillon, ii. 153
Edinburgh, Council of, ii. 159, note; ap-
points a commission, ii. 160
Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor,
anecdote of, i. 205
Edmund I., laws of, regarding clerical
immorality, i. 191
Education, Ferry laws on, ii. 338
Edward and Guthrun on clerical immo-
rality, i. 191
* the Martyr supports Dunstan,
i. 19
Edward, Bishop of Scaren, i. 338
.”
Edward VI., robbing of monasteries
under, ii. 101, note; succeeds to throne,
ii. 116 ; funeral of, in Westminster
Abbey, ii. 123; mortuary Mass for, in
presence of Queen Mary, ii. 123
Eggard of Sleswick, attempts to reform
clergy, ii. 20; forced to abandon see,
ii. 20
Egypt, purity demanded of priests in,
i. 42; neglect of celibacy in, i. 90
Egyptian monasteries, commencement
of, i. 109 . . . . -
_Eldora, Lorenzo de, condemned to
galleys, ii. 289
Elect, Manichaean, i. 37
Election of Pope limited to Roman
clergy, i. 235
Eleuchadio, Abbot of Fiano, son of a
priest, i. 209
Elfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, supports
married priests, i. 197
Elfritha, intrigues against Edward, i. 197;
seeks alliance of secular clergy, i. 198
Elizabeth, Queen, number of bishops de-
prived under, ii. 126; allows no innova-
tions till Parliament assembles, ii. 136;
repeals Mary’s legislation, ii. 136; dis-
like of, for marriage of clergy, ii. 138;
insolence of, to Archbishop Parker's
wife, ii. 141
Elna, Council of, in IO27, i. 370
Elphege of Winchester and St. Dunstan,
i. 192
Elvira, Council of, in 305, on digami, i.
25
Emanuel, King, and marriage of mili-
tary orders, i. 455
Emancipation of nuns in 1523, ii. 50
Emancipatore Cattolica, ii. 333
Embden, Count of, promotes marriage of
nuns, ii. 64
Emmo of Wittewerum on priestly mar-
riage, i. 303–4
Empire, Roman, licentiousness under, i.
18
Empire, Second (French), fall of, ii. 338
Emser, Jerome, epithalamium on Luther,
ii. 52, note
Encomium Moriae, ii. 36–37, note ; on first
Index Expurgatorius, ii. 37, note
Encratians, heresy of, i. 34
Encyclical letters (Leo. XIII.) on civil
marriage, ii. 332
Encyclical, papal, Mirari vos, ii. 325;
Qui pluribus, ii. 325
Enforcement of celibacy, in fourth cen-
tury, i. 66–86; by Gregory I. i. 138 ;
in eighth century, i. 148; attributed
to Gregory VII., i. 266 ; difficulties
attending, i. 271–3; in twelfth century,
i. 291 ; in Bohemia, i. 293–4 ; in Ger-
many, i. 294; in Hungary, i. 297 ; in
Poland, i. 300–1 ; in Sweden, i. 302; in
Denmark, i. 303; in Friesland, i. 304; in
z
380
INDEX
France, 306 ; in Normandy, i. 308 ; in
Flanders, i. 313; by Calixtus II. i. 323;
modified by Lanfranc, i. 330; by Henry
I. of England, i. 340; in Ireland, i.
364; in Scotland, i. 367–8; in Spain,
delay in, i. 373; continual legislation
for, i. 412; influence of, on world at
large, i. 430; after OEcumenical
Council, Constance, ii. 5–6 ; in series
articles, University of Oxford, ii. 9;
called “a devellishe thinge,” ii. 104,
note ; maintained by Henry VIII., ii.
103; abandoned under Edward VI., ii.
117, 118; maintained under Queen
Mary, ii. 134; relaxed under Queen
Elizabeth, ii. 139; new ideas on, in
Scotland, ii. 162; in France in six-
teenth century, ii. 172
Engelheim, synod of, in 948, i. 171
England, Anglo-Saxon priests corrupt in,
i. 183; celibacy at first enforced in, i.
186; Sacerdotal marriage introduced
in, i. 191 ; disorders of, in tenth cen-
tury, i. 191 ; reformation attempted,
i. 192; fails, i. 196; Church in, under
Cnut, i. 201; position of concubines in,
i. 201, note ; Edward the Confessor, i.
203; Manichæism in twelfth century
in. i. 245; papal collector in, bound by
oath in 1517, ii. 39; power of Pope in,
abolished by proclamation, ii. 85 ; visi-
tation of monastic houses in, ii. 87;
assault on monasteries, in Beggars’
Petition, ii. 90 ; acknowledgment of
papal authority a crime in, ii. 95; re-
conciled to Rome, ii. 129 ; wives of
Elizabethan clergy in, ii. 145–6; mar-
riage established by connivance rather
than as a right, ii. 149
Enham, Council of, in IOO9, i. 200
Eon de l'Etoile, i. 465
Epaone, Council of, in 513, i. 57, note ;
517, i. 84, note
Epiphanius, on self-mortification, i.
20, note; on Ebionites, i. 21 ; declares
Church based on virginity, i. 39 ; on
agapetae, i. 48 ; stigmatises Antidico-
marianitarians, i. 68 ; compiles “Pana-
rium,” i. 89 ; asceticism of, i. 89
Episcopissa, i. 175
Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, ii. 37
Erasmus, on religious immorality, i. 444,
note ; relation of, to the Reformation,
ii. 35; on purgatory, ii. 35; on indul-
gences, ii. 40, note
Erchenbald on infanticide, i. 156
Erfurt, synod of, in IO74, i. 274
Eriberto of Milan, episcopate of, i. 245 ;
reported marriage of, improbable, i.
245, note
Erlembaldo, St., popular chief, at Milan,
i. 246 ; becomes leader of Paterins, i.
254 ; seeks fresh cause of quarrel with
Guido, i. 257; mortally wounded, i. 259
Ermeland, synod of, in 1497, ii. 20, note
Ernest of Magdeburg, cynicism of, ii. 14
Ernest of Salzburg, ii. 190
Erskine, Lord, refuses to sign Book of
Discipline, ii. 164
D’Espeisses, President, on Italian morals,
ii. 229
D’Espense, Claude, on perpetual virginity
of the Virgin, i. 69, note; on clerical
morality, ii. 239
Espontaneado, or self-denunciation, ii.
291, 293
Essenes, asceticism of, i. 9; John the
Baptist belonged to, i. 10; probably
James of Jerusalem belonged to, i. 10
Ethelbald of Mercia, epistle of St. Boni-
face to, i. 156
Ethelred the Unready and incursions of
Danes, i. 198
Ethelwold, St., austerity and zeal of, i.
194; legend concerning, i. 194
Eucharist, adopted by Manes in Mazdean
form, i, 35 ; ordeal of the, i. 356
Eucherius, St., vision of, i. 146
Eugenius II. On concubinage, i. 230, note
Eugenius III., dissolves marriage of
priests, i. 388–9; is warned by St.
Bernard, i. 430; convicts Eon de
l'Etoile, i. 466
Eugenius IV. releases Order of Cala-
trava from obligation of celibacy, i.454;
dissolves Council of Bâle, ii. 10
Eulalius condemns his son Eustathius, i.
58
Euphronius of Autun, i. 82
Euphronius of Tours, i. 132, note
Euron Abbey, i. 318
Eusebius condemns priestly marriage, i.
44
Eustathius, Bishop, horror of priestly
marriage, i. 57–8
Eutyches, career of, i. 118
Eutychian controversies, i. 118
Evangelical doctor, Wickcliffe the, i. 477,
'note
Evenus, of St. Melanius, i. 311
Evreux, synod of, in 1576, ii. 240; Bishop
Lindet of, publicly married, ii. 310
Excalceati, heresy of, i. 20
Exile, punishment of, for “solicitation,”
ii. 286, note, 290
Expilly, Abbé, on number of French
ecclesiastics, ii. 313, note
Expulsion of, monks for disobedience or
discontent i. 111
Exuperius, St., inclined
Vigilantius, i. 72
to favour
FAH-HIAN finds thousands of Buddhist
monasteries in Ceylon, i. 103
Fail, Du, ii. 241, note
Faith, celibacy as a matter of, ii. 172;
priestly marriage not held to be point
of, ii. 140
INDEX
381
Faith, Edict of, ii. 259, 270
False decretals on clerical chastity, i. 154
Faricius of Abingdon, case of, i. 269, note
Farley, Archbishop of New York, ii. 277,
ºn Oče
Fasting in penance, i. 184; severe, for
case of “solicitation,” ii. 289
Fauchet of Bayeux, ii. 314
Faustinus on separation from wives, i. 76
Faustus the Manichaean, i. 37
Fécamp reformed by Richard the Fear-
less, i. 179, note
Feini civilised, prior to times of St.
Patrick, i. 360
Felix of Nantes., story of, i. 133
Fellows of universities, celibacy of, ii.
143
Felony, priestly marriage is, in “Six
Articles,” ii. 112
Fénélon, lofty piety of, ii. 242; on priestly
“solicitation,” ii. 279
Ferdinand, Archduke, zeal of, ii. 225,
'note
Ferdinand, Emperor, asks for cup for
laity, i. 480; demands General Council,
ii. 49 ; tolerates Protestantism, ii. 69;
on German monasteries, ii. 89; on
clerical immorality, ii. 178, 191–2;
asks for clerical marriage, ii. 195–6;
demands of, at Council of Trent, ii.
199
Ferdinand of Aragon supports Ximenes,
ii. 21
Ferdinand IV. of Naples, reforms of, ii.
299; enacts civil marriage, ii. 333–4,
*Ote
Fergusson, David, MSS. of, on Mexican
clerical irregularities, ii. 254, note
Ferrers, Alexander, speaks plainly of
priests, ii. 156; plain speaking of, con-
strued as heresy, ii. 157
Ferry laws on education, ii. 338
Ferry of Orleans, murder of, and its
cause, i. 414
Feudal system, independence of, i. 212 ;
tenure of, by chastity, i. 176
Fifteenth century, the, ii. 1–30
Fiscal prosecuting officer, ii. 250
Fischer, Frederick, punished for marry-
ing, ii. 49
Fish, Simon, Beggars' Petition said to
be written by, ii. 91, note
Fishponds, absurd stories of bodies of
children in, i. 139
Flagellantes, prosecuted by Inquisition,
ii. 279
Flagellation, opportunities given by, for
indecency, ii. 278
Flamen Dialis, second marriage forbidden
to, i. 24
Flanders, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
312 ; case of Bossaert d’Avesnes in, i.
398–9; character of post-Tridentine
Church of, ii. 236
Florence, synod of, in Io97, i. 224; Coun-
cil of, in 1573, ii. 230; congregation of,
in 1787, ii. 304
Focaria, term of, first introduced, i. 344
Foix, Cardinal de, papal legate, i. 384
Fontaneto, Council of (1058), on priestly
marriage, i. 250
Fontevraud, nuns of, i. 343
Forcheim, Diet of, in Io'77, i. 282
Formal vow dissolves marriage, i. 386,
396
Forster, Andreas, defends celibacy, ii.
299
Fortescue, Sir John, on case of married
priest, i. 393
Foulques of Rheims consulted on clerical
marriage, i. 162
Fox, Bishop of Winchester, ii. 81
France, celibacy introduced in, i. 62;
difficulty in enforcing celibacy in, i. 78;
popular support of celibacy in, i. 79 ;
constant efforts to enforce celibacy in,
i. 83 ; morals of, in fifth century, i. 84 ;
monasticism in seventh century in,
i. 128; state of Church in, under
Merovingians, i. 132; in eighth cen-
tury, i. 143; in ninth century, i. 153;
in tenth century, i. 167, 177; Council
of Bourges in Io91, i. 207 ; of Rheims
in IO49, i. 221; heresies in, of eleventh
and twelfth centuries, i. 244; celibacy
again enforced in, i. 306; Council of
Paris, i. 307; immorality of clergy in,
not exceptional, i, 412; Council of
Paris (1521) describes monastic life
in, ii. 89 ; effort of Church in, to
check Lutheranism, ii. 172; willing-
ness in, to see celibacy abolished, ii.
197; Bishop of, suggests old men for
priesthood, ii. 197; depraved clerical
morals in sixteenth century, ii. 241;
bull on “solicitation ” not accepted
in, ii. 265; spasmodic attempts in, to
regulate Church, ii. 302; question of
priestly marriage during Revolution,ii.
301, 307; Church property in, ii. 306–7;
cruelty to priests in, under Reign of
Terror, ii. 308; estimates of num-
ber of ecclesiastics in, ii. 313, note;
marriage of clergy in, under Concordat,
ii. 316; Napoleon decides against
priestly marriage in, ii. 320 ; civil
marriage in, ii. 330 ; bishops on women
residents in priests' houses in, ii. 349
Fº: Joseph, Emperor, and Leo XIII.,
i. 458
Francis, St., of Assisi, on unquestioning
obedience, i. 113, note ; annual visits
of, to purgatory, i. 415
Francis I., favours League of Schmal-
kalden, ii. 69; Melanchthon submits
Articles to, ii. 70
Fºr marries Mary Queen of Scots,
ii. 1
382
INDEX
Franciscan, a, turns Wickliffite, i. 438
Franciscans, contend with Benedictines,
i. 415 ; legends of, i. 415 ; Order
called “Seraphic,” i. 438 ; of Cochin
China, exemptions asked for, ii. 275
“Frater Fecisti,” ii., 242, note
Fredegonda, contentions inflamed by, i,
141
Frederic of Lorraine
Stephen IX., i. 225
Frederic Barbarossa, strives with Alex-
ander III., i. 393; visits Fulda, ii. 23,
'note
Frederic II, on Milanese heresies, i. 249,
note; on children of ecclesiastics, i.
399; Neapolitan code of, i. 416
Frederic of Saxony, eludes question of
clerical marriage, ii. 42; married pastor
seeks preferment from, ii. 46; sponsor
for Pastor Gunther’s child, ii. 47
Frederic, King of Denmark, and Albert
of Brandenburg, ii. 63
Frediswood, St., priory of, suppressed,
ii. 82
Frere, Mr., on clergy deprived under
Queen Mary, ii. 128
Fressanges, Mlle., case of, ii. 323
Freysingen, Council of, ii. 13; Pius V.
addresses abbots and priors of, ii. 58,
‘mote
Friars, preaching, support Queen Kath-
arine, ii. 84
Fricius disputes with Orzechowski, ii.
209, note
Frideswide, St., treatment of remains of,
ii. 132, mote
Fringe, John, married priest in England,
case of, i. 393
Froude, on systematic immorality of
priests, ii. 16–17, note ; on Ap Rice
and Thomas Cromwell, ii. 105, note
Fulbert of Chartres on military bishops,
i. 175, note s
Fulbert of Paris and Heloise, i. 324
Fulda, Abbey of, strict rule of, ii. 23,
770te
Future life, doctrine of, not held by Jews,
i. 4; derived from Chaldean and
Mazdean sources, i. 8
becomes Pope
GAGARIN, Father, on “The Russian
Clergy,” i. 98, note -
Galicia, Council of, in thirteenth century,
i. 377
Gall, St., severe asceticism of, i. 141–2
Galleys, Lorenzo de Eldora condemned
to, ii. 289
Galli, castration of, i. 42
Gallican Church (see France)
Gallicanism, Ultramontanism triumphs
over, ii. 363
Gangra, provincial Council of, i. 58
Ganoczy, Archdeacon, Henke dedicates
book to, ii 300
Gardiner, Bishop, celebrates mortuary
mass for Edward VI., ii. 123 ; sits in
judgment on married bishops, ii. 125;
scandals concerning, ii. 135
Garendon, monastery of, ii, 88
Gasquet, “Henry VIII. and the English
Monasteries,” ii. 89, note ; pious and
laborious rehabilitation of monasteries,
ii. 89 ; on Beggars' Petition, ii. 91, note
Gaudin, Abbé, defends priestly marriage,
ii. 299; represents La Vende& in
Assembly ii. 310 ; “Avis à mon fils,
àgé de sept ans,” ii. 310
Gaulo of Paris, i. 317
Gauthier de Châtillon, i. 346
Gauthier, St., de Pontoise, i. 307
Gazewaska, Baroness, marries Dean
Suczinsky, who becomes “Old Catho-
lic,” ii. 329
Gea-Eurysternus, priestesses of, to be
celibate, i. 42
Gebhardt of Constance, election of, i.
272
Gebhardt of Eichstedt, created Pope as
Victor II., i. 215; legend of miracle
concerning, i. 224
Gebhardt of Ratisbon urges claims of
Archpriest Cuno, son of a priest, i.
215
Gebhardt of Salzburg ordered to enforce
celibacy, i. 269
Geddes, Dr., on apostolic origin of celi-
bacy, ii. 301
Gelasius, St., Pope, on second marriages,
i, 24; on marriage of nuns, 123
Gelasius of Cyzicus on Paphnutius, i. 52
Gemma Ecclesiastica, i. 403, 435, note
Genebaldus of Laon, story of marriage
and penance of, i. 132–3
Geoffrey Boussard, tract of, i. 15, ii. 27
Geoffrey of Chartres fails in reforms, i.
319
Geoffrey of Llanthony, case of, i. 269,
ºn Ote
Geoffrey of Rouen enforces celibacy, i.
323–4
Gérard of Angoulême, i. 325
Gerard of Florence made Pope, i. 225
Gerard of Lorsch interrogates Leo. VII.,
i. 169
Gerard of Munster assists deans of Fries-
land, i. 304
Gerard of Nimeguen on clerical morality,
ii. 56
Gerard of Sabina, reforms of, i. 420
Gerbert of Aurillac, afterwards Pope
Silvester II., i. 181; pays little atten-
tion to incontinence, i. 18.1–2
Germany, virtue of Teutonic tribes of, i.
86; reforms in, attempted by Carlo-
man, i. 144; condition of Church in
tenth century, i. 169; Council of
Mainz in IO49, i. 220; heresies in
eleventh and twelfth centuries, i.
INDEX
383
244–5; enforcement of celibacy by
Gregory VII. in, i. 274; princes of, in-
trigue against Gregory VII., i. 278;
papalists in, called Paterini, i. 283; re-
bellion of Henry V., i. 291 ; supremacy
of papacy established in, i. 291 ;
Geroch of Reicherspergon heresiesin,
i. 392; hereditary transmission of
benefices in, i. 404 ; children of eccle-
siastics in thirteenth century, i. 416 ;
children of ecclesiastics, testamentary
provisions for, i. 418 ; state of mona-
chism in fifteenth century, i. 422 ;
Marian or Teutonic Order founded, i.
457; : Waldensian heresy in, i. 460;
Brethren of the Free Spirit in, i. 469 ;
Inquisition in, i. 470; Cardinal
Branda's crusade against Hussites, ii.
7; Pope’s letters-patent prove de-
pravity in, ii. 7 ; synod of Ermeland
scandalised by immorality in, ii. 20,
note ; signs of coming Reformation in,
ii. 32 ; Leo X. appeals for tithe for
war from, ii. 38; reformed doctrines
take hold of, ii. 53 : contest of two
parties at Augsburg, ii. 64–5; Confes-
sion of Augsburg, ii. 65 ; Anabaptists
in, ii. 68 ; negotiations with Henry
VIII., ii. 109; suggestions to leave
with Pope decision of question of
marriage, ii. 110 ; Lutherans not con-
nected with Council of Trent, ii. 180 ;
Lutheranism under heel of Charles W.,
ii. 181; scarcity of priests in, ii. 197,
note ; ill fitted to deal with Italy in
diplomacy, ii. 202; Lutherans tri-
umphant on accession of Pius V., ii.
218 ; Francisco di Cordova on suc-
cessful Lutheranism, ii. 224; bull on
“solicitation” not published in, ii.
265; “Old Catholic" movement in, ii.
329; bishoprics and monastic founda-
tions secularised, ii. 335; exclusion of
women from priests’ houses proposed
in, ii. 349
Geroch of Reichersperg, on sacraments of
sinful priests, i. 229, note; on Nicolitan
and Simoniacal heretics, i. 392
Geronda, Council of, in 517, i. 84, note ;
Ioé8, i. 371 ; 1078, i. 371, 1257, i. 380
Gerónimo de Mendieta, ii. 248
Gerson, on introduction of celibacy. i.
14,440; on abuse of confessional, i.436,
note ; stigmatises nunneries, ii. 1 ; on
concubinage, ii. 2; answers Zabarella,
ii. 25
Geruntius (King) addressed by St. Ald-
helm, i. 188
Gervilius of Mainz and St. Boniface, i.
146
Gervinus of St. Riquier, anecdote of, i.205
Ghaerbald of Liége, canons of, i. 153
Gherardo Segarelli, heresiarch, i, 471 :
burned in 1300, i. 471
Ghiberti, Matteo, reforming Bishop of
Verona, ii. 254
Gieus, Li, de Robin et de Marion, i. 438,
720te
Gilbert, Bishop, papal legate in Ireland,
i. 361
Gilbert of Chichester on abuse of con-
fessional, i. 435, note
Gilbert de la Porrée, teaching of, con-
demned, i. 388
Gildas describes British clergy as cor-
rupt, i. 183
Giles Cantor, heresy of, i. 470
Giovanni Gaulberto, St., life of, as an-
chorite, i. 213
Giraldus Cambrensis, on apostolic
warrant for celibacy, i. 14 ; Gemma
Ecclesiastica by, i. 220, note ; dispute
over election to St. David’s, i. 344 :
death, about 1220, i. 347; comments
on Church matters in Wales, i. 358;
exhortations in Gemma Ecclesiastica,
i. 403
Giuliano Caesarini, Cardinal, ii, 10
Glastonbury, abbey of, i. 193
Glossator, the, on scandal, ii. 351
Gloucester, Augustinians of, suppressed,
ii. 96; see of, created, ii. 100
Gnesen, clerical marriage in, i, 301 ;
synod of, in 1577, ii. 233
Gnostics, heresy of, i. 20
Gobat, Father, on papal decrees, ii.
266
Gobel, Bishop of Paris, favours priestly
marriage, ii. 314 ; opposed by Grégoire
of Blois, ii. 320–1, note
Godsons of bishops, wer-gild for, i. 186
Godstow, last of English abbeys, ii. 99
Golias Episcopus, i. 339, note
Gomorrhianus, Liber, i. 219, note
González, Fray Vicente, accused by nun,
ii. 269
González, Gerónimo, case of solicitation
by, ii. 291
Goodacre, Anne, ii. 170
Gostar, Manichaeism at, in IoS2, i. 244
Gotefrido, Archbishop of Milan, i. 257;
defence against Erlembardo, i. 258
Gotfrid of Wurzburg, will of, i. 418
Goths, Spanish, immorality of, i. 135
Grace Dieu, monastery of, ii. 88
Grace, Pilgrimage of, ii. 94
Graffiis on abuse of confessional, ii. 252
Gran, synod of, in Io99, by Primate
Seraphin, i. 297; in 1450 and 1480,
ii. 19
Granada, New, suppression of monas-
teries in, ii. 339
Granada, Pedro Guerrero, reforming
Archbishop of, ii. 257
Grand, Madame, and Talleyrand, ii. 318
Grandier, Urbain, on priestly marriage,
ii. 297, note; tried for sorcery, ii. 297,
*Ote
384
INDEX
Gratian, on celibacy, i. 13 ; on dissolution
of priestly marriage, i. 390–1
Gratien, Archbishop of Rouen, on priestly
marriage, ii. 314
Greek Church, characteristics lead to
schism, i. 87–8; rules as to celibacy,
i. 88 ; residence of suspected women
forbidden in, i. 97; Swedes regarded
as schismatics of, i. 302; efforts of
Council of Lyons to reunite, i. 407;
Stanislas Hosius of Ermeland on
customs of, ii. 192
Grégoire of Blois, on repudiated clergy,
ii. 315; “Histoire du mariage des
Prêtres en France,” ii. 320, note;
opposes Gobel, ii. 321, note
Gregory, St. Theologus, Bishop Nazian-
zum, i. 53 ; son of a married ecclesi-
astic, i. 53
Gregory the Great, declaration on
monastic life and marriage, i. 39;
monastic reforms by, i. 126–7 ; states-
manship of, i. 137 ; enforcement of
celibacy by, i. 138; conversion of
England, i. 185, 186; story related by,
i. 434, note
Gregory II., condemns marriages of nuns,
i. 142; appealed to by St. Boniface, i. 143
Gregory VI., miracle at death causes
papal funeral honours, i. 219, note
Gregory VII., discredits story of Paph-
nutius, i. 51 ; causes its condemnation
at Roman synod, i. 51 ; refuses ordina-
tion to illegitimates, i. 242, note ; ex-
communicated by disaffected bishops,
i. 259; urges Erlembaldo to persevere,
i. 260; early life of, i. 264; wild
dreams of ecclesiastical supremacy,
i. 264; persistent advocate of celibacy,
i 267; stories of, i. 268–9 ; renews
legislation of Nicholas II., i. 269 ; en-
forces celibacy on Siegfrid of Mainz,
i. 275; authorises laity to disown
incontinent priests, i. 276–7; opposed
by German princes, i. 278; called
“praeceptor impossibilium,” i. 296
Gregory VIII. prevents abolition of
celibacy, ii. 402
Gregory IX. and Swedish priests, i. 302
Gregory X. on corrupting influence of
prelates, i. 436
Gregory XIII. complains of marriage of
priests, ii. 231; savage decrees on
false confessors, ii. 256
Gregory XV. on abuse of confessional,
ii. 264 ; bull of Benedict XIV., copies
definitions of, ii. 267
Gregory XVI., encyclical, “Mirari vos,”
on priestly marriage, ii. 325
Gregory, St., of Nazianzum on priestly
marriage, i. 53
Gregory of Tours, on nomination of
bishops, i. 132, note; on enforcement
of celibacy, i. 134, note
Gregory of Vercelli convicted of incest,
i. 222
Greyfriars of Perth, Knox reports as
luxurious, ii. 165
Grillandus, Papal Vicar, Rome, reports
case, ii. 58–9
Grindal, Archbishop, Elizabeth’s dislike
of sermons expressed to, ii. 141, note;
on residence of women with clergy,
ii. 145; on position of married clergy,
ii. 147
Grosseteste, Robert, of Lincoln, supports
regularity, while opposing papal en-
croachment, i. 356; inveighs against
corruption of papal court, i. 425
Guala, Cardinal, constitutions of, i. 410
Guarino of Modena requires oath of
chastity, i. 176
Guastalla, Council of, in IIoô, i. 292
Guerrero, Pedro, reforming Bishop of
Granada, ii. 257
Guibert de Nogent, case of, i. 316
Guiberto of Ravenna, on concubinage, i.
284; driven out of Rome, i. 285
Guido, Cardinal, enforces celibacy in
Austria, i. 300; in Denmark, i. 303
Guido di Valate, made Archbishop of
Milan, i. 246; swears to destroy Si-
moniacal heresy, i. 252; imposes
penitence on himself, i. 252; is ex-
communicated, i. 255; expelled from
Milan, i. 256; resigns archbishopric,
i. 257
Guilielmus Appulus on Nicholas II., i.
232, note
Gunther, Pastor, Elector Frederic spon-
sor for child of, ii. 47
Gunzo Grammaticus, i. 169, note
Guthrun on clerical immorality, i. 191
HAARLEM, synod of, in 1564, ii. 231,
700te
Habit, monastic, efficacy of, i. 415
Hainscheidt, ancient monastery of, ii. 64
Hali Meidenhad, i. 348, note
Hamburg, reforms at, i. 221 ; Council of,
in I406, i. 415, note
Hamerer, Dr., on clerical corruption, ii.
236
Hamilton, Patrick, Scottish proto-martyr,
ii. 162, note
Hamilton, Catherine, escape of, i. 162,
note
Hamilton, Archbishop, licentiousness of,
ii. 158
Hanno of Cologne earns canonisation, i.
237
Hardouin of Anger condemns clerical
immorality, ii. 8
Heads of colleges, position of wives of,
ii. 146
Heisterbach, Caesarius of, on influence
of priesthood, i. 431; on priestly
“solicitation,” ii. 276
INDEX
385
Helena, Queen of Adiabene, Nazirate
vow of, i. 6
Heliodorus of Trica, rigorous asceticism
of, i. 91'
Helisacar, Abbot, ii. 23, note
Héloise, reforms convent, i. 319; mar-
riage of, i. 324
Helsen, Abbé, on women resident in
priests' houses, ii. 346, note
Helvidius, heresy of, i. 67, note
Henke, edition of Calixtus, ii. 300
Henning, Bishop, ii. 20, note
Henrician or Petrobusian heresy, i. 463
Henry II. (Emperor), on sons of priests,
i. 178; endeavours to enforce celibacy,
i. 206
Henry III. (Emperor) desires Church re-
form, i. 214; appoints Suidger Pope
Clement II., i. 214 ; conscientious
labours, of for papacy, i. 226; makes
Bruno of Toul, Pope, i. 218 ; President
d’Espeisses presents memorial to, ii.
229; assembly of Melun addresses, ii.
235
Henry III., Bishop of Liége, his sixty-
five children, i. 417
Henry IV. (Emperor), accession of, as an
infant, i. 224; has offer of golden crown,
and title of Patrician, i. 235 ; appoints
Tedaldo Bishop of Milan, i. 259; volun-
tary humiliation of, at Canosa, i. 259;
expels Altmann of Passau, i. 273 ; pro-
tects simoniacal and married priests, i.
283 ; triumphs over the Church, i. 287;
mission of two legates to, i. 270, note
Henry V. (Emperor), rebellion of, i. 291
Henry I. (France) attempts to enforce
celibacy, i. 207
Henry III.(France), edicts of pacification,
ii. 153
Henry I. (England) confiscates property
of priests, i. 334; summons Council in
London, i. 336; enforces regulations of
Council, i. 337, 340
Henry V. (England) persecutes Lollards,
i. 476, ii. 3.; attempts reform, ii. 9
Henry VIII. (England) favours League of
Schmalkalden, ii. 69 ; confirms incorpo-
ration of Christ Church, Oxford, ii. 83;
miserable quarrel of, with Rome, ii. 85;
divorce of, from Queen Katharine, ii.
85; supreme head of Church of England,
ii. 85; enriches Treasury by secularising
Church property, ii. 86, 99; excommu-
nicated by Paul III., ii. 94; opposes
priestly marriage, ii. 103, 107; title of
Defender of the Faith, ii. 103 ; decides
against proposals of Schmalkaldic
League, ii. 109; death of, ii. 116; refuses
connection with Council of Trent, ii. 180
Henry of Huntingdon, i. 198, note ; son
of a priest, i. 331, note; on John of
Crema, i. 339, note ; on system of “cul-
lagium,” i. 340–41, note
WOL. II.
Henry of Norwich, married cleric with
legitimate children, i. 354
Henry the Petrobusian, i. 463,464
Henry of Ravenna supports anti-pope, i.
237
Henry of Salzburg, i. 295, note
Henry of Speyer, i. 278
hº Prior Patrick, immorality of,
ii. 156
Hera, compulsory celibacy for priestesses
of, i. 43
Heracles, celibate priestesses of, i. 43
Héraudin of Châteauraux on priestly mar-
riage, ii. 314
Hercules (Gaditanian), celibacy of priests
for, i. 42
Hereditary Levitical priesthood, i. 5
Hereditary tendency in Greek Church, i. 97
Hereditary transmission, Gregory VII.
and danger of, i. 267
Hereditary priesthood allowed by Alex-
ander II., i. 241–2
Hereditary transmission, of benefices in
Ireland, i. 361 ; Friesland, i. 304 ;
Normandy, i. 312; in bishopric of Toul,
i.320 ; forbidden at Rheirns, i. 323;
condemned by Lucius II., i. 341;
would create sacerdotal caste, i. 347;
Innocent III. forbids in Ireland, i. 364;
claimed under Lucius III., i. 397 ;
Coelestin III. upon, i. 404; Bishop
Martin of Camin on, ii. 20; in fifteenth
century, ii. 21 ; Clement VII. issues
bull on, ii. 174; Scottish Queen Regent
petitioned on, ii. 174
Heresies, the, i. 459–81 ;
extirpating, ii. 110, note
Heresy, Thirty Years' War bars spread of,
ii. 237
Heresy, “vehement,” culprit to abjure
“de vehementi,” ii. 280
Heresy, Lutheran, justified by clerical
corruption, ii. 57, 171, 177, 190, 192,
225
Heretics, outwardly orthodox, i. 460
Herluca, vision of, i. 281
Herman von Wied of Cologne attempts
reform, ii. 176–7
Hermann, Bishop of Prague, i. 290
Hermann (King) condemns priestly mar-
riage, i. 285
Herraiz, Fray Manuel Pablo, self-accused
of “solicitation,” ii. 293
Heuser, Rev. H. J., professor of theology,
Overbrook, ii. 277, note
Heydeck, Baron, marries a nun, ii. 62
High Commission, Court of, ii. 140, note
Hilarion introduces monachism into
Palestine, i. 106, note
Hilary of Poitiers, instance of a married
bishop, ii. 42
Hildebert of Le Mans tries to reform
clergy, i. 318; poem attributed to, i.
349, note
a device for
2 B
386
INDEX
Hildebrand the Monk, i. 218; all-power-
ful at papal court, i. 230–1; far more
shrewd than Damiani, i. 240; sent on
mission to Milan, i. 251 ; requires sub-
jection to Rome, i. 251
(For further story, see Gregory VII.)
Hildebrandine doctrine, man burned at
Cambrai for upholding, i. 282; slow
progress of, i. 305; revived in Catharan
heresy, i. 460; “Poor Men of Lyons”
hold, i. 468
Hildebrandine reforms not altogether
successful, i. 262
Hilles, Richard, on the Six Articles, ii.
115, mote
Himerius of Tarragona and new disci-
pline of celibacy, i. 64
Hincmar of Rheims on appellate jurisdic-
tion of Rome, i. 159, 430
Hiouen Thsang describes Buddhist mon-
asteries, i. 103
Hippolytus on self-mortification, i. 20,
'mote
Hippolytus of Portus on digami, i. 25
“Historia Tripartita" contains story of
Paphnutius, i. 52
Hof, immorality of priests in, ii. 54–5
Holland, “Old Catholic ’’ movement in,
ii. 330
Honorius (Emperor), forbids “mulieres
extraneae,” i. 49 ; persecutes Jovinian,
i. 70; edict of, in 42O, i. 79, 82
Honorius I. addresses Scottish clergy,
i. 185, note
Honorius II. (anti-pope), i. 235
Honorius III., orders enforcement of
laws, i. 326 ; denounces laxity in Ire-
land, i. 365 ; approves rules of Order
of Santiago, i. 453
Hooper, Bishop, on effect of Six Articles,
ii. 116 ; questions by, for visitations,
ii. 121
Horn, Bishop, 'on position of married
clergy, ii. 147
Hosius, Bishop, on celibacy, ii. 192; on
communion in both kinds, ii. 215
Hospitallers, the, i. 451; suppressed in
England, ii. 98
Hostility to Church in fifteenth century,
ii. 9
Hoya, Johann von, Bishop of Osnabruck,
ii. 224
Hubert, Abbot, marriage of, i. 162
Hugh, Bishop of Die (see Hugh of Lyons),
i. 308
Hugh of Grenoble, i. 269, note
Hugh of Lincoln, anecdote told of, i. 343
Hugh of Lyons, reproved by Gregory
VII., i. 310 ; efforts by, in Brittany, i.
312
Hugh, Archbishop of Rouen, character
of, i. 179; on marriage in orders, i. 392
Hugo of Constance, Zwingli’s demand
on, ii. 45
Hugo of Silva Candida at Council of
Geronda, i. 371
Hugo, Cardinal, speech of, at Lyons, i.
424 .
Huguenots, priestly marriage among, ii.
151–2
Hugues, Archbishop of Rouen, and Eon
de l'Etoile, i. 465–6 -
Humbert of Silva Candida, on Greek
errors, i. 223; arguments used by, i.
236, note
Humphrey, Lawrence, epigram on Dr.
Richard Smith, ii. 119, mote ; on posi-
tion of married clergy, ii. 147
Hungary, introduction of celibacy in, i.
297 ; fines exacted by Church in, ii.
18; some priests petition diet in, ii.
328
Huss, John, on sacraments of sinful
priests, i. 230, note; heresy of, i. 460;
reformer rather than heresiarch, i. 477
Hussites, negotiations with, in Magde-
burg, Passau, and Bamberg, ii. 11
Hyacinthe, Père, marriage of, ii. 324
Hyde, Council of, miraculous mandate
by crucifix at, i. 197
Hydroparastitae heresy, i. 34
Hypatia, Synesius, philosophic disciple
of, i. 90 ; tragedy of, i. 118
IBAs, Metropolitan of Edessa, accusation
against, i. 86
Idelette de Bure marries Calvin, ii. 151
Ignatius, St., allusions to abstinence
from marriage, i. 19
Ilchi, Chinese Tartary, Buddhist monas-
teries in, i. 103
Ildefonso, St., attacks
Helvedius, i. 68
Ilgenthal, Elector John of Saxony forbids
election of abbot in, ii. 64
Illegitimates, ineligible to priesthood in
Coptic Church, i. 100; in Latin Church,
i. 241–2
Illegitimacy of children of ecclesiastics,
i. 92; of Anglican clergy, sixteenth
century, i. 147
Illuminism, aberrations of, ii. 285
Images burned at Smithfield, ii. 108
Immorality, arising from vows of celi-
bacy, i. 31 ; less reprehensible than
marriage, i. 165, 236, 434 ; favours
shown to, i. 395
Immorality of Church (see Morals)
Immunity, caused by appellate power of
Rome, i. 158; by forms of ecclesias-
tical procedure, i. 159; for adultery by
priests, ii. 253; from torture for con-
fessors, ii. 284
Impostures regarding relic and images,
ii. 9
Ina, King, adopts monastic life, i. 187
Incest, resulting from celibacy, i. 156;
common in Ireland, i. 363; diminished
Jovinian and
INDEX
387
by marriage, i. 212; shocking case of,
in Rome, ii. 245, note
Indelibility of priesthood, i. 386
Index Expurgatorius, the first, ii. 37,
700te
Index Librorum Prohibitorum, ii. 184
India, influence of, on Jewish thought,
i. 6
Indians, bad example of Spanish priests
among, ii. 248
Indians of New Granada, Bishop Barios
makes rules for, ii. 246
“Indulgence, the St. Peter's,” preached
in Woerden, ii. 50
Indulgences, a marketable commodity,
i. 443; suspicions regarding use of
money from, ii. 13
Infallibility of Pope, ii. 328, 349
Infanticide result of laws of celibacy, i.
31, 108, 156
Infessura, character of Sixtus IV., i. 428,
720te
Injunctions to clergy and laity, Queen
Elizabeth, ii. 138
Innocent of Rhodez, i. 132, note
Innocent I., complains of marriage be-
tween priests and widows, i. 27; in
supporting celibacy does not refer to
Nicene canon, i. 49 ; condemns the
Bonosiacs, i. 68 ; condemns Vigilan-
tius, i. 72 ; enforces celibacy in Cala-
bria, i. 78
Innocent II. driven from Rome, i. 294 ;
prohibits priestly marriage at Liége, i.
294; dissolves marriage of priests, i.
388
Innocent III., enforces celibacy, i. 301,
302 ; reforms convent of St. Agatha,
i. 319; excommunicates Otho IV. and
John of England, i. 345, note ; requires
ejection of sons of priests, i. 348; re-
gards himself responsible for English
Church, i. 349 ; sends legate to Ireland,
i. 364; refuses application of Bossaert
d’Avesnes, i. 399; summons Christian
world to Vatican Council, i. 405; de-
cisions of, i. 400 ; decisions of, on di-
gami, i. 434–5; approves principles of
Order of Santiago, i. 453 ; brings back
to fold heretics of Bosnia, i. 462, note
In no cent IV., enforces celibacy in
Sweden, i. 302; gives judgment on
marriage of Bossaert d’Avesnes, i. 399–
400; responds to appeal of abandoned
wives, i. 401
Innocent VIII., licentious character of,
i. 428 ; forces Laillier to recant, ii. 29
Inquisition, Congregation of, addresses
archbishops, bishops, and ordinaries,
ii. 354
Inquisition, issues instructions on denun-
ciation in 1880, ii. 356; in 1897, ii. 356;
decision of, February 19, 1896, ii. 358;
decree of, on November 9, 1898, ii. 358
Inquisition in Germany, i. 470; occupied
with heretics, i. 472 ; forces recanta-
tion of John of Oberwesel, ii. 28
Inquisition, Roman, extends operation
of bulls on solicitation, ii. 262, note;
orders observance of bulls, ii. 266; on
questions of “intention ” in confes-
sional questioning, ii. 267; orders no
question on “consent ’’ to be asked,
ii. 271 ; settles sixteen cases of solici-
tation, ii. 273; pronounces on questions
regarding solicitation, ii. 273; exacts
denunciation under pain of excommu-
nication, ii. 281 ; declares soliciting
confessors disabled from saying Mass,
ii. 281 ; Hilario Caone confesses to
forty charges before, ii. 282; con-
demns Panzini's work on celibacy, ii.
326
Inquisition, Spanish, teaching of, on celi-
bacy and marriage, ii. 204; heretics
and the, ii. 236 ; requires use of con-
fessional box in confessions, ii. 256;
orders laymen to serve in galleys if
giving absolution, ii. 256 ; crowds of
accusing women throng, ii. 259, note ;
solicitation no longer to be included in
edict of, ii. 260 ; case of Fray Vicente
González, ii. 269 ; on denunciation by
penitents, ii. 270; change of attitude
of, regarding solicitation, ii. 272; ac-
cepts bull Sacramentum Poenitentiae, ii.
275; pronounces on number of denun-
ciations required for conviction, ii.
281 ; condemns Lorenzo de Eldora to
galleys, ii. 289
Inquisitors, manual for, chapter on nuns,
ii. 305
Insermentés clergy, ii. 308
Interdict on England, i. 344–5; on Milan,
i. 258
Interim instituted by Charles W., ii. 73,
185
Interpretation of Scripture, Poor Men of
Lyons claim the, i. 468
Isabella of Castile supports Ximenes, ii.
22
Isidor of Pelusium on neglect of celibacy,
i. 91, note
Isidor, St., of Seville, on impostors, i.
128
“Isidor Mercator,” i. 155
Isidorian forged decretals, i. 155
Italy, enforcement of celibacy in 384 in,
i. 69 ; resistance to celibacy in, i. 78;
condition of morals in fifth century, i.
85; apostle of, St. Benedict of Nursia,
i. 123; monachism reformed in, by
Gregory I., i. 126–7 ; state of Church
in, sixth century, i. 136 ; state of
Church in, eighth century, i. 142;
Charlemagne and Roman clergy in, i.
153 ; state of Church in, tenth century,
i. 164; Ratherius of Verona, com-
388
INDEX
plaints of, i. 167; Atto of Vercelli,
complaints of, i. 167; Guarino of
Modena and Alberic of Marsico, i. 176;
Silvester II. lightly treats celibacy in,
i. 181 ; state of Church in eleventh
century, i. 208–10 ; S. Giovanni Gaul-
berto and austerities, i. 213 ; Henry
III. and the papacy, i. 214–15 ; St.
Peter Damiani and, i. 216 ; vain at-
tempts at reform in, i. 222; Damiani
and Hildebrand foremost figures in, i.
226; Council of Melfi in IoS9, i. 231 ;
schism of Lombard clergy in, i. 235;
anti-pope Cadalus repudiated, i. 237;
failure of attempts to reform, i. 240–1 ;
reforms in Milan, i. 244–62; condition
of regulars in sixteenth century, ii. 89 ;
abuse of confessional in, ii. 269, note ;
priest guilty of solicitation in, not
publicly punished, ii. 280 ; two de-
nunciations required before considera-
tion of case, ii. 283 ; case of Panzini
and the Inquisition in, ii. 326; con-
solidated under Victor Emanuel, ii.
337, 350 ; suppression of religious
houses in, ii. 337
Ivo of Chartres, on the canons, i. 317;
reproves measureless scandal, i. 318–19
JACOBINES, number of, i. 99
Jacobus quotes canons, ii. 252 mote
Jacopo della Marchia, ii. 18; rebukes
immorality, forced to fly, ii. 19
Jainas, the, i. 22, mote
Jalikiah, Church of, independent of
Rome, i. 369
James of Jerusalem Nazirite and pro-
bably Essene, i. 10
James IV. of Scotland protects Lollards,
ii. 155
James W., attempts at reform under, ii.
158
Jameson, Margaret, marriage of, ii. 166
Jan de Backer (Pistorius) of Woerden,
case of, ii. 50 ; burned alive, ii. 50
Jane of Flanders, i. 398
Jansenism, Ultramontanism triumphs
over, ii. 363
Jansenistic rigorism, ii. 242
Jean d’Hullier, puritan Bishop of
Meaux, i. 477, mote ; condemned by
Sorbonne, i. 477, note
Jean Laillier condemned by Sorbonne, ii.
29
Jean de Rély on morals of the Church,
ii. 15
Jean de Varennes accused of heretical
teaching, i. 472
Jephthah's daughter, story of, illustrates
Jewish views of virginity, i. 5
Jerome, St., on origin of celibacy, i. 13 ;
on virgin birth of Buddha, i. 22; con-
tempt of, for marriage, i. 38; de-
nounces agapetae, i, 47–8, 81 ; de-
nounces Bonosiac heresy, i. 68; roundly
abuses Jovinian, i. 69 ; quarrels with
Vigilantius, i. 71; uses coarse invective
against Vigilantius, i. 72; successful
labour for ecclesiastical celibacy, i. 81 ;
urges custom of Antioch, Alexandria,
and Rome, i. 89; on difficulty of
maintaining virginity, ii. 339
Jerome of Prague on Huss, i. 478
Jerusalem, impression produced by cap-
ture of, i. 403
Jessopp, Dr., prints deed of thirteenth
century, i. 354 ; on miscreants who
robbed monasteries, ii. 101, note
Jesuits, guilty of solicitation favoured by
Sixtus V., ii. 261 ; influence of, power-
ful in Rome, ii. 261 ; try to gain ex-
emption for religious orders, ii. 261 ;
Reusch on Order of, ii. 266, note ; ex-
pelled from Portugal, France, and
Spain, ii. 335 ; Order of, suppressed
by Clement XIV., ii. 335 ; attempt by
Charles V. to introduce, opposed, ii.
338
Jesus Christ, Portuguese Order of, i. 455
Jews, relation of, to asceticism, i. 4-12;
polygamy of, i. 26
Jodocus of Lubec, deputy of papal
legates, ii. 74, note
John IV. reproves laxity of Saxon
monasteries, i. 188
John XII., extreme depravity of, i. 165
John XIII., holds Council of Ravenna,
upholding celibacy, i. 172; St. Dunstan
procures bull from, i. 195
John XXII., Emperor Ludwig undertakes
to depose, i, 401
John XXIII., brutal licentiousness of, i.
426–7 ; convokes Council of Constance,
ii. 3.; releases Hospitaller from vow on
payment of 600 ducats, ii. 14–15
John, King of England, Innocent III.
places interdict on kingdom of, i. 344–
5, 405
John Merlaw of Fulda relaxes rules, ii.
23, note
John of Alexandria (Eleemosynarius), i.
138, note
John of Crema, hypocrisy of, i. 338; visits
Scotland, i. 367
John of Engheim, murder of, i. 417, note
John of Frankfort on papal authority, ii.
14, note
John of Leyden, ii. 24
John of Liége, i. 417, note
John of Lisieux, i. 319
John of Niklaushausen (rustic prophet),
ii. 24; burned at stake, ii. 24
John (Ruchrath) of Oberwesel, ii. 28
John of Pirna, i. 472
John of Rouen, i. 308
John of Salisbury, i. 319
John of Saxony forbids election of Abbot
Ilgenthal, ii. 64
INDEX
389
John of Utrecht prohibits men entering
nunneries, i. 422, note
John, St., of Jerusalem, Knights of, i. 451
John, St., the Evangelist, condemns the
Nicolites, i. 21
John the Baptist undoubtedly an Essene,
i. 10
Jonas, Justus, on Luther's marriage, ii. 51
Joseph II., reforms monastic orders, i.
450 ; inclines to priestly marriage, ii.
300 ; reduces religious orders in his
possessions, ii. 335
Jovian on marriage of sacred virgins, i.
109
Jovinian, claims equal merit for maidens,
wives, and widows, i. 37–8; opposes
ascetic spirit, i. 67; attacked by St.
Ildefonso, i. 68 condemned by St.
Ambrose and Siricius, i. 69 ; driven to
Milan, i. 69; abused by St. Jerome, i.
69; openly assembles followers at
Rome, i. 70; scourged and exiled to
rock of Boa, Dalmatia, i. 70
Juan, Don Jorje, ii. 249
Judae, Leo, marries a béguine, ii. 46
Judah and Tamar, story of, i. 5
Judhãel of Dol, simony and marriage of,
i. 311
Julian (Emperor) on Syrian asceticism, i.
42, note
Julian, Cardinal, legate to Ireland, i. 364
Julius, Bishop of Wurzburg, ii. 232
Julius III., grants powers to Cardinal
Pole, ii. 125, note, 130; bull of indul-
gence for England, ii. 130; re-convokes
Council of Trent, ii. 181
Junqua, Abbé, case of, ii. 324
Jurisdiction, appellate, of Rome, i. 158 ;
of seducer over seduced forfeited, ii.
357, note
Jus primae noctis, i. 441
Jus spolii enforced by Robert the Frisian,
i. 313
Justification, by works, doctrine of, i. 129;
by faith, doctrine in Scottish Reforma-
tion, ii. 162
Justin Martyr on chastity and marriage,
i. 19
Justinian, constitution on ecclesiastical
marriage, i. 92; adds provision to legis-
lation on monachism, i. 120
Juvenal on shameless papal court, i. 426
KARSGENG, Our Lady of, ii. 155–6
Katharine of Aragon divorced, ii. 83
Katz, work on celibacy, ii. 301
Keledeus or Culdee, i. 366
Killore, John, burned, ii. 166
King's College, Cambridge, enriched by
spoils of monasteries, ii. 83; Windsor
ºiched by spoils of monasteries, ii.
Kirkham, Bishop of Durham, prohibits
priestly marriage, i. 353–4
Knade, James, married priest of the
Reformation, ii. 42
Knights, of Avis, i. 455; of St. John of
Jerusalem, i. 451; of Rhodes, or of
Malta, i. 451; of Santiago, i. 455; of
Marian Order, i. 457
Koch of Wiesbaden, case of, ii. 325
Kokkius, Dr., denounces clerical immor-
ality, ii. 13
Kolderup-Rosenwinge,
Cnut's laws, i. 202
Kopp, Leonhard, helps nuns to escape,
ii. 50
Krishna, similarity of, to Christ, i. 99,
7.0te
Kyle, Lollards of, ii. 155
Latin text of
LABATA, Francisco, imprisoned, ii. 261
La Baumelle, Mémoires de Mme. de
Maintenon, ii. 298, note
Lactantius, condemns asceticism, i. 40;
denounces hermit’s life as that of
beast, i. 106
Ladak, lamas in, i. 103
Ladislas, St., introduces celibacy into
Hungary, i. 297
Lafitau, Bishop of Sisterion, on priestly
marriage, ii. 298, note
Lafuente, ii. 336, note
Lagrèze, Histoire du Devil dans les
Pyrénées, i. 441
Laity, corrupted by clergy, i. 320, 343,
ii. 237; in favour of priestly marriage,
i. 301, ii. 48; in favour of celibacy,
i. 279 ; ii. 108, 148
Lambert of Artois enforces celibacy,
i. 315
Lamentatio ob Coelibatum Sacerdotum,
ii. 25
Lämmer on scarcity of priests, ii. 197,
720te
Lancisky, synod of, i. 301
Landolfo, leader of Paterins, wounded,
i. 254
Lands of Church, in German Reforma-
tion, ii. 64, 65; in England, ii. 92, 130;
in Scotland, ii. 160 ; in France, ii. 335 ;
in Italy, ii. 337
Lanfranc, moderation of reforms of,
i. 329
Langdon, Abbot of, “drunkennest knave
living,” ii. 88
Langdon, Rev. William Chauncy, on
clerical morality, ii. 348
Langlande, on foreign prelates, i. 354,
note; on venality of officials, i. 358, note ;
on the Church, ii. 77
Langssac, M. de, instructions on, at
Trent, ii. 197
Lanzo of Milan, i. 245
Laodicea, Council of, in 352, i. 56
Laon, case of married sub-deacon of, i.
400
La Réole, monks of, kill St. Abbo, i. 177
390
INDEX
Lara, Manrique di, Inquisitor-General,
ii. 275, note
Lateran, Council of, in II23, i. 385, note;
in II.79, i. 363; in I215, i. 405; in 1870,
ii. 349
Latimer, Bishop, an intermediary, ii. 93,
7-Oče
tºº, America, Plenary Council in 1899,
ii. 343
Latin Church dominates history of
modern civilisation, i. 1
Laurentius, Gallus, i. 434, note
tºº. clergy of, drive out bishop,
1.
La Vendée, insurrections in, ii. 308
Lawney, chaplain to Duke of Norfolk,
bor màt of, ii. 113, note
Lead, value of, in English monasteries,
ii. 99 mote
League of Schmalkalden formed, ii. 67
Le Bas, estimate of number of French
ecclesiastics, ii. 313, note
Lecky, History of European Morals, i.
117, 7.0te; History of Rationalism, i.
450, mote
Lefèvre d’Etaples, ii. 150
Legacies, to Church restricted, i. 61 ;
void, to priests’ children, treated as
legitimate, i. 382
Legitimation, letters of, ii. 161
Leibnitz on Lutherans returning to
Roman communion, ii. 298, mote
Leo I., on marriage between priests and
widows, i. 27; treats recalcitrant
Cenobites tenderly, i. 115
Leo VII. answers inquiry of Gerard of
Lorsch, i. 169
Leo IX., ascends pontifical throne, i. 218;
takes Monk Hildebrand to Rome, i.
218 ; degrades Dabralis, i. 220; Council
of, at Mantua, broken up, i. 222;Ideath
of, i. 223
Leo X., character of, ii. 34; propositions
of, opposed in Diet of Augsburg, ii. 38;
issues bull against Luther, ii. 40;
feeble efforts of, for reform in morals,
ii. 55; Wolsey applies to, ii. 81
Leo XIII., concessions of, to Francis
Joseph, i. 458
Leo and Anthemius forbid monks to go
beyond monasteries, i. 119
Leo Marsicanus on Alberic of Marsico, i.
176, note
Leo the Isaurian, i. 144
Leo the Philosopher, regulations in
basilica, i. 92, 93, note ; orders recalci-
trant monks to return to convent, i. 120
Leonistae, St. Ambrose countenances
tradition of, i. 66
Leopold of Austria, Bishop, dispensations
for marriage, ii. 219
Leopold of Tuscany tries to reform
religious houses, ii. 282, 303
Leptines, synod of, in 743, i. 148
Lerida, Council of, in 1250, i. 379–80;
1314, i. 380
Lhassa, monasteries and lamas in, i. 103
Liber de Amabili Ecclesiae, Concordia
(Erasmus), ii. 62, note
Liber Gomorrhianus, i, 219, note
Licences, to sin, tribute known as culla-
gium, i. 309; inveighed against in
Apocalypsis Goliae, i. 345–6; con-
demned by Lateran Council, i. 406;
for concubinage must in all cases be
paid, ii. 239; bishops sell to women,
for immorality, ii. 55, note
Licentiousness, treated more lightly than
marriage, i. 165, 236, 434–5; of clergy
treated as result of celibacy, ii. 211;
regarded as a matter of course, i. 412;
of Middle Ages, i. 423
Liége, Manichæism in, in IO25, i. 244 ;
priestly marriage in, in twelfth century,
i. 295 ; Bishop of, on corruption of
priesthood, ii. 193, note; Council of, in
II31, i. 294, 387 ; heretics in, i. 464;
Bishop of, on gift of continence, ii.
193, note
Lignana, Girolamo, attempts to murder
St. Charles Borromeo, ii. 228
Liguori, St. Alphonso de, on papal de-
crees, ii. 268 ; letter to conclave for
election of Pope, ii. 305
Lillebonne, Council of, in Io&o, i. 308
Lima, synod of, in 1585, ii. 246; in 1552
and 1567, ii. 247
Lincoln, case of subdeacon of, i. 396,
^0te
Lindet of Evreux, marriage of, ii. 310
Link, Wenceslas, Vicar Augustine Order,
marriage of, ii. 46
Lisieux, case of Archdeacon of, i. 435,
note ; synod of, in IOS5, i. 308
Litchfield, Saxon Bishop of, i. 329;
visitation of diocese of, ii. 87
Liturgy, the new, enforced in 1549, ii.
120
Livonia, privilege in, for sons of priests,
i. 416
Lizka makes short work with heretics,
i. 471
Llandaff, Bishop of, on commission to
try married bishops, ii. 125
Llorente on secular and regular priests,
ii. 294
Lochon on secrets of the confessional,
ii. 271, note
Lollards, the, i. 476; declaration of
Archbishop of Canterbury on, i. 476;
of Kyle, ii, 155
Loménie, coadjutor of Archbishop of
Sens, married, ii. 310
London, Dr., abbess of Chepstow ac-
cuses, ii. 97; chronicles troubles of
ejected monks, ii. 113, note
London, married priests deprived, in
I554, ii. 124; enumeration of married
INDEX
391
priests in archdeaconry of, ii. 139;
Council of, in Io'75, i. 329–30; in IIo2,
i. 331 ; in IIo8, i. 336; in 1126, i. 338;
in I237, i. 350
López, Father Juan, imprisoned, ii.
261
Lords, House of, delays priestly mar-
riage, ii. 117
Lorraine, Cardinal, instructions of, at
Trent, ii. 197
Los von Rom, movement of, ii. 329
Loserth on immoral priests in Prague,
i. 478, note
Lothair, Emperor, tries to enforce celi-
bacy, i. 294
Louis le Débonnaire attempts to reform
Church, i. 129, 153; makes seduction
of nun capital offence, i. 154; prohibits
practice of letting blood, i. 156
Louis le Gros, conditions of charter at
Compiègne, i, 326
Louis IX. arbitrates for children of
Margaret of Flanders, i. 399
Louis XII. and relics of St. Denis, i.
256, note
Louis XV., on disorders among regular
clergy, ii. 302; orders arrest of priests
frequenting brothels, ii. 303
Louis Philippe, ii. 338
Louise of Savoy, Clement VII. addresses
brief to, ii. 151
Louvain, University of, urges reform on
Philip II., ii. 191
Love letters handed in confessional,
discussion on, ii. 266–7
Loyola, Ignatius, Life of, by Ribadeneira,
ii. 175, note ; scandalised by Spanish
morals, ii. 175
Loyson, M. (Père Hyacinthe), case of,
ii. 324
Lucca, sacerdotal marriage in, i. 262
Lucerne, priest’s wife disowned in, ii.
325
Luceta, Dr. Pedro, foul case of solicita-
tion by, ii. 290
Lucius II. on hereditary priesthood, i.
341
Lucius III., on sacraments of sinful
priests, i. 229, note ; on hereditary
benefices, i. 397–8 ; on rules for Tem-
plars, i. 452; condemns the Waldenses,
i. 467
Lucretia Borgia, i. 428, note
Ludefia, Doctor Juan de, disputes on
priestly marriage, ii. 203
Lugo, Bernal Díaz de, on scandal attach-
ing to immorality, ii. 255
Lunden, Archbishop of, on priestly mar-
riage, i. 302; question on digami by,
i. 434
Lupus of Troyes on celibacy, i. 82
Luther, mistake to credit, with Reforma-
tion, ii. 35; ninety-five propositions of,
ii. 39; progress of, very slow, ii. 40;
changes views of priestly marriage, ii.
40, 41; Leo X. issues bull against, ii. 40;
burns books of canon law at Witten-
berg, ii. 41 ; preaches on clerical
marriage, ii. 46; marriage of, ii. 51 ;
defends digami, ii. 53; at enmity with
Anabaptists, ii. 68
Lutheran colleges crowded on account
of question of celibacy, ii. 196
Lutherans dispute with Calvinists and
Philippists, ii. 225, note
Lyons, Poor Men of, i. 468
Lyons, Council of, in 1274, i. 407, 436;
efforts at, to reunite Greek Church, i.
407; in 1528, ii. 173
MACAULAY, LORD, on Anglican clergy,
ii. 149
MacClosky, Cardinal, ii. 341, note
Macedonia, celibacy enforced in, i. 91
Macliaus of Brittany, story of, i. 133–4
MacMahon, Marshal, reactionary govern-
ment of, ii. 338
Macon, Council of, in 581, i. 133; Claude,
Bishop of, ii. 173
Madrid, “soliciting” priest temporarily
exiled from, ii. 286, note, 290
Madrigal, Manuel, voted to torture by
inquisitors, ii. 285
Maesse-pegnes, i. 201, note
Magdeburg, Council of, in 1403, i. 439,
quote; letter of Archbishop of, points
to papal rapacity, ii. 14
Mahavira, legend of, i. 22, note
Mahue, curé of S. Sulpice, on priestly
marriage, ii. 311 ; tried for pamphlet,
ii. 311
Maiden Bradley, morals of prior of, ii.
98, note
Mºjo. Cardinal, mission of, to Milan,
i. 25
Mainerio Boccardo, provisions of will of,
i. 262
Mainz, Council of (1049) forbids simony
and marriage, i. 220–1; enforcement
of celibacy in, i. 274 ; revolt at,
against Rodolf of Swabia, i. 282; Diet
of, in IOS5, i. 285; metropolitan synod
of, in 1549, ii. 190; Diether, Archbishop
of, case of, ii. 34, note; Archbishop of,
upon points of discipline, ii. 218;
Council of, in 888,'i. 157, mote; in Ioq9,
i. 220 ; in IO75, i. 275; in 1225, i. 418;
in 1527, ii. 47, note
Majorca, troubles in, with regard to
Canons, i. 382
Majorian, laws of, respecting nuns in
458, i. 116
Malachi, St., reforms of, i. 362; visits
St. Bernard at Clairvaux, i. 362
Malatesta, Carlo, of Rimini, on concu-
bines of priests, i. 421
Maldonaldo, Fray, accused of solicita-
tion, ii. 289
392
INDEX
Mallet, Abbé, case of, ii. 359; heinous-
ness of offence of, concealed by ortho-
dox journal, ii. 359
Malta, Knights of, i. 451 ; accusations
against, i. 453; suppressed in England,
ii. 98 ; Knight of, marries, ii. 154
Malvern, Great, prior of, offers bribe to
Cromwell, ii. 93, note
Manasses of Rheims forced to abandon
violent measures, i. 314
Mancio of Chalons, indecision of, i. 162
Manes, soi-disant envoy of Christ, career
of, i. 33
Manfredonia, Council of, in 1567, ii. 230
Manichæism, enthusiastically accepted,
i. 33 ; condemns marriage, i. 34;
eucharist in, according to Mazdean
form, i. 35; revived by Albigenses, i.
35; early, of St. Augustin, i. 75;
Milan headquarters of, i. 244; heresy
of, extirpated at stake, i. 244; revival
of, in eleventh century, i. 244; Milan
a nest of heresy of, i. 249, note
Manigold of Veringen, case of, i. 280–1
Mansfield, married priest of, imprisoned,
ii. 43
Mansi on twenty-ninth canon of first
Council of Arles, i. 43, note
Manual for Inquisitors, chapter on nuns,
ii. 305
Mantua, Council of (IoS3), broken up, i.
222 ; Council of, in 1067, i. 237
Mapes, Walter, satirical verses by, i. 339,
343, 353
Mar Abba forbids priestly marriage, i.
99
Marcellin, Abbé, on “droit de marquette,”
i. 441, note
Marcen, Francisco, Provincial of Castile,
imprisoned, ii. 261
Marcian (Emperor) restricts monachism,
i. 119
Marcion, heresy of, i. 20
Marcus, heresy of (Marcosian), i. 20
Margaret of Flanders, story of, i. 399
Margaret of Parma and Council of Trent,
ii. 222, note
Maria da Gloria, ii. 337
Maria S. della Scala, canons of, Milan,
ii. 227
Mºna, on married clergy in Spain, i.
370
Marian Order, the, i. 457
Marian persecution, in England, ii. 135 ;
reaction in England, ii. 123
Marien, Frère, prosecuted, 1299 offences,
ii. 361
Marillac, Bishop Charles de, on discip-
line, ii. 238
Marino, a married priest and miracle-
worker, i. 209
Marino of Ostia condemns priestly mar-
riage, i. 171
Marisco, Adam de, i. 357
Marozia, influence of, i. 164–5
Marquette, droit de, i. 441
Marriage, lofty teaching of Christ con-
cerning, i. 10; stigmatised as means
of transmitting original sin, i. 36:
Brahmanical and Buddhist views of,
i. 34; Manichaeism condemns, i. 36 ;
not allowed in orders, i. 28, 79; per-
sisted in by clergy, i. 83; custom con-
cerning, in Greek Church, i. 97;
custom concerning, among Nestorians,
i. 98 ; St. Jerome's contempt for, i. 38;
St. Augustin on, i. 38, 75; St. Martin
of Tours on, i. 38; not dissolved by
monastic vows, i. 127; not contem-
plated in Irish Church, i. 184 ; Council
of Melfi endeavours to check, i. 231–2;
Councils of Vienne and Tours prohibit,
i. 232; marriage, clerical, openly de-
fended by chaplains of Godfrey of
Tuscany, i. 234 ; habitual among
Piedmontese, i. 238; comparative mild
decretal against, i. 241; St. Gregory,
St. Augustin, and St. Victor on dis-
solution of, i. 386–7, note ; stigmatised
with degrading epithet by Alexander
III., i. 395; gradually given up in
Latin Church, i. 403; homily of
thirteenth century against, i. 431 ; a
mortal sin, according to Catharan
heresy, i. 459–60; heresy to teach, as
preferable to celibacy, ii. 204; dis-
pensations for, in England, ii. 209,
note; implies heresy, ii. 219
Marriage of bishops, prohibited, i. 28;
in fourth century, i. 53 ; in Eastern
Church, i. 93; in Africa, i. 95 ; not
allowed in Greek Church, i. 97 ; Mar
Abba forbids, i. 99 ; prohibited at
Council of Augsburg, i. 171 ; practised
in Gaul and Gothic Spain, i. 133, 135;
in eighth century, i. 149; in tenth
century, i. 177; in eleventh century, i.
209, 221, 232, 234; ends in separation
from wives in Hungary, i. 298; for
three generations in Quimper, i. 312:
in Rennes, Wannes, and Nantes, i. 312;
Saxon Bishop of Litchfield, i. 329;
English bishops, i. 341–2; Bishops
Peter, Philip, Spiridon of Cyprus, and
Hilary of Poitiers, ii. 42 ; gives wives
title of countesses, i. 312 ; allowed
under Edward VI., ii. 121 ; sanctioned
under Elizabeth, ii. 145; Archduke.
Leopold of Austria, dispensation for,
ii. 219
Marriage of deacons, permitted, i. 28 ;
forbidden, i. 77, 92, 171,299, 300, 331
Marriage of monks, permitted in fourth
century, i. 53; forbidden by Justinian,
i. 120; forbidden by Gregory the
Great, i. 127; St. Bernard on, i. 389 ;
common in ninth century, i. 158; in
thirteenth century, i. 401 ; forbidden
INDEX 393
by William of Cologne, i. 422, note ;
by Archbishop of Cologne, ii. 194,
720te
Marriage of nuns made by Jovian a
capital crime, i. 109; Councils of
Valence and Rome endeavour to check,
i. 113; renders inadmissible to penance
during husband’s life, i. 115; Leo I.
upon, i. 115–16; Pope Symmachus for-
bids, i. 123; Recared I. interposes con-
cerning, i. 135–6; Gregory II. declares
to be an open practice, i. 142; for-
bidden by Pope Zachary, i. 149; homily
against in thirteenth century, i. 348;
pronounced void in 1630, ii. 154; pro-
hibited by Archbishop of Cologne, ii.
; note ; under Reign of Terror, ii.
3
Marriage of priests, in early Church, i.
13, 14, 15, 28; restricted to single mar-
riage, i. 28; Council of Neocaesarea on,
i. 24; forbidden by Council of Elvira,
i. 43; not forbidden by Council of
Nicaea, i. 46–7; definitely prohibited in
385, i. 62; forbidden by canon law, i.
77; gradually discontinued in Western
Church, i. 66; custom of Eastern
Church regarding, i. 89; the rule in
Armenian Church, i. 96; obligatory
for parish priest in Greek Church, i.
98 ; skilfully tacit permission of, by
Nicholas I., i. 161–2; synod of En-
gelheim declares, incestuous, i. 171 ;
Council of Augsburg forbids, i. 171;
in Italy, in sixth and eighth centuries,
i. 136, 148; in Merovingian France, i.
131–2; prohibited in eighth century,
i. 152; reappears in ninth century, i.
162; common in tenth century, i. 169,
171; forbidden in tenth century, i. 171;
in British Church, i. 183 ; in Saxon
England, i. 186; in Wales, i. 198; uni-
versal in eleventh century, i. 210; in
Southern Italy, i. 231 ; in Tuscany, i.
234; creates a political party, i. 236 ;
becomes a heresy, i. 236 ; struggle over,
in Lombardy, i. 247; persecution of, i.
279 ; cases of, in Trèves, i. 279–80 ;
penalties inflicted on, i. 289; in Bohe-
mia, i. 293; in Germany, i. 292; in
Hungary, i. 297 ; in Dalmatia, i. 299;
in Austria, i. 300; in Poland, i. 300 ;
in Sweden, i. 301 ; in Denmark, i. 303;
in Friesland, i, 303-4; in France, i. 306;
in Normandy, i. 309–10; in Brittany, i.
311; in Flanders, i. 312 ; in England,
i. 330, 331, 341 ; in Wales, i. 358 ; in
Ireland, i. 365; in Spain, i. 370; delay
in abrogating, i. 373; forbidden by
Alfonso the Wise, i. 378 ; continued in
Spain and Portugal, i. 383 ; St.Bernard
on, i. 389; Gratian on, i. 390 ; advo-
cated by Alexander III., i. 402 ; appa-
rently condemned by Wickliffe, i. 474;
allowed by Lollards, i. 476; condemned
by Hussites, i. 479 ; advocated by
Bishop William Durand, ii. 25 ; advo-
cated in fifteenth century, ii.28–9; com-
mencement of, in Reformation, ii. 46;
demanded by Zwingli, ii. 45; accepted
by Luther, ii. 46; favoured by the
people, ii. 53 ; persecuted by the
Church, ii. 48 ; recognised under Inte-
rim, ii. 73; dispensation for, by Paul
III., ii. 74; recognised by Transaction
of Passau, ii. 75; advocated in England,
in 1530, ii. 103 ; commenced in Eng-
land, ii. 103–4; refused by Henry VIII.,
ii. 103, 107; capital offence under Six
Articles, ii. 112 ; permitted under
Edward VI., ii. 117, 118 ; popular re-
pugnance for, ii. 119–20 ; suppressed
under Queen Mary, ii. 124; admitted
by Queen Elizabeth, ii. 137; matter of
Anglican faith, ii. 140; uncertainty
regarding, affects clergy, ii. 149; re-
sented by Catholics under Elizabeth,
ii. 148; a matter of course for Hugue-
nots, ii. 151; dispensations for, sale of,
ii. 183; demanded at Council of Trent,
ii. 192; prevalence of, ii. 195; matter
of, prejudged at Trent, ii. 199; papal
dispensations for, ii. 208; pressed for
by Maximilian II., ii. 211–12 ; in post-
Tridentine Church, ii. 231, 232, 233;
denounced by Inquisition, ii. 204; in
French Revolution, ii. 311 ; causes loss
of stipend, ii. 313; under the Con-
cordat, ii. 316; varying policy con-
cerning, in France, ii. 314 ; accepted
by “Old Catholics,” ii. 328–9 ; in the
United States, ii. 334
Marriage of sub-deacons (see Sub-deacon)
Marriages, second, denounced by Justin
Martyr, i. 23; allowed by St. Paul, i.
23; Pope St. Gelasius on, i. 24; for-
bidden to priesthood, i. 25; St.
Augustine on, i. 76, note; Council of
Spalatro forbids to ecclesiastics, i.
170 ; in eleventh century often pom-
pously celebrated, i. 238; forbidden
to Milanese clergy, i. 247 (see also
Digami)
Married priests, ordered to separate from
wives, i. 75; orders concerning, at
second Council of Tours, i. 134; orders
at third Council of Toledo, i. 135;
deprivations of, i. 153; Rome full of,
under Stephen IX., i. 225; ordered
by Nicholas II. to separate from wives,
i. 229–30; further orders for, i. 234 ;
pronounced incapable of holding office,
i. 303 ; mixed courts for trial of, i.
309; persecution of, i. 316 ; Charles V,
on, ii. 67 ; Melanchthon on cruelties to,
ii. 114; divorces of, ii. 114
Martène, Don, i. 279
“Marthas,” servants of priests, ii. 343
394
INDEX
Martin, case of, in 1817–21, ii. 322
Martin I., advice of, to Amandus, i. 141,
720te
Martin V., election of, ii. 5; favours of,
to. John XXIII., i. 427; attempts
reform, ii. 6–7
Martin, Dr. T., at trial of Cranmer, i.
222, note ; treatise by, on celibacy, ii.
126, note
Martin of Battle Abbey, i. 343
Martin of Camin, on clerical morals, ii.
20; tries to reform his clergy, ii. 20
Martin, St., of Tours, on marriage, i. 38
Martyrdom compared with virginity, i.
37; of English monks, ii. 86
Marullus on Innocent VIII., i. 428, note
Mary of Guise, ii. 162
Mary, Queen, and obsequies of Edward
VI., ii. 123; persecution under, ii. 135
Mary Queen of Scots, ii. 165, 170
Mary, St., of Egypt, i. 107
Mass, disputation on, in Scotland in
I560, ii. 163; said by concubinary
priests, ii. 244
Masses for the dead, similar to Mazdean
rite, i. 34–5; maintained by Henry
VIII., ii. 93
Masses of married priests to be rejected,
i. 228, 296, 308, 332
Massieu of Beauvais, marriage of, ii. 310
Massipia, name for legalised concubine,
i. 231, note
Materialism of Mosaic law, i. 4
Maternity, dissuasions from, i. 431–2
Mathison, John, and Anabaptists, ii. 68
Matilda, Countess, and married priests
of Lucca, i. 260–1; St. Anselmo im-
plores intervention of, i. 263
Matthew Paris on Milanese heresies, i.
249, note
Matthew of Salzburg, attempted reforms
of, ii. 177
Mºhia. Carvinus on priestly morals, ii.
Maud of Ramsbury, i. 341–2
Mauger, Archbishop, character and mar-
riage of, i. 180
Mauléon, Mlle. Desvieux de, ii. 298,
mote
Maultrot, answer of, to Gaudin, ii. 301
Maurice of Saxony, ii. 73; fresh treason
of, ii. 75
Mººse de Sully, powers granted to, i.
Maurilio, St., of Rouen, i. 180
Mauritanian nuns, case of, i. 114–15,
mote
Maximilian of Bohemia, suspected of
Lutheranism, ii. 199; favours priestly
marriage, ii. 210; pressing demands
on Pius W., ii. 212; letter from Pius W.
to, ii. 223; less zealous than Ferdinand,
ii. 225, note
Maya, virgin mother of Buddha, i. 22
Mayer, dissertation by, on Catherine von
Bora, ii. 52
Mazdeism, wholesomeness of religion of,
i. 6
Meat, abstinence from, discountenanced,
i. 40
Mechlin, certificates to confessors in, ii.
274
Medicine, profession of, incompatible
with priesthood, i. 269, note
Medina, Bartolomé de, on abuse of con-
fessional, ii. 276
Meinhard of Trèves, indiscreet reforma-
tory zeal of, i. 296 ; obliged to leave
bishopric, i. 296
Melanchthon on Luther's marriage, ii. 51,
note ; prepares statement of Protestant
belief, ii. 65; apology for Confession
of Augsburg, ii. 65, note; declared a
traitor, ii. 71 ; addresses Henry VIII.,
ii. 109, 114
Melchior of Wurzburg on condition of
clergy, ii. 190, note
Melfi, Council of, in IoS9, i. 231 ; in
IO89, i. 289; in I284, i. 420 ; in I597,
ii. 230
Mélisse, Frère,
offences, ii. 361
Melun, Assembly of, in 1579, ii. 235
Men of intelligence, i. 470
Menco, Abbot, on questions for decision
of Church, i. 305
Mendelsham, married vicar of, ii. 107
Mendicant Orders (Dominicans, Fran-
ciscans, Augustinians, Carmelites,
Minims, Jesuits, and Servites), ii. 294
Mendicancy forbidden in Reformation,
ii. 44
Merit, comparative, of virginity and
marriage, i. 37, 38,432
Merlaw, John, abbot, ii. 23, note
Merovingians, papacy in hands of, i. 132;
contentions destroy dynasty of, i. 141
Merriman, Mrs., marries Père Hyacinthe,
ii. 324
Merseberg, people of, demand priestly
marriage and cup for laity, ii. 72
Messiah, the, of Mazdeism, i. 22, note
Methodius converts Bohemia, i. 290,
720te
Metz, sons of priests ordained in, i. 178;
ºften of, in 888, i. 157, note ; siege of,
ii. 75
Mexico, first Council in, ii. 246 ; canon
rules adopted by, ii. 250 ; suppression
of monasteries in, ii. 338
Miguel, Albert, on Mass said, by sinful,
unconfessed priests, ii. 245, note
Milan, [synod of, in Io98, i. 261 ; head of
northern vicariate of Italy, i. 244;
headquarters of Manichaeism, i. 244;
Paterian faction causes riots in, i.
250–1; more riots in, i. 255; under an
interdict, i. 258; independent of Rome,
prosecuted for fifty
INDEX
395
i. 246 ; submits to Rome, i. 252; synods
of, in 1565 and 1582, ii. 230; reforms
in, by St. Charles Borromeo, ii. 227
Military bishops in tenth and eleventh
centuries, i. 175, mote
Military orders, celibacy of, i. 451
Military service enforced on monks, i.
108, note
Mill, Walter, trial of, ii. 167
Miller of Trompington, wife of, Chaucer,
i. 420
Milo, Archbishop of Rheims, later of
Trêves, i. 145
Minden, Dean of, miracle reported con-
cerning, i. 321
Mingrat, Antoine, murder by, ii. 358–9
Minims, Order of, ii. 243; Hilario Caone,
of order of, confesses “solicitation,”
ii. 282
Minimum age for vows, ii. 302
Ministers, Calvinist, severe discipline
for, ii. 151–2
M in ne ke, Heinrich, burned as Mani-
chaean, i. 462
Minucius, Felix, on marriage and celi-
bacy, i. 19
Minuto, Cardinal, mission of, to Milan,
i. 256–7
Mirabeau on marriage as no bar to any
profession, ii. 309
Modena, troubles in, i. 263
Modest Apology for the Catholics of
Great Britain, ii. 301, note
Molanus on terms for re-entering Roman
Communion, ii. 298, note
Molinism, suspicion of doctrines of, ii.
293
Monachism, i. 101–129; model of, in
Buddhism and Brahminism, i. 101–2;
vow of, matter of volition in early
Church, i. 105; Eastern and Western,
i. 116–17; difficulties in West regard-
ing, i. 121 ; practical character of
Western, i. 124; made irrevocable, i.
127; source of power and wealth to
Church, i. 129; disorders of, under
Carlovingians, i. 155, 158 ; reforms at-
tempted in tenth century, i. 175; in
Irish Church, i. 184; in Anglo-Saxon
Church, i. 188, 200, 205 ; condition of,
in France, i. 318; in early Scottish
Church, i. 366 ; degrading regulations
of, i. 411–12 ; good and ill effects of
System of, i. 445–8; Wickliffe's attack
on, i. 473; struggle about, in France,
ii. 338; in mediaeval times and in
present day, ii. 339–41
Monasteries, Bhikshus and Bhikshunis,
organised, i. 101 ; residence in,
ordered in East, i. 119 ; not neces-
sary in West, i. 128; entrusted to
episcopal care, i. 151; women ex-
cluded from, ii. 23, mote ; treatment of,
in Reformation, ii. 63-4; suppression
of, under Henry VIII., ii. 83–4 ; condi-
tion of English, exaggerated, ii. 87–8.;
broken up in Scotland, ii. 164 ; sup-
pressed in France, ii. 335; Spain, ii.
335 ; Italy, ii. 337; Paraguay, ii. 338;
Brazil, ii. 338; Mexico, ii. 338; New
Granada, ii. 339; Venezuela, ii. 339;
Ecuador, ii. 339
Monks, persecuted by Iconoclasts, i. 97,
note; many infected with Eutychian-
ism, i. 118; insubordination of, i. 118,
120 ; Vagabond, i. 122; numerous in
Coptic Church, i. 100; subjected to
military service, i. 108, note ; wander-
ing, described by St. Augustin, i. 112 ;
St. Benedict, i. 122, mote ; Smaragdus,
i. 129; confined to their monasteries,
i. 119 ; wives of, must become nuns, i.
127; punishment of, for unchastity, i.
114, 147; custom of letting blood, i.
156 ; ministers of altar selected from,
in Saxon England, i. 203 ; married
priests replaced by, i. 333; residence
of, with nuns, in Spain, i. 373; ordered
to sleep singly, i. 412; pensioned
when monasteries suppressed, ii. 95 ;
ejected, held to vows of chastity, ii.
113 ; in Scotland ordered to leave
patrimony, ii. 163 ; business of con-
fession largely in hands of, ii. 260 ; S.
Caterina di Pistoia on immorality of,
ii. 304; marriage of (see Marriage)
Monluc, Jean de, Bishop of Valence, ii.
152, note; description of French clergy
by, ii. 173
Montariol, abbey of, and “droit de mar-
quette,” i. 441, mote
Montanists oppose second marriage, i.
24, 27
Monte Casino, founded by St. Benedict,
i. 124; not suppressed by Victor
Emanuel, ii. 337
Monte Fiascone, Bishop of, on Pro-
testants, at Council of Trent, ii. 182,
‘mote
Monteroquer, Guido de, on priests and
female penitents, ii. 253, note
Montes, Gonzalez de, on women and
priests in Seville, ii. 259, mote
Montesa, Order of, i. 455
Monumenta Franciscana, i. 439, note
Morals, clerical, described by Cyprian and
Tertullian, i. 31 ; reforms of, Council
of Nicaea on, i. 46; how affected by in-
troduction of celibacy, i. 81 ; as de-
scribed by Salvianus, i. 85 ; equally
bad in Oriental and Western Church,
i. 86; described at Council of Elvira,
i, 108, note ; by St. Jerome, i. 108; St.
Augustin, i. 112; indicated by St.
Theodore Studita, i. 121 ; described
by St. Benedict of Nursia, i. 122, note;
St. Isidor of Seville, i. 128; Smarag-
dus, i. 129
396
INDEX
Morals, of bishops in Merovingian France,
i. 132–3; of clergy in Italy, in sixth
century, i. 136 ; of clergy in France in
eighth century, i. 143; of clergy in
France in ninth century, i. 156; of
clergy in England in tenth century, i.
192, in monasteries in eleventh cen-
tury, i. 205; of married clergy in
Milan, eleventh century, i. 237–8.;
clerical, in Germany in twelfth century,
i. 295 ; clerical, in France in eleventh
century, i, 317; clerical, corrupt laity,
i. 320, 343; clerical, in England in
twelfth century, i. 338; clerical, in
England in thirteenth century, i. 347;
clerical, in Ireland in fourteenth cen-
tury, i. 365 ; clerical, in Scotland in
thirteenth century, i. 368 ; clerical, in
Spain in fourteenth century, i. 383 ;
clerical, in Church of twelfth century,
i. 396–7, 403; clerical, in Church of
thirteenth century, i. 409–10; clerical,
in Rome, i. 424; of monasteries in
fourteenth century, i. 422, note ; in
papal court, i. 424–5; in mediaeval
Church, i. 435 ; in Bohemian Church,
i. 478; clerical, in fifteenth century,
ii. i. 7, 8–9, 15, 20; clerical, in six-
teenth century, ii. 54, 57 ; clerical, in
English Church of sixteenth century,
ii. 81–2; in English monasteries, ii.
87–9; clerical, in Brunswick in 1476,
ii. 18; clerical, in Bangor, ii. 145 ;
clerical, in Scotland, ii. 154–5, 159–60,
166; clerical, in Germany, described
by Cassander and Wicelius, ii. 210–11;
clerical, in Rome, in sixteenth century,
ii. 226; clerical, in post-Tridentine
Church, ii. 229 ; clerical, in Bohemia,
ii. 235; clerical, in Spanish colonies,
ii. 246, 247–8; clerical, in the Low
Countries, ii. 237; clerical, in France,
ii. 239; in the confessional, ii. 253–4 ;
in America, ii. 341, note, 344; clerical,
in the modern Church, ii. 339–45 ;
have nothing to do with solicitation,
according to Church views, ii. 295
More, Sir Thomas, satirises vices of
Church, ii. 79 ; accusation against
Luther by, ii. 80 ; on sheep farming,
ii. 120, note ; on Utopians, ii. 80, note
Morone, Cardinal, legate of Holy See, re-
port by, ii. 71; reports, in 1542, ii. 177 ;
on scarcity of priests in Germany, ii.
197, note ; sent to Vienna, ii.,1200; terms
made with Ferdinand by, ii. 201; re-
quests urged by Ferdinand to, ii. 209
Morrison, Sir Richard, on assumption of
Church lands, ii. 131
Mortal sin, Wickliffe’s definition of, i.
474
Morton, Archbishop, visitation by, ii. 16 ;
calls condition of monasteries deplor-
able, ii. 89
Mosaic dispensation, materialism of,
i. 4
Mothers, residence of, forbidden in
priests’ houses, i. 156, 410
Mucius the Holy, story of blind obedi-
ence of, i. 112–13
Muhlberg, battle of, breaks power of
Protestants, ii. 73
Mulier subintroducta, i. 47
Müller, Father, on moral status of
American priests, ii. 341, note
Muncer, John of Niklaushausen pre-
cursor of, ii. 24
Munster, synod of, in 1566, ii. 224; im-
possibility of reform in, ii. 238; Rasfelt,
Bishop of, publishes papal commands,
ii. 224
Muratori on the Umiliati, ii. 228–9, note
Murner, Dr. Thomas, on immoralities of
priests and nuns, ii. 89
Mutilation, practice of, i. 29; advocated
by Sextus Philosophus, i. 30
Mylitta, i. 4
Mynecena, i. 201, note
Myrc, John, Instructions for parish
priests, ii. 17, note
Mystic rewards for virginity, i. 431–2
NALANDA, the Sangharama (Buddhist
monastery) of, i. 103
Namur, synod of, in 1698, ii. 274; in
I742, ii. 275
Nanno, Count of Verona, protects married
priests, i. 173
Nantes, Council of, in 895 or 660; i. 157,
note ; Edict of, ii. 154
Naples, children of ecclesiastics in, i.
416 ; position of priests’ concubines
in, i. 420; clerical marriage proposed
in eighteenth century in, ii. 299–300 ;
number of clergy in, ii. 306 ; priestly
marriage in, ii. 333; Council of, in
1576, ii. 230
Napoleon re-establishes religion, ii. 316;
allows Church to regulate question of
marriage, ii. 316; takes up case of
Talleyrand and Madame Grand, ii.
318; decides against priestly marriage,
ii. 320
Napoleon, Louis, fall of, ii. 338
Narbonne, Council of, in 1551, ii. 173,
700te
National Assembly and Church property,
ii. 306–7
Nature, crimes against, i. 155, 412
Nausea, Frederic (Blancicampianus), at
Council of Mainz in 1527, ii. 47, note
Nazirites, ascetic vow of, i. 5
Neapolitan Code, the, i. 416
Neocaesarea, Council of, i. 24
Neo-Platonism, elevated mysticism of,
i. 28
Nestorians as missionaries, i. 99 ; con-
troversies of, i. 118
INDEX
397
Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople,
heresy of, i. 98
Netherlands, reception of Council of
Trent in the, ii. 222, note ; troubles in,
caused by clerical corruption, ii. 236–7
Neustria, reforms in, i. 148
New Granada, suppression of monasteries
in, ii. 339
Nicaea, first General Council held at,
i. 46 ; canon of, does not refer to
celibacy, i. 49 ; no interference for
some time after Council, with married
priests, i. 52; canon of, renewed by
Greek Church, i. 97; enforced by
Gregory I., i. 138; enforcement of, at-
tempted in 744, i. 148–9; enforcement
in England in twelfth century, i. 336
Nicaragua, question of secularising
Church property in, ii. 339
Nicetas Pectoratus, defence of Greek
Church by, i. 223
Nicholas de Clemanges (see Clemanges)
Nicholas I., orders deposition of immoral
priests, i. 158; rules for trial of priests,
i. 160; skilfully tacit permission of
priestly marriage, i. 161–2
Nicholas II., election of, i. 225; canon of,
on mass of non-celibate priests, i. 228 ;
controlled by Hildebrand, i. 231 ;
intervenes in Milanese troubles, i.
250–1 ; canons on celibacy renewed by,
i. 269 ; enforces celibacy in France,
i. 306
Nicholas III. and efforts to reunite Greek
Church, i. 407
Nicholas W., regulations of, ii. 13; sin-
cerely desirous to effect good, ii. 15
Nicholas the Deacon, i. 21
Nicholas, Fray, de Madrid, denounces him-
self, ii. 291
Nicolites, heresy of, permits immorality,
i 21; name given to advocates of
priestly marriage, i. 236 ; heresy of, to
be extirpated, if possible, in Milan, i.
252 ; condemned by enormous Council
of Piacenza, i. 261 ; condemned by
Council of Bremen, i. 303
Nigel of Ely revolts against Stephen, i.
341
Niklaushausen, John of, ii. 24
Nººhen in Misnia, escape of nuns in,
ii. 50
Nismes, residence of priests' relations
forbidden in, i. 411
Nix, priest of Caisho, case of, ii, 134,
quote
Noailles, Cardinal de, on absolution by
sinful confessor, ii. 274
Nobla Leyczon, la, i. 467
Nonna, St., mother of St. Gregory Theo-
logos, i. 53
Norbert, St., reforms of, i. 319
Nordhausen, Council of, in IIoS, i. 291
Norfolk, married priests ejected in, ii. 128
Norfolk, Duke of, suppresses Pilgrimage
of Grace, ii. 95; introduces Six Articles,
ii. 111
Normandy, condition of Church in tenth
century, i. 179; enforcement of celi-
bacy in twelfth century, i. 323–4
North, Sir Edward, obtains the Charter
House, ii. 86
Northmen, effect of incursions of, i. 158
Northumbrian priests, rules for, i, 194, note
Norway, rights of illegitimates in, i. 231,
quote
Nucius Nicander on English monasteries,
ii. 90, 98, note
Nullity of marriage in orders, i. 385; en-
forced at Council of Trent, ii. 204
Nunneries, disorders in, under Carlovin-
gians, i. 156 ; in Saxon England, i. 190;
in tenth century, i. 175; in twelfth cen-
tury, i. 318–19; 343; in thirteenth cen-
tury, i. 325; in fourteenth century, i.
422, note; in fifteenth century, ii. 2, 6 ;
in sixteenth century, ii. 89–90; Dr.
Murner on immorality in, ii. 89; abuse
of confessional in, i. 435 ; proposal to
place under episcopal control, ii. 89–
90; visited by comedians in sixteenth
century, ii. 189 ; men ordered not to
visit, in Utrecht, ii. 230; Leopold I.
tries to reform, in Tuscany, ii. 282;
priestly “solicitation” in, case of Sta.
Clara of Játiva, ii. 269; case of convent
in Cuyvacan, ii. 289; case of convent
de la Penitencia of Salamanca, ii. 290;
case of Mercenarian Convent, Madrid,
guilty mayor of, ii. 293 ; scandalous
condition of, in Tuscany, ii. 303
Nuns, shaving of head prohibited for, i.
114, mete ; punishment of, for unchas-
tity, i. 147; seduction of, a capital
offence, i. 154; scandalous lives of,
under Carlovingians, i. 155–6; test for
virtue of, i. 356 ; residence of, with
monks, in Spain, i. 373; wives of
monks must become, i. 401; ordered
to sleep singly, i. 412; Lollards de-
nounce, i. 476; apostate, claimed by
Church, ii. 49, note ; emancipation of,
in Reformation, ii. 50 ; numbers of, in
England, ii. 116; married, divorce of,
ii. 127 ; corruption of, by confessors,
ii. 184, 304 ; account of, in manual for
inquisitors, ii. 305–6 ; not to be visited
by ecclesiastics without written per-
mission, ii. 249
Nuns, marriage of (see Marriage)
Nürnberg, Diet of (1510), complains of
Roman rapacity, ii. 34, note; re-
proached, in 1522, by Adrian VI., ii.
49; in I523, desires to enforce canons,
ii. 49 ; complaint laid by Diet of,
before Pope, ii. 59–60; senate of, de-
prives Franciscans and Dominicans
of superintendence, ii. 60, note
398
INDEX
Nurses of priests’ children, honourable
position of, i. 374
Nursia, asceticism of priest of, i. 139–40
OATH, of Knights Templars, i. 451; pre-
scribed for French clergy, ii. 308
Obedience, monachial, nature of, i. 112
Observances common to Catholicism and
Buddhism, i. 23; and Mazdeism, i. 35
Observantines, ii. 21
Odo of Canterbury lays small stress on
celibacy, i. 191
Odo of Toul excommunicates immoral
monks, i. 404
Ogilby, Marion, ii. 158
Old Catholics, schism of, ii. 329
Olmutz, synod of, in 1342, i. 419 ; in
1413, i. 479, note ; in 1591, ii. 233
Orange, Council of, in 441, i. 77; William
of, and Council of Trent, ii. 231, note
Ordeal in ecclesiastical trials, i. 160
Ordericus Vitalis somewhat scandalised
by Robert of Rouen, i. 179
Order of Widows, apostolic, i. 103
Örders, military, i. 451
Orders, religious, abolition of, recom-
mended, ii. 183
Orders, holy, reduced by Wickliffe to
priesthood and diaconate, i. 473
Ordination, dissolves marriage, i. 385;
declared indelible, i. 386 ; of priests’
sons allowed by Adalbero of Metz, i.
178; priests' sons ineligible for, i. 215;
sacrament of, attacked by Luther, ii.
41 ; superior to that of marriage, i. 386
Orestes nearly loses his life in tumult, i.
117
Origen, views of, on celibacy distinct
from asceticism, i. 19 ; on self-mutila-
tion, i. 29
Origenism, civil strife concerning, i. 71
Orihuella, synod of, in 1600, ii. 236
Orleans, Council of, reference at, to
Bonosiacs, i. 68 ; Manichæism at, i.
244
Ormanetto, Niccolo,
Bavaria, ii. 201, note
Orthodox Brethren, i. 480
Orsiesus, rule of, i. 110
Ortlibenses, heresy of, i. 469
Orzechowski, Stanislas, case of, ii. 208,
note, 209, notes
Osber, Council of, in 1062, i. 237
Osbern, Life of St. Dunstan by, i. 192—3,
notes
Osiander on perpetual virginity of the
Virgin, i. 68–9, note
Osius, Bishop of Cordova, leading mem-
ber, Council Elvira, i. 43
Osnabruck, synod of, in 1628, ii. 233; in
1625, ii. 237
Osnabruck, von Hoya, Bishop of, ii. 224
Osorius on marriage of military orders,
i. 455–6
mission of, to
Ossory, synod of, in 1320, i. 365; Bishop
of, ii. 118
Oswald, St., reforming zeal of, i. 195
Oswalde’s law, charter of, i. 195
Otfrid of Watten, story of, i. 313
Othlonius, i. 220, mote
Otho I. deposes John XII., i. 165; edict
º concerning sons of ecclesiastics, i.
170
Otho IV., league of, with John of Eng-
land, i. 345, note
Otho of Constance supports clergyagainst
Gregory VII., i. 271 ; angrily accused
by Gregory, i. 272; restored to com-
munion at Ulm, i. 272; joins im-
perialist party, i. 272; Gebhardt
elected in place of, i. 272
Otto, Cardinal, at Council of London,
1237, i. 350
Otto % Ostia, mission of, at Constance,
i. 272
Ottoboni, constitutions of, long remained
English Church law, i. 355
Oviedo on priestly marriage, in Spanish
colonies, ii. 245
Oxford, Council of, in 1222, i. 350, note ;
University of, on Wickliffe, i. 473,
^ote ; reforms proposed by, ii. 9; see
of, created, ii. 100; Dr. Richard Smith
tries to stir tumult in, ii. 119
PACHECO, Cardinal, ii. 214; reads to
Pius IV. letter from Philip II., ii. 216
Pacheco, Padre Felipe Garcia, and the
Spanish Inquisition, ii. 275, 290
Paderborn, synods of, in 1548 and I549,
ii. 190
Pagan priests, restrictions on, i. 42
Pagi on Council of Nantes, in 660 or
895, i. 157, note
Paleario, Aonio, on Council of Trent, ii.
180, note
Palencia, Council of, in II29, i. 376; in
1388, i. 382
Palestine, monachism introduced into,
i. 106, note
Palladius (see Patrick, St.)
Pallavicini, on immorality of clergy, ii.
193, note; on marriage of clergy, ii.
194, mote
Panormitanus (see Tudeschi)
Pantheism of Brethren of the Free
Spirit, i. 469
Panzini on celibacy and attendant im-
morality, ii. 326; delivered to Inqui-
sition, ii. 326; released by Italian
Government, ii. 326; republishes essay,
ii. 326
Papacy, degradation of, in tenth and
eleventh centuries, i. 164; released
from secular subjection, i. 225–6;
election of, limited to Roman clergy, i.
235; power of, culminates, under Inno-
cent III., i. 408; legate of, refuses
INDEX
399
obedience to, ii. 10; supremacy of,
abolished in England, ii. 85 ; restored
in England, ii. 124; abolished in Scot-
land, ii. 169; abolished in Gallican
Church, ii. 316
Papal court, immorality of, i. 424–5;
rapacity of, ii. 14; reluctance in, to
reassemble Council of Trent, ii. 182 ;
number of women in, ii. 344
Papal dispensations (see Dispensations)
Papal infallibility in Vatican Council, ii.
328, 349
Papal Penitentiary, i. 411, ii. 55, 175 ; on
civil marriage. ii. 331; case of poverty
preventing priests’ appearance before,
ii. 358
Paphnutius, story of, i. 50
Paraguay, suppression of monasteries in,
ii. 338
Páramo descredits female testimony, ii.
284, note
Paris, Council of, in 615, i. 128; Io/4, i.
307; I2 I2, i. 326, 411; I 323, i. 437,
mote ; I 52 I, ii. 89 ; I 528, ii. 172;
Huguenot synod of, ii. 151
Parker, Archbishop, marriage of, ii. 117,
note ; estimates number of deprived
clergy, ii. 127; nominated to see of
Canterbury, ii. 137; somewhat modi-
fies Queen Elizabeth’s dislike to mar-
ried clergy, ii. 138; orders return of
clergy, ii. 139; Queen Elizabeth's in-
solence to wife of, ii. 141 ; confidences
of, to Burghley, ii. 144 ; addressed on
case of Anne Goodacre, ii. 170
Parlement of Paris on religious organisa-
tion, ii. 302
Parliament, English, confirms supremacy
under Henry VIII., ii. 85; enacts the
Six Articles, ii. 111 ; modifies the Six
Articles, ii. 115; legalises clerical mar-
riage, ii. 118 ; reactionary measures of,
under Mary, ii. 124
Parliament, Scotch, of I 542, ii.
I 560, ii. 161, note
Parliamentary abbots, in 1539, ii. 98
Parma, stormy times in, i. 263
Partidas Las Siete, i. 14
Partner in guilt, absolution by, ii.
272–3
Paschall.I.,endeavours to enforce celibacy,
i. 292; receives repentant ecclesiastics,
i. 292 ; enforces celibacy in Denmark,
i. 303; Brittany, i. 312 ; Flanders, i.
315; orders reforms in Spain, i. 373;
on ministrations of married priests, i.
333; on children of priests, i. 335
Passau, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
273 ; Council of, in 1284, i. 419, note ;
revolt against bishop, in, ii. 11; Trans-
action of, ii. 75, 182
Pastoral, earliest French, i. 437–8
Paterin faction causes bloodshed in
Milan, i. 250
158;
Paterins, opprobrious name for Cathari,
i. 245; German papalists called, i. 283
Patmore, Thomas, condemned by Bishop
Stokesley, ii. 104
Patra, the Buddha’s begging dish, i. 23
Patrick, St., classification of comparative
merit by, i. 37; traditional Christian-
ising of Ireland by, i. 183
Paul, St., liberalism of, regarding Jewish
law, i. 11; text from, implies marriage
of apostles, i. 13 ; asceticism of, i. 17 ;
specifies monogamic condition neces-
sary for deacons, priests, and bishops,
i, 26
Paul III., interferes between Melanchthon
and John Eck, ii. 72; Charles V.
breaks with, ii. 74; grants dispensa-
tions to married priests, ii. 74; attempts
reform, ii. 89; excommunicates Henry
VIII., ii. 94; orders reform for French
clergy, ii. 173; failure of reforms of,
ii. 192
Paul IV., on English Church lands, ii.
131 ; Savage decrees of, on pretended
confessors, ii. 256 ; on “solicitation ”
by confessors of Granada, ii. 257–8
Paul V. on jurisdiction of Spanish Inqui-
sition, ii. 261
Paul of Samosata, the heresiarch, i. 32
Paul the Thebaean first anchorite, i. 105
Paula, Francisco de, work against en-
forced celibacy, ii. 326
Pauline epistles, commentary on, by
Lefèvre d’Etaples, ii. 150
Pavia, synod of, in IO22, i. 206 ; schis-
matic synod of, in Io/6, i. 259, 260
Payne, Peter, i. 477, note
Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
applies to Rome, i. 355
Pedro I. of Brazil suppresses convents
and military orders, ii. 337
Pedro the Cruel, orders of, concerning
clerical concubines, i. 382
Pedro de Luna, papal legate, i. 382
Pelagius II. relaxes rule of celibacy,
i. 136
Pelayo, Alvar, i. 383, 384, 412, ii. 175,
7-Oče
Peñafiel, Council of, in 1302, i. 380
Penance, term of, for infraction of
Canons, i. 184
Penitential of Theodore on marriage,
i. 39
Penitentials, coarseness and suggestive-
ness of, ii. 251
Penitentiary, papal, i. 411
Penitentiary, taxes of the, ii. 55
Penitents, prototypes of St. Mary of
Egypt, i. 107 ; difficult to induce to
denounce confessors, ii. 270
Pepin d'Heristel, i. 142
Pepin le Bref assembles synod at
Soissons, i. 148 ; carries out work of
Carloman and Boniface, i. 151
400
INDEX
Périgord, Manichaeism at, in 1147, i. 245
Persecution, Marian, ii. 135; of Mani-
chaeism, i. 34
Persecution, of monks by Leo the
Isaurian, i. 97, note ; by Valens, i. 108,
note; of married priests, i. 279 ; of
Catholics in Scotland, ii. 169–70; of
celibacy under the Terror, ii. 311
Persone’s, Tale, the, i, 437
Perth, monasteries destroyed in, ii. 164
Peru, corruption of Church in, ii. 247
Perushim, i. 9
Peter, St., descriptive words of, regard-
ing Christ, i. 11
Peter d'Ailly of Cambrai, i. 436, note;
realises need of reform, ii. 4
Peter of Antioch, i. 118
Peter Cantor deplores inferiority of
clerical morals, i. 320, 461
Peter, Cardinal, urged to suppress
clerical marriage, i. 239
Peter, Cardinal of Capua, holds synod of
Lancisky, i. 301
Peter Martyr, tumult in Oxford against,
ii. 119 ; exhumation of wife of, ii. 132
Peter the Venerable relates miracle,
i. 321
Peter de Vinea, i. 346
Peter Waldo, i. 466
Peterborough, abbot of, offers bribe to
Cromwell, ii. 93, note
Peterborough, creation of see of, ii.
100
Petrarch, opinion of papal court, i. 426,
ºn Oče
Petrobusian heresy, i. 463
Peutwitz, escape of nuns from, ii. 51
Peyrinnis, Laurent de, regulations of,
ii. 243
Pfaffenkind, i. 417
Philastrius on self-mortification, i. 20,
70te
Philibert of Sedan on clerical marriage,
ii. 314
Philip of Burgundy, Bishop of Utrecht,
ii. 56
Philip of Savoy, career of, i. 353–4, note
Philip II., petitioned by University of
Louvain, ii. 191; opposed to conces-
sions to heretics, ii. 200; opposes
clerical marriage, ii. 214, 215; begged
by Pope to send influential representa-
tive to Trent, ii. 200 ; representatives
of, support Cardinal Commendone,
ii. 218 ; opposes St. Charles Borromeo,
ii. 228; orders reception of canons of
Trent, ii. 222
Philippists dispute with Calvinists and
Lutherans, ii. 225, note
Philo - mysticism proves influence of
Western thought, i. 9; Phoebe, deacon
at Cenchrea, i. 56
Photinus, heresy regarding the Virgin,
i. 67
Piacenza, Bishop of, supports anti-pope
Cadalus, i. 235; great Council of, in
1095, i. 261 ; Bishop of, deposed and
murdered, i. 263
Pibo of Toul asks papal decision on
priestly marriage, i. 289
Picardi, i. 480
Picards, the, i. 469
Pichardus, i. 470
Pictish Church, neophytes of, i. 185
Pier - Le on e, anti-pope, stained with
foulest crimes, i. 424
Piero di Carbario, i. 401
Pierre d'Ailly, i. 470
Pierre de Bruys burned alive, i. 463
“Piers Ploughman,” quotations from, i.
354, 438, 439, note, 444 ; ii. 78
Pietro Igneo, Bishop of St. Albano, i.
263
Pietro, schismatic Bishop of Lucca, i.
263
Pilgrimage of Grace, the, ii. 94
Pinytus of Gnosen tries to make celibacy
compulsory, i. 22
Pisa, Council of, failure of attempts of,
ii. 3
Pistoia, troubles in, i. 263; Sta. Ca-
terina di, ii. 304; Bishop Scipione de
Ricci of, on the confessional, ii. 304;
Council of, in 1786, ii. 304
Pius II., admits the marriage of clergy of
primitive Church, i. 14; favours cleri-
cal marriage, ii. 27; increases annates
of Mainz, ii. 34, note
Pius III., elaborate bull of, ii. 185
Pius IV., on origin of celibacy, i. 15;
admits story of Paphnutius, i. 51 ; re-
convokes Council of Trent, ii. 182;
temporises with demand for priestly
marriage, ii. 194; swears prelates to
support vows of chastity, ii. 198; con-
cedes cup to German laity, ii. 209;
treatment of Orzechowski by, ii. 209,
note; pressed by Maximilian II. on
clerical marriage, ii. 212 ; vacillates,
ii. 214, 217
Pius V., admits that clerical immorality
causes heresy, ii. 58, note; accession
of, ii. 217; character of, ii. 217 ; re-
forms by, ii. 223; suppresses the
Umiliati, ii. 229, note ; legislates on
preperty for priests' children, ii. 234;
enforces Tridentine canons, ii. 234;
grants power to Archbishop Maxi-
milian, ii. 239
º, VI. on abuse of confessional, ii.
275
Pius VII. opposes Talleyrand on priestly
marriage, ii. 318
Pius IX., on dissolution of priestly mar-
riage, i. 390, note; encyclical letter of,
Qui pluribus, ii. 325; organisation of
Vatican Council, ii. 328; denounces
civil marriage, ii. 331
INDEX
401
Platonic union between the sexes, i. 31
Poggio, lesson taught by, ii. 242, note
Poissy, Colloquy of, on perpetual virginity
of Virgin, i. 69, note; result of Colloquy,
ii. 238-9
Poitiers, synod of, in Iooo, i. 181; stormy
synod of, in Ioz8, i. 308; Huguenot
synod of, in 1560, ii. 238
Poland, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
300; member of Diet of, complains of
papal rapacity, ii. 14, note; clerical
celibacy questioned in fifteenth cen-
tury, ii. 29; sacerdotal marriage asked
for at Diet of, ii. 192: Sacerdotal
marriage and communion in both
kinds asked for in, ii. 192 ; doctrine of
priestly marriage advances in, ii. 301
Pole, Cardinal, legatine powers of, ii.
125, note ; forbids withdrawal of
priests, ii. 133; death of, ii. 135 ;
assists Cardinal Caraffa, ii. 183
Polish National Church of America, ii.
330
Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical Institutes
of, i. 203
Polygamy of Moslems compared with
Christian morals, ii. 347
Pomerania, clerical morals of, in fif-
teenth century, ii, 19 *
Pºius present at Luther's wedding,
ii. 51
Poor Men of Lyons, the, i. 468
Pope, John of Pirna denounces the, as
anti-Christ, i. 472
Pope, Simon, appeal of, ii. 125
Popes, conflicting claims of three, i. 214
Popes, rival, i. 235
Poppo of Brixen made Pope, i. 218
Popular desire for clerical celibacy, i.
79, 279 ; invoked by Church, i. 276–7
Pºpºon. influence of celibacy upon,
i. 449
Portalis, speaks on clerical marriage, ii.
316; quotation from speech of, ii. 317,
70te
Porteria y Vela, Fray Antonio de la,
atrocious case of, ii. 291
Portugal, added to Spanish Crown, 1580,
ii. 261; military orders in, i. 455; juris-
diction in, for priestly “solicitation,”
ii. 261; offences in, put under Inquisi-
tion, ii. 276 ; Benedict IV. addresses
brief to, ii. 276
Postal facilities for inquisitors, ii. 283
Poverty, not required in primitive
monachism, i. 111 ; enforced in rule of
St. Tetradius, i. 125 ; of Irish Church,
i. 363; of Scottish Church, ii. 164;
of yºaene i. 466–7; of Franciscans,
i. 471
Poynette, Bishop, controversial writing
of, ii. 118 ; Apologie for the godly mar-
riadge of priestes, ii. 126, note
Præmunire for recognising papal au-
VOL. II. A.,
thority, ii. 95; derivation of name, ii.
95, note
Pragmatic sanction of 1483, ii. 12
Prague, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
293–4 ; University of, condemns Wick-
liffe, i. 477, note ; Council of, in 1420,
i. 479, note ; synod of, in 1565, ii. 232,
235
Pratimoksha, oldest sculpture of Bud-
dhism, i. 102
Pregiudizi del Celibato, ii. 299
Premonstratensians, i. 318
Prerogatives, royal, disavowed as head
of Church, ii. 124
Priests, children of (see Children)
Priests, divorce of (86e Divorce)
Priests, immorality of (see Morals)
Priests, adulterous wives of, to be put
away, i. 27 ; responsible for parish pro-
perty, i. 137; wives of, in Italy, in
eighth century, i. 142–3 ; punishment
of, for unchastity, i. 147; disorders
caused by wives of, i. 167; purgation
of, in Saxon England, i. 202; wives of,
reduced to slavery, i. 221, 289 ; resist
celibacy, i. 238, 249,262—3, 275; obliged
to join in wolf hunts, i. 370 ; power
and privileges of, i. 442; corrupt the
laity, i. 318, 431, 434, ii. 59–60, 177,
346 ; not to be consecrated without
testimonial for character, ii. 191 ; cor-
ruption of, surpassing that of other
men, ii. 193 ; scarcity of, in Germany,
ii. 197, note ; set bad example to con-
verts in Spanish colonies, ii. 247;
cruelly treated in Reign of Terror, ii.
308
Priesthood, hereditary (see Hereditary)
Priesthood incompatible with profession
of medicine, i. 269, note
Priestly caste, danger of creating, i. 166
Primitive Church, asceticism in, i. 17 ;
marriage permitted in, i. 14
Procedure, ecclesiastical, gives practical
immunity, i. 159
Procopius, St., marriage of, i. 210; the
Hussite, i. 480
Prodicus, originator of mystic libertinism
of Gnostics, i. 20
Promotion dependent on celibacy, i. 77
Property, Church, threatened by priestly
marriage, i. 137; dilapidation of, in
tenth century, i. 165; in sixteenth
century, ii. 71 ; left under Queen Mary
in private hands, ii. 130; transmitted
to children of ecclesiastics, ii. 234
Property, monastic, confiscated in Ger-
many, ii. 65; Scotland, ii. 163; France,
ii. 306–7; Italy, ii. 337
Prosecution of priests, many victims for
each, ii. 361
Prostitution encouraged by celibacy, ii.
347
Prota, Dr., on civil marriage, ii. 333
2 C.
402
INDEX
Protestant belief, Confession of Augs-
burg, ii. 65
Pujades, on Ferma despoli forçada, i.
442, mote
Pujalon, Fernandez, of Ciempozuelos, im-
morality of, ii. 285
Puricelli, on marriage of Eriberto of
Milan, i. 245, note; on Ambrosian tradi-
tion, i. 247–8, note
Puy, Raymond du, organises Knights of
St. John, i. 451
QUADRIPARTITUS, ii. 332, note
Quedlinburg, Diet of, in 1085, i. 285
Quick, Synodican, in Gallia Reformata,
ii. 151, note
Quietist monks, i. 8, note
Quimper, diocese of, hereditary descent
in, i. 312
Quinisext in Trullo, i. 94 ; canons of, i.
94
Quiroga, Inquisitor-General, threatened
by Sixtus W., ii. 261
RADULPHUS of Ardens on clerical morals,
i. 320, note
Rag-pickers, known as Patari, i. 249,
ºn Oče
Rainbaldo of Fiesole, dissolute life of, i.
209
Ranald and Raymond, father and son,
both priests, i. 167
Raould of Poitiers, i. 320
Rapacity of papal court, ii. 14; calls for
reform, ii. 33 ; proved by case of
Archbishop Diether, ii. 34, note
Rasfelt of Munster forced to resign
bishopric, ii. 224
Ratherius of Verona, on priests’ sons as
priests, i. 167; priests of diocese of,
all married, i. 169; troubles in diocese
of, i. 172–4
Ratisbon, Council of, in thirteenth
century, i. 296 ; Bishop of, in I512,
issues canons, ii. 56 ; Council of, in
1524, ii. 48 ; Diet of, in I532, ii. 69 ;
in 1541, ii. 72
Ratramnus of Corvey on Nicene canons,
i. 48, mote
Rauscher, Cardinal,
marriage, ii. 331
Ravenna, Council of, in 967, condemns
priestly marriage, i. 172; in 997, i.
181—2; in thirteenth century, i. 296;
in 1568, ii. 230
Raymond of Galicia, i. 375
Raymond du Puy founds Knights of St.
John, i. 451
Recared I. enforces celibacy, i. 135
Recherches sur l’Etat Monastique et
Ičcclésiastique, ii. 300, note
Reconciliation of imperialist clergy,
IIo6, i. 292; of Anglican clergy, ii.
133; of England to Rome ii. 130
denounces civil
Reformation in Germany, the, ii. 31–76;
caused by clerical corruption, ii. 57,
171, 177, 192, 223-4; in England,
ii. 77–149; in Scotland, ii. 154–70
Reforms proposed at Constance, i. 427;
at Basle, i. 427; at Trent, ii. 206
Regency, Council of the, ii. 49
Reggio, troubles in, i. 263
Relics, false, sold by monks, i. 112;
ridiculed by Erasmus, ii. 35–6 ; im-
postures of, in England, ii. 97
Rély, Jean de, Bishop of Angers, ii. 15
Renan, Ernest, on morality of clergy, ii.
342
Renaud, Archbishop of Rheims, protects
Flemish priests, i. 314
Requesens, Luis de, ii. 214
Residence of female relations, forbidden
to priests, i. 156, 410; canon of
Nicaea on, i. 46 ; law of Honorius on,
i. 49 ; prohibition of, enforced, i. 88,
note; in Greek Church, i. 97; Gregory I.
on, i. 1. 138; forbidden in 744, i. 149;
With priests, legislation on, i. 154;
tolerated in Spain, i. 370, 376; Arch-
bishop Grindal on, ii. 145; Hermann
von Wied on, ii. 176–7; over forty
years old, allowed by Augsburg Code,
ii. 186 w
Residence, of sisters and nieces forbidden
by Council of Bordeaux, ii. 240 ; of
women regulated in Spanish colonies,
ii. 246 ; with priests in United States,
ii. 341, note ; in Vatican, ii. 344; dis-
cussed in modern Councils, ii. 345-6
Residence of illegitimate children with
clerical fathers forbidden in Scotland,
ii. 160
“Reserved ” offences, ii. 295; seduction
never included among, ii. 295, 351
Resistance of clergy to celibacy, i. 237–8,
249, 263, 270–1, 275
Responsibility of the Church, i. 442
Restitution, form of, for restored priests,
ii. 128, note
Restrictions on monachism, by Valens, i.
108, note ; by Majorian, i. 116; in the
East, i. 118
Restrictions on clerical marriage by
Queen Elizabeth, ii. 138
Results of celibacy, i. 409–11
Reusch, on the Order of Jesuits, ii. 266,
note ; and the “Old Catholic ’’ move-
ment, ii. 329
Revolution, French, question of priestly
marriage in, ii. 301; Church property
in, ii. 306–7; marriage encouraged
under, ii. 311
Rheims, Council of, in 874, i. 160; in
IO49, i. 221; in III9, i. 322; in II 30
and II31, i. 387; in 1583, ii. 240
Rhine lands, “Old Catholic ’’ movement
in, ii. 329
Rhodes, Knights of, i. 451
INDEX
403
Ribadeneira, disciple and biographer,
Ignatius Loyola, ii. 175
Richard Fitz-Neal, son of a bishop, made
Bishop of London, i. 342
Richard of Albano, i. 315
Richard of Dover reports to Thomas
Cromwell, ii. 96
Richard of Marseilles, papal legate to
Spain, i. 372
Richard the Fearless, i. 179
Richmond, Thomas, case of, i. 477 note
Richstich-Landrecht, children of clerks
in, i. 417, note
Rig Veda, the, on Tapas, i. 8, note
Rigobert, St., Archbishop of Rheims, i.
145
Rivera on ecclesiastical law in Mexico,
ii. 250
Rives, Fray Joseph, tried in Valencia for
solicitation, ii. 286 ; evades letter of
papal decrees, ii. 286
Robber Synod at Ephesus, i. 118
Robert d’Arbrissel, i. 311, 319
Robert d’Artois marries a widow, i. 315
Robert de Curzon, Cardinal, i. 411
Robert the Frisian, i. 312, 313
Robert the Good (Naples), i. 421
Robert the Hierosolymitan of Flanders,
i. 314
Robert the Pious, indifferent about celi-
bacy, i. 207; assembles Council of
Bourges, i. 207; sentence of excom-
munication on, i. 211; causes heretics
to be burned, i. 244
Robert of Rouen, publicly and openly
married, i. 179
Robles, Life of Ximenes by, ii. 22, note
Rodolf of Bourges on residence of female
relatives, i. 157, note
Rodolf of Swabia, revolt against, i. 282;
menacing letter from Pope Gregory,
i. 277
Rome, synod of, in Io'79, i. 51 ; in 384,
i. 62, 113 ; Councils of, in 721 and
732, i. 142; Council of, in 745, i. 149;
826, i. 230, note ; IoSI, i. 221 ; IOS7,
i. 225; IoS9, i. 228; IO63, i. 237; IO66,
i. 255; lo/A, i. 269 ; 1725, ii. 342; Latin
American Council held in, ii. 343;
pseudo Council in, under Silvester,
i. 50, 136 ; avarice of, ii. 14, 33 ;
brothels kept by prelates in, ii. 57, note ;
England reconciled to, ii. 129; Ger-
many oppressed by, ii. 33 ; heretics
forbidden in, i. 70; Ireland under
authority of, i. 361 ; influence of, ex-
tended to Spain, i. 371 ; limits of
jurisdiction of, i. 88; demoralising
effect of, i. 158, 398,430; licentiousness
of, acknowledged by Alexander IV., i.
413; morals of pagan, i. 18; of Christian,
i. 85, 210, 226; pilgrims deterred from
visiting, i. 165; reforms in, by Pius V. ;
ii. 223; supremacy of, asserted over
Milan, i. 252; toleration in, of sacri-
lege and lust, ii. 59
Romuald the priest and his wife, pro-
perty confirmed to, i. 143
Romuald, St., disciples of, i. 217
Rosceline addressed by Thibaut of
Etampes, i. 335
Rota, priest of, fate of, i. 281
Rothius on the Nicolites, i. 21, note
Rouen, Archbishops of, in tenth century,
i. 179 ; Council of, in Io'72, i. 308 ; in
1148, i. 466; in 1189, i. 397, note ; in
1581, ii. 154
Rousillon, Edict of, in 1564, ii. 153
Ruchrath, John, of Oberwesel, ii. 28
Rules of monachism, early, i. 110
Rule of St. Augustin, i. 319; St. Bene-
dict, i. 124, 151; St. Cassianus, i. 122;
St. Caesarius of Arles, i. 125; St.
Chrodegang, i. 152; St. Columba, i.
185; St. Orsiesius, i. 110 ; St. Tetra-
dius, i. 125
Rupert of Duits, on priestly marriage, i.
295
Russel, Lord, suppresses insurrection in
Devon, ii. 120
Russian Church, customs of, i. 97–8
Rusticus of Narbonne, i. 78
SACCOFORI, heresy of, i. 34
Sacerdotalism, celibacy a requisite of, i.
267; irrevocable nature of, i. 386
Sacrament of marriage inferior to that
of ordination, i. 385–6, 388
Sacraments of sinful priests, i. 187, 230,
note, 437, 460, 473; ii. 6, 272
Sacrilege and lust, toleration for, ii. 59
Sadducees, doctrine of, as to future life,
i. 8
Sadoleto on commission for reform, ii.
183
“Saeculum Obscurum,” i. 164
Saignet, Guillaume, writes Lamentatio
ob Coelibatum Sacerdotum, ii. 25
St. Agatha, shamelessness of nuns at, i.
819
St. A lb a n s, shameless immorality of
monks of, ii. 16
St. Andrews, Archbishop of, at baptism
of James VI., ii. 161, note
St. Asaphs, Bishop of, sitsin judgment on
married priests, ii. 125
Sta. Caterina di Pistoia, ii. 304
St. Cornelius, church of, at Compiègne,
i. 326
St. Denis, Council of, in 995, i. 177; ab-
bey of, disorders in, i. 319
St. Fara, convent of, i. 318–19
St. Francisco de Paula of Seville, church
of, case of “solicitation ” in, ii. 282
St. Gildas de Ruys, abbey of, i. 319
sº, #sº of Compostella, church of, i.
4
St. Isidor of Seville, i. 128
404
INDEX
St. John, Knights of, i. 451 ; Order of,
broken up in England, ii. 98
St. Marco, preservation of, ii. 337
St. Michael, Order of, i. 456
St. Norbert, Order of, i. 319
St. Omer, synod of, in Io99, i. 314
S. Pelayo de Antealtaria, abbot of,
paragon of brutish sensuality, i. 377
St. Peter's of Sens, abbey of, i. 175
St. Riquier, abbey of, strict rules of, ii.
23, note
St. Sabina, Cardinal of, enforces celibacy
in Sweden, i. 303, note
St. Stephen, church of, in Aretino, i. 168
St. Toribio of Peru, ii. 247
St. Ursmar, married canons of, i. 326
St. Vitus, monks of, reformed by
Gregory I., i. 127
sº number of, in Benedictine Order,
i. 126
Salamanca, Council of, in 1335, i. 381
Salerno, Council of, in 1596, ii. 230
Salvianus, on condition of morals, i.
85–6; admires chastity of barbarians,
i. 131
Salzburg, disorders of, in the twelfth
century, i. 295; synod of, in 1537, ii.
177; in 1549, ii. 190; Archbishop of,
on synod at, ii. 194; exhorted by
Pius W., ii. 224; instructs clergy on
morality, ii. 232
Sampson, Thomas, on position of married
clergy, ii. 147
Sanadon of Oléron on clerical marriage,
ii. 314
Sánchez on solicitation, ii. 273
Sanders, on Oranmer's time-serving, ii.
114, note; on delay in authorising
priestly marriage, ii. 137, note; on
wives of Elizabethan clergy, ii. 145
Sandys, Bishop, on delay in authorising
priestly marriage, ii. 137
Sangharama, Buddhist, i. 103
Sangreal, likeness to Patra of Buddhism,
i. 23
Sankhya, philosophy of, i. 6; Buddha
reduces philosophy of, to a religion, i.
Sannazaro on Innocent III. and Alex-
ander VI., i. 428–9, note
Sannyasis, class of, instituted by Brah-
minism, i. 7
San Severino, Council of, ii. 230
Santa Clara of Jativa, nuns of, and con-
fessors, ii. 269, 285
Santafé, Council of, in 1556, ii. 246
Santiago, Order of, i. 453
Saoshyans, the Zend Messiah, i. 22,
ºnote
Sarabaitae, vagabond monks, i. 122
Saragossa, Council of, in 381, i. 107
Sarah, abbess, fortitude of, i. 220, note
Sardinia, civil marriage enacted in, ii.
330
Sarpi, Fra Paolo, on Council of Trent, ii.
201, note, 204, note ; on Council of
Trent and priestly marriage, ii. 235
Sarria, Fray Vicente, brutal superfluous
questions of, in confessional, ii. 269
Satan, place of, in a characteristic legend,
i. 434; in legend related by St.
Thomas of Cantinpré, i. 436
Sausa, de, on confession and solicitation,
ii. 262
Sauvestre, M., estimates number of
French ecclesiastics, ii. 313, note ;
gives details of clerical prosecutions
(schools), ii. 361
Savonarola, on ecclesiastics of his day,
ii. 15, note ; on morals in nunneries, ii.
22; on priests as wolves in sheep's cloth-
ing, ii, 253; convent of (San Marco),
preserved under Victor Emanuel, ii.
337
Savoy, harsh measures against clergy in,
ii. 311
Sbinco of Prague, reforms by, i. 478
Scandal more dreaded than sin, ii. 243,
250, 252, 259, 274, 351
Scandals of agapetae, i. 43
Scandinavia, morals of bishops in, ii. 2
Scania, demand for priestly marriage in,
i. 301
Scaren, English Bishop of, plunders see,
i. 338
Schening, Council of, in 1248, i. 302
Schieler, “Theory and Practice of the
Confessional,” ii. 277, note, 355, note
$chism, the Great, i. 426
Schmalkalden League of, ii. 67; negotia-
tions with Henry VIII., ii. 109, 113
Schmidt, Johann, Bishop of Vienna, ii.
70, note
Schulte, von, and the “Old Catholic ’’
movement, ii. 329
Schweinfurth, negotiations at, ii. 69
Scipione de' Riccion confessional, ii. 304
Scotland, Church of, founded by St.
Columba, i. 185; claim of see of York
on, i. 185; celibaey in early Church
of, i. 185 ; position of concubines in,
i. 231, note ; enforcement of celibacy
in, i. 367; constitutions of Ottoboni
disregarded in, i. 368; Reformation
in, ii. 155 ; fast progress of Reforma-
tion in, ii. 159 ; abrogation of celibacy
in, ii. 161–2
Secrecy of inquiries into priestly morals,
ii. 351
Seduction of nuns made a capital of.
fence, i. 154; of penitents by confessors,
ii. 252
Segarelli, Gherardo, forms heretical sect,
i. 471 ; dreadful death of, i. 472
Segenfrid of Le Mans, evil example of, i.
175
Selle, Hendrik, vengeance of heretics,
against, i. 470
INDEX
405
Sendomir, agreement of, i. 481
Sens, Archbishop of, at Council of Trent,
ii. 204
Separation, Law of, ii. 330
Seraphic Order, the, i. 438
Seraphim of Gran on marriage, i. 297–8
Sergius III., unconcealed dissoluteness
of, i. 164
Serfs, ordination of, i. 178
Serrao, Bishop of Potenza, on priestly
marriage, ii. 300
Servants, priests' wives considered as, ii.
Servitude of sons of priests, i. 178; of
wives of priests, i. 221, 289
Severus repeals Majorian's laws, i. 116,
720te
Seville, Council of, in 1512, ii. 17; Arch-
bishop of, in 1546, ii. 176; crowds of
women accuse priests at, ii. 259, note
Sextus, Philosophus, advocates practice
of mutilation, i. 30
Shakespeare, plain speaking of, i. 432
Shaving, clergy demur as to regulations
for, ii. 231
Shaxton, Bishop, opposed to Six Articles,
ii. 112, note
Sheep farming, Sir Thomas More on, ii.
120, note
Shrewsbury, hereditary beneficesin, i. 330
Sicily, monachism reformed in, by
Gregory I., i. 127; celibacy in, i. 138
Siedeler, Jacob, married priest, fate of,
ii. 43
Siegfrid, Archbishop of Mainz, a trimmer
regarding celibacy, i. 271 ; troubles
of, in matter of celibacy, i. 274–6
Siena, Council of, in 1423, ii. 10
Siete Partidas (Las), code known as, i.
14; celibacy enjoined in, i. 378
Sigismund, Emperor, advocates clerical
marriage, ii. 26
Silesia, heresy of John of Pirna in, i.
472 ; clerical marriage asked for in
I831, ii. 325
Siliceo of Toledo, first reference to con-
fessional box, ii. 255
Silvester I., supposed Roman Council
held by, i. 50, 136
Silvester II. on celibacy, i. 181
Silvester III. elected Pope by faction of
rebels, i. 214
Simancas, Bishop, on married priests, ii.
219
Simoneta, Cardinal, ii. 215
Simoniacal priests, sacraments of, i. 229,
*Oté
Simony, in eleventh century, i. 215;
condemned under heavy penalties at
Mainz, i. 220–1 ; abandoned at Milan,
i. 252 ; Council of Milan (Io98) severe
on, i. 261–2; Gregory VII. inhibits, i.
271 ; Lanfranc represses, i. 329–30;
St. Thomas à Becket attacks, i. 345
Simplicius, St., of Autun, story of, related
by St. Gregory of Tours, i. 80
Sin, its influence on priest officiating in
sacraments, i. 228; mortal, defined by
Wickcliffe, i. 473–4
Siricius, supporting celibacy, does not
refer to Nicene;canon, i. 49; addresses
epistle to Himerius, i. 63; urges
celibacy, i. 64–5; denounces Bonosus,
i. 67 ; condemns Jovinian, i. 69 ;
makes priestly celibacy compulsory in
Gaul and Spain, i. 72; orders im-
prisonment of unchaste monks and
nuns, i. 114
Sister, residence of, with priest for-
bidden, i. 156
Sithieu Abbey, ii. 23, note
Sitten, synod of, in 1500, ii. 20
Six Articles, the (see Articles)
Sixtus III., treatise of, on chastity, i.
39; trial of, for seduction of nun,
i. 86
Sixtus IV., vices of, i. 428
Sixtus W. and cases of guilty Jesuits,
ii. 261
Slave, children of, by ecclesiastic
emancipated, ii. 246
Slavery, Christian, by Moors, i.
note
Slavery, for wives of priests, i. 221, 289;
for sons of priests, i. 178, ii. 246—7; for
vagabonds, under Edward VI., ii. 102
Slaves, female, union of, with priests,
ii. 246
Slavonic Church, connection with Greek,
i. 290, note; adherence of, to priestly
marriage, i. 300
Sleiden on organised concubinage, i.
440, note
Sleswick, clerical morals in fifteenth
century, ii. 20
Smaragdus on monastic impostors, i.
129
Smith, Dr. Richard, on priestly mar-
riage, ii. 119
Smith, Sir Thomas, on celibacy, ii. 148,
note
Smithfield, images burned at, ii. 108
Socrates, relates story of Paphnutius,
i. 50 ; on observance of celibacy, i. 91
Soissons, synod of, in 744, i. 148; Mani-
chaeism at, in III.4, i. 244
Solicitation, by priests, ii. 251-96 ;
cases of, to be tried by Inquisition,
ii. 257–8 ; evasion of rules against,
ii. 262, 263; Gregory XV. defines, ii.
264; difficult to induce disclosure of,
ii. 270, 281 ; in Spain, woman excom-
municated on refusal to disclose,
ii. 271 ; where woman is tempter, ii.
277; by priests, wide range of punish-
ments for, ii. 280, 281 ; means dis-
ability for saying Mass, ii. 281 ; self-
denunciation for, ii. 282; punishment
442,
406
INDEX
for, disproportionate, ii. 287; sentence
for, read with closed doors, ii. 287;
punishment for, varies for regulars
and seculars, ii. 287–8; guilty Jesuits
quietly sent away, ii. 261 ; Labata,
Marcen, and López imprisoned for,
ii. 261 ; case of Fray Vicente González,
ii. 269; case of Maestro Diego de
Agumanes, ii. 269 ; suspicion of heresy
implied in, ii. 280 ; Dr. Augustin
Velda, rector La Sallana, accused of,
ii. 282, note; Dr. Joseph Soriano of
Winaroz accused of, ii. 287; Fray
Thomas Maldonado, light sentence
for, ii. 289; Fray Miguel Martin de
Eugenio, severer sentence for, ii. 289;
Padre Antonio Escobar, S.J., repri-
manded for, ii. 290; Padre Vilarde, S.J.,
implicated in, ii. 290; Bernardo de
Amor guilty of, ii. 290; Felipe Garcia
Pacheco leniently treated for, ii. 290 ;
Dr. Pedro Luceta, foul case of, ii. 290;
Gerónimo González of Requeijo, case
of, ii. 291 ; Fray Antonio de la
Porteria y Vela, case of, ii. 291 ;
Fray Nicholas de Madrid denounces
himself for, ii. 291; Fernando de
Valdés, case of, ii. 292 ; Fray Manuel
Pablo Herraiz, case of, ii. 293 ; Padre
Fray Francisco Gómez Somoerto, case
of, ii. 293 ; in modern times, ii. 350 ;
case of, in 1898, ii. 353–4
Somerset, Protector, and the Protestants,
ii. 116
Sons of priests (see Children)
Sorbonne, the, condemns Jean d’Huillier,
i, 477, note ; condemns Jean Laillier,
ii. 29 ; condescends to no argument
with Melanchthon, ii. 71 ; condemns
commentaries by Lefèvre d’Etaples,
ii. 150; pronounces on solicitation in
confessional, ii. 270–1
Soriano, Dr. Joseph, accused of solicita-
tion and suborning, ii. 287
Sormitz, escape of nuns from, ii. 51
Southampton, Earl of, ii. 116
Sozomen relates story of Paphnutius, i.
Spain, Inquisition in (see Inquisition);
celibacy, enforced in, by Siricius, i. 72;
disregarded in, i. 64; continual efforts
for celibacy in, i. 83; morals of, in fifth
century, i. 84; monasticism in seventh
century, i. 128 ; celibacy in Arian
Church,of, i. 135; reforms in, attempted
by Catholicism, i. 135; concubines,
position in, i. 231, note ; enforcement
of celibacy in, i. 369 ; priestly mar-
riage universal in, i. 370 ; delay in
abrogating priestly marriage in, i. 373;
immorality of clergy in, i. 377; military
orders in, i. 453 ; demoralisation in
fifteenth century, ii. 17; Ximenes and
Franciscans of, ii. 21 ; morals of, in
sixteenth century, ii. 175, 176; concu-
binage of ecclesiastics in, 236
Spain, colonial Church of, ii. 245; abuse
of confessional in, ii. 257; solicitation
systematically practised in, ii. 294 ;
civil marriage agitated in, ii. 331 ;
denounced by clergy in, ii. 331
Spalatin and priestly marriages, ii. 46, 47,
note ; letter from Luther to, upon nuns,
ii. 53
Spaldwick, vicar of, scandal caused by, ii.
134, mote
Spanish colonies (see Colonies)
Spelman believes in orders of married
and unmarried monks, i. 201
Spifame, Bishop of Nevers, married, ii.
152, note
Spiridon, Bishop of Cyprus, married, ii.
42
Spiti, number of lamasin, i. 103
Straddha, i. 7
Standards of morality, i. 324, 431
Stapleton, admiring biographer of More,
ii. 80, note
Stephen IX., Pope, installed, i. 225;
forces Damiani to become Bishop of
Ostia ; i. 225; suffering Milanese clergy
apply to, i. 250
Stephen of England, turbulent reign of,
i. 342; siege of Devizes, i. 341
Sterckx, Archbishop, Mechlin, admon-
ished by Helsen, ii. 346
Stoer, Stephan, pastor of Liestal, on
marriage, ii. 46, note
Stokesley, Bishop of London, condemns
Thomas Patmore, ii. 104; on sup-
pression of monasteries, ii. 92
Strappado in Inquisition, ii. 284
Strassburg, popular protection of married
priests in, ii. 48 ; synods of, in 1548 and
I549, ii. 190
Stromata, third book, by Clement of
Alexandria, i. 20, note
Strype, account of Henry VIII. and Car-
thusians, ii. 85–6; on career of Dr.
London, ii. 97, note ; on Henry VIII.
and priestly marriage, ii. 104, mote ;
Cranmer's second marriage, ii. 114,
note ; Dr. Richard Smith, ii. 119, note ;
clergy, ii. 122; dispensations for mar-
riage, ii. 209, note; exhumation, Peter
Martyr's wife, ii. 132, note ; married
clergy of London, ii. 139; married
clergy and Queen Elizabeth, ii. 141,
note ; Sir John Bourne and Dr. Sandys,
ii. 148, note
Sturmius, Balthazar, marriage of, ii.
45
Sub-deacons, allowed to marry, i. 28 ;
forbidden to marry, in 530, i. 92 ; to
separate from wives, i. 138; marriage
of, forbidden, in 952, i. 171 ; removed
when married from benefices, i. 289,
mote ; celibacy of, in Dalmatia, i. 299 ;
INDEX
407
marriage of, in Hungary, i. 299; canons
suspended for, in Austria, i. 300; celi.
bacy of, in Denmark, i. 303; rules for,
in England, i. 332; exceptions for. in
favour of immorality, i. 395
Sub-deacon Bossaert of Flanders, hard
case of, i. 398–9
Suchuen, abuse of confessional in, ii.
275
Suczinsky, Dean, marries Baroness Gazc-
waska and joins Old Catholics, ii. 329
Suffolk, Duke of, suppresses insurrection,
ii. 94
Suger of St. Denis imprisons Eon de
l'Etoile, i. 466
Suidger of Bamberg, afterwards Clement
III., i. 214
Sulpicius Severus, St., owner of slave,
Vigilantius, i. 70; inclined to favour
reforms of Vigilantius, i. 72
Sulpitius of Bourges, i. 132, note
“Sum of Scripture, The,” ii. 103, note
Suppression, of monasteries, in Germany,
ii. 53, 63-4, 335; in England, ii. 88-4,
99 ; means adopted for, ii. 97; of
monasteries not carried out in Austria,
ii. 335; of monasteries in France, ii.
335 ; in Spain, ii. 336; in Italy, ii.
337; in Paraguay, Brazil, and Mexico,
ii. 338; in New Granada, Venezuela,
and Eucador, ii. 339
Susani, Marquardo de, work of, uphold-
ing celibacy, ii. 217, note
Suzor of Tours, pastoral on priestly mar-
riage, ii. 314
sº enforcement of celibacy in, i.
2
Sweden, enforcement of celibacy in, i.
302; Englishmen, as bishops in, i. 338;
case of English bishop in, i. 338
Swithun, St., openly married, dispensa-
tion from Leo III., i. 190
Switzerland, recognised system of
priestly concubinage, i. 440; move-
ment in, by Zwingli, ii. 45; immorality
of priests in sixteenth century, ii.
57; case of priest’s wife disowned in,
ii. 325; Old Catholic movement in, ii.
329
Syllabus of 1864 on dissolution of mar-
riage, i. 390, note
Symmachus, Pope, prohibits marriage
of nuns, i. 123; on confessors and
penitents, ii. 252
Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, case of,
i. 90
Synodicon in Gallia Reformata, Quick,
ii. 151
Szamland, Bishop of, ii. 63
TAAS, nominal reconciliation of Hussites
of, i. 477, note
Taborites, i. 479 ; no chance for, in
England, ii. 78
Tacitus on morals of Germans, i. 131
Taillard resists priestly marriage in
Prussian Poland, i. 16
Talasius of Angers on celibacy, i. 82
Talesperianus of Lucca, charter of, i. 143
Tallemant des Réaux, ii. 242
Talleyrand secularises Church property,
ii. 307; marries, ii. 317
Talmadge, “Letters from Florence,” ii.
324, note
Talon, Omer, on marriage of apostates,
ii. 154, note
Tapas, virtue of, i. 7
Tarragona, Council of, in 1336, i. 381
Tatianus, heresy of, i. 20
Taxes of the penitentiary, i. 411, ii. 55,
175
Tedaldo, Archbishop of Milan, i. 259;
leader of disaffected bishops, i. 259
Templars, military Order of, i. 451;
accusations against, i. 453
Temporalities of Church endangered by
marriage, i. 61, ii. 28
Tºjº of chastity, benefices held by, i.
176
Terbinthus, i. 34, note
Terouane, marriage of priests in, i. 326
Terror, position of priest under Reign of,
ii. 308; persecution of celibacy under
Reign of, ii. 311 ; number of priestly
marriages under Reign of, ii. 313
Tertullian, opposed to second marriages,
i. 24, 25; on perpetual virginity of
Virgin, i. 67, note ; on merits of widows
and virgins, i. 104, note
Test, marriage, of civil supremacy, ii.
311
Tetradius, St., rule of, i. 125
Tetzel, Luther on, ii. 40
Te u to nic Knights, Order of, i. 457;
Baron of Heydeck, of, ii. 62; tribes,
virtue of, i. 86
Theodore à Niem, on John XXIII., i. 427,
note; on Scandinavian bishops, ii. 2
Theodore of Canterbury, Penitential of,
on marriage, i. 39, note
Theodore of Verdun opposes policy of
Gregory VII., i. 277–8
Theodore Studita, St.,
morals, i. 121
Thºre Vrie on Teutonic clergy,
ll.
Theodosius the Great, edict of, against
Manichaeans, i. 34; orders monks to
remain in desert, i. 119 ; repeals order,
i. 119 ; prohibits shaving of nuns, i.
114, note
Theodotus of Corvey, success of, i. 269,
on monastic
‘mote
Theodulf of Orleans on incest, i. 156
Theodwin and Albert (Cardinals) at Av-
ranches, i. 394, note
Theophilus of Alexandria, rigour of, i.
434, note
408
INDEX
Theophylact on univs watoris vir, i. 27,
70te
Therapeutae, i. 10, note
Thessalonica, celibacy enforced in, i. 91
Thibaut of Etampes on children of
priests, i. 335
Thirty Years' War, the, ii. 237
Thomas Aquinas, St. (see Aquinas)
Thomas à Becket, on simony, i. 345;
Henry II. absolved at Avranches for
murder of, i. 394
Thomas of Cantinpré, legend related by,
i. 436
Thomas of Walden on Wickliffe, i. 474
Tibet, number of monks in, i. 103
Tibullus on purity required for sacri-
fice, i. 42, note
Tiers-Etat supreme in National Assem-
bly, ii. 307
Tithes seized by laity, i. 310
Toledo, first Council of, i. 115 ; in
398, ii. 252 ; forbids familiarity
between virgins and confessors, ii.
252; Council of, in 400, i. 76; in 531,
i. 84, note; in 589, i. 84, note; in 597
and 633, i. 84, note ; in 653, i. 84, note;
in 675, i. 84, note ; Archbishop Car-
ranza of, on immorality, ii. 255; Arch-
bishop Siliceo of, first reference to box
used in confessional, ii. 255; tribunal
of deprives Bernardo de Amor, ii. 290
Toribio, St., of Peru, ii. 247; on corrup-
tion of clergy, ii. 247, 249
Torné of Bourges publicly married, ii.
310
Tortosa, Council of, in 1429, i. 384
Toulouse, Manichæism at, in IoI8, i. 245;
Council of, in IoS6, i. 306
Tournon, Cardinal Archbishop, ii. 173
Tours, Council of, in 460, i. 83, note ; in
567, i. 134; in 925, i. 167; in Ioffo,
i. 232, 306; in 1096, i. 317, note ; in
1163, i. 394 ; in 1583, ii. 240
Trani, married Bishop of, deposed, i.
232 § nearly all priests in, with families,
ii. 1
Treason, English abbots attainted of,
ii. 97
Treglia, Andrea, case of, settles question
of priestly marriage for Naples, ii. 333
Tréguier, residence of priests' relatives
forbidden in, i. 410
Trent, Council of, ii. 171–220; expecta-
tions regarding, ii. 72 ; authorises
dispensations for married priests, ii.
74; abuses laid before, by Sebastian
of Portugal, ii. 175; Lutheran heresy
regarded as due to priestly immor-
ality, ii. 178; sessions of, often inter-
rupted, ii. 182; proposals on priestly
marriage, ii. 199; three electors unite
in appeals to, ii. 201 ; diplomacy pre-
vents serious debate on celibacy, ii.
202; discussion at, on power of Pope
to dispense, ii. 203; canons on matri-
mony, ii. 204, 207; failure of reforms
of, ii. 211; canons not received in
France, ii. 222, note; enforcement of
canons of, in Utrecht, ii. 230; on
confessor conscious of mortal sin,
ii. 245; on age for ordination, ii. 304 ;
on gift of chastity, ii. 255, 340 e -
Trent, Council, Congregation of the, ii.
350
Trèves, persecution of married clergy in,
i. 279 ; morals of clergy in twelfth
century, i. 296 ; Archbishop of, and
immoral priests, ii. 187; effort , for
clerical marriage in, ii. 325; synod of,
in 1548, ii. 187, note; in 1549, ii. 188,
ºnote
Trialogus, Wickliffe, i. 475
Tribur, Assembly of, in Io'76, i. 283
Tridentine canons, ii. 153, 282
Trimarchi on a reserved bull, ii. 296
Trinidad and Merced, Orders of, i. 383
Trithemius, Abbot, describes Benedictine
monastery, ii. 89
Tropea, sister of Pier-Leone, i. 424
Trosley, Council of, in 909, i. 160, note
Troyes, synod of, in Iłoż, i. 292; I 128,
i. 451
Trugillo, Cristóbal, guilty priest, quietly
sent away, ii. 261
Tsadukim (Sadducees) opposed to theory
of future life, i. 8
Tudeschi, Nicholas (Panormitanus), advo-
cates priestly marriage, ii. 26
Turin, Council of, i. 77
Turner, John, penance of, for marriage, ii.
128
Tyndale, “The Obedience of a Cristen
Man,” ii. 103, note
ULLOA, Don Antonio de, ii. 249
Ulric, St., of Augsburg addresses Pope
on celibacy, i. 171; first subject of
papal canonisation, i. 172, note
Ulric, Duke of Bohemia, makes St. Pro-
copius abbot of Zagow, i. 210
Ulric, abbot of Tegernsee, testifies to
polygamy by priests, i. 211
Ultramontanism, ii. 234, 329; trium-
phant over Gallicanism and Jansenism,
ii. 363
Umbilicarii, i. 8, note
Umiliati, struggle with St. Charles Bor-
romeo, ii. 228; Order of, broken up, ii.
228
Unchastity, punishment of, for monks
and nuns, i. 147; forgiveness for, in
false decretals, i. 154–5; punished as
homicide, i. 196
United States, “Old Catholic "movement
in, ii. 330 ; no legal impediment in,
to priestly marriage, ii. 334; report of
Italian committee of American Epis-
copal Church, ii. 348, note *
INDEX
409
University fellows, celibacy of, ii. 143
Urban II., on sacraments of sinful priests,
i, 229, note ; creates Conrad king of
Lombardy, i. 260; reconciles Milanese
clergy, i. 261, note ; holds Council of
Piacenza, i. 261 ; publishes decree
against married priests, i. 289; reduces
wives of priests to slavery, i. 289 ;
appealed to by Flemish priests, i. 314;
and the Crusades, i. 316; decretal of,
in Io90, i. 385 ;
Urban III. enforces celibacy in Dalmatia,
i. 299
Urban VIII, , on abuse of confessional,
ii. 256; issues encyclical on abuse of
confessional, ii. 270
Urbino, Council of, in 1569, ii. 230
Urgel, Council of, in 1286, on priestly
immorality, i. 380; in 1364, threatens ex-
communication to disobedient priests,
i. 381
Urraca, Queen, i. 375
Useria, supposed wife of Eriberto of
Milan, i. 245, note
Utopia, Sir Thomas More, ii. 80, note
Utraquists (Calixtins) of Bohemia, i, 480
Utrecht, condition of nunneries in,
fourteenth century, i. 422, note; recep-
tion of Council of Trent in, ii. 230;
Assembly of, in Ioy6, i. 277–8; synod
of, in 1568, ii. 230
WAGABOND monks, i. 112, 121–2, 128
Vagabondage, Act to punish, ii. 94
Waldaña, Fray Juan de, case of, ii. 254
Valdelamar, Alonso de, case of, ii. 254
Valdés, Inquisitor-General, Archbishop
of Seville, ii. 176; receives bull of
Paul IV. on solicitation, ii. 258
Valdés, Fernando de, many cases of
Solicitation, ii. 292
Valencia, Council of, in 1255, i. 379 ; in
I565, orders use of confessional box
in confessions, ii. 255
Valens, persecution by, i. 108, note
Valentinian (Emperor) punishes immoral
ecclesiastics, i. 60
Valentinus originates mystic libertinism
of Gnostics, i. 20
Walesians, sect of, i. 29
Wallis Dei, rigid asceticism of a monk of,
i. 448
Wallombrosa, monks of, i. 213
Wanaprasthas, class of, invented by
Brahminism, i. 7
vºnian I. persecutes Manichaeism, i.
3
Vargas, reports apprehensions to Philip
II., ii. 200, 202, note ; Philip's rigorous
policy executed by means of, ii. 214
Vatican, number of women in, ii. 344;
resolved to rule or to ruin, ii. 329;
Council in 1870, ii. 328; dogma of
papal infallibility at Council of, ii. 328
VOL. II,
| Vedas, doctrine of the, respecting Tapas,
i. 7
Veil, taking of the, a marriage with
Christ, i. 114
Velda, Dr. Augustin, of La Sallana,
accused of solicitation, ii. 282, note
Venality of officials, i. 337, 346, 357, 384,
397, 406, 411, 421,429, ii. 12, 19, 61
Venantius of Syracuse, i. 127, note
Venezuela, suppression of monasteries
in, ii. 339
Venice, relaxation of canons in, i. 241;
number of priests in, ii. 306
Ventimiglia, nuncio, negotiates with
Maximilian II., ii. 212
Vº troubles of married priests in,
i. 17
Verdun, reform of monks in, i. 318;
Bishop of, at Council of Trent, ii. 204
Weringen, case of Count and Countess
of, i. 280–1
Werneuil, synod of, in 755, i. 151
Vernon, Council of, in 845, i. 158
Verona, reforming Bishop of, ii. 254
Verses, satirical, on clergy, i. 351–2
Wertfeuil, extent of heresy in, i. 464
Vestal virgins, i. 43
Victor II., attempts to reform, i. 224;
enforces celibacy in France, i. 306
Victor III. on Italian Church, i. 210
Vienna, Council of, in 1267, i. 300
Vienne, Council of, in Ioffo, i. 232; in
I312, i. 470 ; Charles de Marillac of,
on ecclesiastical discipline, ii. 238
Vigilantius, slave of St. Sulpicius Severus,
i. 70 ; sent to St. Paulinus and St.
Jerome, i. 71 ; leaves St. Jerome and
denounces celibacy, i. 71 ; spread of
doctrines of, i. 72 ; abandoned by St.
Sulpicius and St. Exuperius, i. 73
Vihara, Buddhist monastery, i. 101
Williers, Abbé, defends celibacy, ii. 299
Williers de l’Isle, Adam, i. 457
Virginity, extravagantly praised by
orthodox fathers, i. 36; compared with
marriage, i. 37, 38 ; laudation of, by
St. John Chrysostom, i. 90 ; exhorta-
tions on, i. 105, note:; Bede and Ald-
helm uphold, i. 187; praised by
Damiani, i. 240; homily of thirteenth
century on, i. 431 ; extolled by Laur-
entius Gallus, i. 434, note ; Luther
writes on, ii. 40; Dr. Sandys of Wor-
cester on, ii. 148 ; Panzini praises,
º opposes enforced celibacy, ii.
32
Virgins, priests to marry no women but,
i. 27; some reformers regard as only
wives for priests, ii. 53
Wisconti, nuncio, correspondence on
Trent Council, ii. 203
Visitation, of monasteries by Archbishop
Morton, ii. 16 ; of religious houses in
Tuscany, ii. 303
2 D
410
INDEX
Vitalis of Mortain preaches reform, i.
311
Vitry, Jacques de, case of, ii. 14–15
Vitus, St., monks of, thought themselves
free to marry, i. 127
Vladislas II., Diet held by, ii. 19 ; on
clerical immorality, ii. 19
Vows of chastity, when introduced, were
voluntary, i. 30 ; barely tolerated in
early Church, i. 40; at first temporary
in character, i. 1, 105; gradually re-
garded as permanent, i. 115; treated
by Gregory the Great as irrevocable,
i. 127; ordered for sub-deacons, i.
138 ; infanticide one result of, i. 156 ;
more potent than Sacrament of mar-
riage, i. 386, 396 ; of military orders,
i. 451; Luther on, “De Votis Monasti-
cus,” ii. 44; minimum age for taking, ii.
302 ; declared void in France in 1790,
ii. 307; release from impossible under
civil marriage law, ii. 334
Vrie, Theodoric, denounces Teutonic
clergy, ii. 3
WAHU, Dr., tabulated list by, of clerical
prosecutions, ii. 360; on prosecution
of teachers, in monastic schools, ii.
361
Wake, Archbishop, correspondence of,
with Dupin, ii, 298, note
Waldemar I. of Denmark, i. 301
Waldemar II. on concubines, i.
720te
Walden, marriage of abbot of, ii. 105
Waldenses, i. 460
Waldeck, Count of, treatment of, by
Church, ii. 64
Wales, celibacy in early Church of, i. 188;
state of Church in ninth century, i.
198–9 ; priestly marriage in thirteenth
century, i. 347; persistence of priestly
marriage in, i. 359
Walter of Orleans on residence of female
relations with priests, i. 157, note
Warham, Archbishop, visitation of, ii.
81
Warsaw, synod of, ii. 209, note
Wartburg, Luther's enforced seclusion
in, ii. 42
Watten, priory of, i. 313
Wedlock (see Marriage)
Weiss Berg, battle of, in 1620, i. 481
Wenceslas (King) of Bohemia, reforms
by, i. 479
Wendt, the Rev., heavy sentence for im-
morality, ii. 360, note
Wergild for son of a bishop, i. 186; for
priest in Saxon England, i. 201, note ;
for priest in Northern Germany, i.
416
West, first General Council of the, in
1123, i. 385
231,
Western monachism, i. 121, 124
Westminster, Council of, in 1127, i. 340:
in 1138, i. 341
Westmoreland, Earl of, insurrection of,
in 1569, ii. 148
Weston, Dr., tells a married priest Queen
Mary is not to be “censed” by him, ii.
123
Wetzer und Welte, ii. 336, note
Wexford, immoral priests of, i. 364–5
Whitby, synod of, in 664, i. 185, note
wºn Percival, on wives of clergy, ii.
14
Wicelius (George Witzel) embraces Lu-
theranism, ii. 210
Wickliffe, on sacraments of sinful priests,
i, 230, note, 460; reforming zeal of, i.
473; views on celibacy a disputed
point, i. 474
Widows, priests forbidden to marry, i. 27;
order of, in primitive Church, i. 103 ;
compared with virgins, i. 37; vows of
chastity taken for shameful reasons by,
i. 142–3
Wied, Hermann von, attempts at reform
by, ii. 176-7 ; embraces Lutheranism,
ii. 177, note
Wilfreda, St., i. 193
Wilhelm, Archduke of Austria, i. 458
William of Bavaria on Church corrup-
tions, ii., 190
William of Canterbury, letter from St.
Anselm, i. 332
William of Cantilupe enforces celibacy,
i. 351
William of Cologne forbids marriage of
monks, i. 422, note
William of Hilderness, i. 470
William of Malmesbury on the Anglo-
Saxon Church, i. 205, note
William of Newburgh on Eon de l'Etoile,
i. 466, note
William of Orange on Council of Trent,
ii. 231, note
William of Paderborn fails to reform, i.
422
William of St. Sabina, legate to Spain, i.
380
William of Strassburg excommunicates
married priests, ii. 48
William the Conqueror, enforces celibacy
in Normandy, i. 308; permits marriage
in Brittany, i. 311 ; neglects reformin
England, i. 328
William the Lion, on concubines, i.
231, mote; persecutes the clergy, i.
Willibrod, St., asceticism and holy life of,
i. 142
Winchester, reform of monastery at, i.
195; Council of, in Io'70, i. 329; in
Io'76, i. 330
Windsor, synod of, in Ioyo, i. 329
INDEX
4.1.1
Wine of eucharist, in early Church, i. 35 ;
abstinence from, not recommended, i.
“Wine and women,” Father Müller on,
ii. 341, note
Wishart, George, tried for heresy, ii.
166
Wisigoths, laws of, on Church property,
i. 137
Wisigoths of Spain,
Church of, i. 135
Witgar of Mendlesham, i. 343
Witnesses, ordeal for, i. 159–60; married
priests not admitted as, i. 359
Wittenberg, Luther nails his ninety-five
propositions to church door, ii. 39.3
burns books of canon law at, ii.
41; monastery doors thrown open
at, ii. 44
Witzel, George, twice changes religion,
ii. 210
Wives of clerics, adulterous, to be put
away, i. 27 ; rated below maidens, i.
38, forbidden at Council of Elvira, i.
43; not forbidden at Council of Nicaea,
i. 46–7; forbidden by Damasus, i. 63;
forbidden by Siricius, i. 63–4 ; for-
bidden in Gaul and Spain, i. 76–7 ;
permitted in Eastern Church, i. 91, 94;
through the fourth century, i. 48, 53,
59, 82; wives of bishops, retention of,
i. 90 ; to be separated, i. 95; wives of
clerics, custom in Russia regarding, i.
97–8 ; under the Franks, i. 132–3 ; in
Gothic Spain, i. 135; to be treated, as
sisters, i. 139–140 ; cause deprecia-
tion of property, i. 167; in Anglo-
Saxon times, i. 203–4; fidelity of, i.
238; sufferings of, i. 280 ; reduced to
slavery, i. 289; seizure of, threatened, i.
314; treatment of in England, i. 332,
337, 350 ; assist at altar in Germany,
i. 392 ; liable to death under Six
Articles, ii. 112 ; position of, in Eliza-
bethan Church, ii. 145–6 ; assumed to
be serving women, ii. 145; vilified at
synod of Osnabruck, ii. 233; church-
ing not allowed for, ii. 315
Wolff, Christian, on Paphnutius, i. 52
Wolfgang, Fabricius Capito, ii. 43; mar-
riage of, ii. 48
Wolfgang of Ratisbon, St., inculcates
chastity, i. 175
Wolf hunts, priests obliged to join, i.
370
Wolsey, Cardinal, no ascetic, ii. 81 ;
founds Cardinal’s College (now Christ
Church), Oxford, ii. 82; co-legate for
Queen Katharine's divorce, ii. 83; fall
of, ii. 84
Women, intimacy with, forbidden to
pagan priesthood, i. 42; not allowed
in temple of Hercules, i. 42; not pro-
immorality of
hibited from serving in churches, i.
56; residence of, with priests for-
bidden in Greek Church, i. 97; not to
enter chamber of bishop unaccom-
panied, i. 133; Cuthbert of Canterbury
opposes pilgrimages of, i. 189; resi-
dence of, with clerical relatives for-
bidden, i. 410; not allowed in Cistercian
monasteries, ii. 23 ; church struck by
lightning after attendance of, ii. 23,
note ; denouncing priests for solicita-
tion (see Solicitation)
Wood, T., on position of Anglican clergy,
ii. 149, note
Worcester, reformation of monks in, i.
195; Sir John Bourne's complaint of
chapter of, ii. 142
Worms, Diet of, in Io'76, i. 278
Wright, political songs of England, i.
343, note
Wriothesley, Chancellor, ii. 116
Wurzburg, Bishop of, seizes John of
Niklaushausen, ii. 24; synod of, in
1548, ii. 190; Bishop Melchior of, ii.
190, note ; wilful ignorance of canons
in, ii. 232
Wu-Tsung destroys Buddhist monasteries,
i. 102
Wyatt's rebellion suppressed, ii. 124
Wynrame, Dean, disputes with Knox,
ii. 167
XIMENES reforms Franciscans, ii. 21
YOGA system, severity of, i. 7
York, Wolsey attempts reformation in
diocese of, ii. 81; claim of, on Scottish
Church, i. 185; Council of, in 1195, i.
350, note ; Archbishop of, and the Six
Articles, ii. 111
Y; abuse of confessional, in 1768, ii.
275
Yves of Chartres (see Ivo)
ZABARELLA, Cardinal, advocates priestly
marriage, ii. 25
Zabolcs, synod of, in Io92, i. 297
Zaccaria, Abate, suggestions of, on origin
of celibacy, i. 15; on Nicene canon, i.
49, note; on Gregory of Nazianzum, i.
53-4, note ; on dissolution of priestly
marriage, i. 394, note ; on proceedings
at Council of Bologna, ii. 74, note;
defence of celibacy, ii. 299; Storia
Polemica del Celibato Sacro, ii. 299 ;
Nuova Giustificazione del Celibato
Sacro, ii. 301
Zachary, Pope, advice of, respecting
Milo, i. 145; addresses epistle to
Franks, i. 148 ; writes to Carloman
412 INDEX
and Pepin, i. 149; furthers objects of Zurich, priests of, defend their women
Cuthbert of Canterbury, i. 189 i. 422; nuns in, free to leave con-
Zago, Zabo, account by, of Coptic Church, vents, ii. 46
i, 100 Zwilling, Gabriel, preaches against mon-
Zagow. abbey of, foundation of, i. 210 asticism, ii. 44
Zuñiga, Luis de, ii. 214 Zwingli, Ulrich, demands priestly mar-
Zurich letters, ii. 147, note riage, ii. 45; marriage of, ii. 46
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