17 - Clerics in Minor Orders

Summary

The strange and interesting bigamia rule remained a constant from the fourth century on, but the social worlds to which it was applied were different. A high proportion of the (very numerous) thirteenth-century clerics in minor orders did not have much to do with the clerical world, whereas their late Antique counterparts were presumably more or less integrated into the tight community around the city’s bishop. In the thirteenth century, the bigamia rule enabled popes and kings to deny clerical privileges to phony clergymen who enjoyed fiscal and judicial immunities, even though those clerics were supported by bishops whose power and profits they enhanced.