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I. Gregorian Reform in Action: Clerical Marriage in England, 1050–12001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

C. N. L. Brooke
C. N. L. Brooke
Affiliation:
Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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Extract

Few men have ever shown a more sublime faith in the divine origin of their mission than the papal reformers of the eleventh century. They set to work with a ‘modest proposal’ to destroy two of the most intimate and powerful foundations of clerical society: they aimed to abolish simony and with it the lay control of patronage; they tried to destroy the family life of the clergy. From one point of view they were doing only what every policeman does—they were trying to enforce the established law. From another point of view their platform was a devastating social revolution. If we may admire the high idealism of Leo IX, Humbert, Hildebrand and Peter Damian, we must also concede that their work had many victims; the legislation of the eleventh-century Popes on clerical marriage must have produced as many broken homes and personal tragedies as the morals of Hollywood. Both Damian the ascetic and Heloise the deserted wife have a claim on our sympathy as historians; and both found their supporters in their own day. Between the unbending demand for the enforcement of celibacy and the view of the Anonymous of York that it was entirely proper for the clergy to be married there were many possible positions. The Anonymous (writing at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) was propounding opinions already obsolescent; and clerical marriage found few defenders in the middle and late twelfth century. But if the field narrowed, the subtleties of the problem were more fully appreciated. The twelfth century was an age of growing sophistication in lay circles as well as clerical. Nowhere was this more true than in the world of love and of marriage; in that century (whatever the lot of womankind as a whole) the romantic ideal was born, under whose spell we still live. It is the variety and the subtlety of the view-points which give my subject its interest, and also its intractability. Clerical marriage is an exceedingly delicate topic, though it has not always been delicately treated.

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Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , 1956 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1956

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References

2 This is certainly true of H. C. Lea's great History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church (3rd ed., 2 vols., London, 1907)Google Scholar, which, with all its faults, remains the only general account of the subject on a broad scale. There is an immense literature on the origins and the law of celibacy. Vacandard's account (Études de critique et d'histoire religieuse, 1 (Paris, 1905), pp. 69–120)Google Scholar is still valuable; for the law, see also Esmem, A., Le mariage en droit canonique, I2 (Paris, 1929), pp. 313–41Google Scholar; Dauvillier, J., Le mariage dans le droit classique de l'Église (Paris, 1933). pp 162 ff.Google Scholar; Dictionnaire de droit canonique, III (Paris, 1942), pp. 132ff.Google Scholar For a general account of the reformers’ campaign for celibacy, see Fliche, A., La réforme grégorienne, I (Louvain-Paris, 1924), pp. 30 ff., 190 ff., 335 ff., etc.Google Scholar

3 Anselm's Historia dedicationis ecclesiae Sancti Remigii and Cardinal Humbert's Vita Leoms IX (ed. Watterich, I. M., Pontificum Romanorum Vitae, I (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 113 ff, 127 ff-—especially pp. 155–7).Google Scholar Humbert's authorship of the Vita has recently been established by two scholars working independently, Dr Tritz, H. in Studi Gregoriam, IV (Rome, 1952), pp. 194–286Google Scholar, and Dr Richard Mayne in an unpublished Cambridge Ph.D thesis Leo IX dealt with the problem of celibacy in two surviving letters (Jaffé-Lowenfeld, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum—henceforth JL.—nos. 4279, 4308, and he prescribed celibacy for the clergy of Rome in 1049 (Leclercq, C. J Hefele-H., Histoire des Conciles, IV, 11 (Paris, 1911), pp. 1007–8 and notes).Google Scholar There is some later evidence that clerical marriage was dealt with at Rheims in 1049 and elsewhere in Leo's pontificate (ibid pp. 1023–4n, 1031), and Bonizo of Sutri attaches the decrees of 1059 and later (below, n. 12) to the Roman synod of 1050. Some or all of this evidence may be authentic; but it is in marked contrast to the strictly contemporary evidence, and Bonizo is inclined to read back later developments (such as the personal influence of Hildebrand) into the pontificate of Leo IX For the canon of 1050 we have only Bonizo's word, and the unsupported testimony of Bonizo is scarcely evidence

4 For the legal authorities, cf. n 2 above. the bulk of them are laid out in Gratian, Decretum, D. 27, cc I, 8; D 28, 31, 32, passim; D. 81, cc. 15–34; D. 82, cc 2, 5; D 84, cc 3–5; cf. also C. 15, q. 8, passim; C. 27, q. 1, c. 40; for sons of priests, D. 56, passim; for hereditary benefices, C 8, q 1, c. 7 (cf cc 3–6) These include many of the decrees of papal councils from 1059 onwards, as well as the earlier material; decrees not in Gratian were issued at the papal councils of 1096 (cc 7, 12, Mansi, Concilia, XX, coll 935–6), 1099 (c 13, ibid, col 963), 1107 (c 4, ibid coll 1223–4), 1119 (Toulouse, c 8, ibid, XXI, col 227), 1123 (c 3, ibid col. 282), 1131 (cc. 4, 15, ibid coll 458,461; cf Gratian, D 28, c 2), 1148 (cc. 3, 7, ibid coll 714, 715). The decrees of 1018 are in Mansi, op cit XIX, col 353 (cf. Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit. IV, 11, p 919) I have nothing to say in this article of the more abstruse matrimonial impediments to ordination, e g.’ bigamy'. It is impossible to discuss here to what extent this material was known throughout Europe It is certain that the main lines of the law of celibacy were widely known in England throughout the period (see below, pp 7, 19); and the fresh developments were repeated in Norman councils of the mid-eleventh and m English councils of the early twelfth century. From the middle of the twelfth century both Normandy and England were beginning to be plentifully supplied with expert lawyers to interpret the law. Furthermore, even before Gratian, the outline of the law could easily be reconstructed from the popular collections of Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres.

5 Nicholas of Antioch is mentioned in Acts vi. 5, and the Nicolaitans in Rev. 11. There is no reason to suppose that there was any connexion between them. Rev. 11. 14, 15 hint that fornication was one of the sins of the Nicolaitans, and in course of time the title came to be attached to almost any sect liable to this kind of error (cf. Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, IX (Edinburgh, 1917), pp. 363–6).Google Scholar

6 Humbert, , Adversus Nicetam, ed. Will, C., Acta et scripta (Leipzig-Marburg, 1861), cc. 25ff., pp. 147–50Google Scholar; Damian, Ep. V, 13, Opuscula, XVII, XVIII (Migne, P[atrologia] L[atina], CXLIV, coll. 358ff.; CXLV, coll. 379+424), and cf. also Epp. V, 4, 14–15 (PL, CXLIV, coll. 344ff., 367ff.). For the development of sacramental theology, see Southern, R. W. in Studies in Medieval History presented to F. M. Powicke (Oxford, 1948), pp. 36ff.Google Scholar and references there given.

7 Gratian, Decretum, D. 28, cc. 1, 5, 14; D. 32, c. 18; etc.

8 JL. 14,104, also in the Decretals of Gregory IX—henceforward X—III, 32, 5–6.

9 It used to be argued that if Abelard was not yet a subdeacon, the marriage was not only valid but legal. This can no longer be maintained, for two reasons:—1. He was certainly a canon (Historia calamitatum, ed. Muckle, J. T., Mediaeval Studies, XII (1950), p. 188)Google Scholar, and there is some evidence that he was a canon of Sens; there is no evidence that he was a canon of Paris, though it is quite likely that he was (ibid. n. 81 and the passage from Rémusat's life there quoted). Canons were forbidden to marry by the English council of 1076, and by a Norman council of 1080 (below, n. 31; McLaughlin, T. P., Mediaeval Studies, III (1941), p. 94)CrossRefGoogle Scholar —decrees given general validity at Clermont in 1095 (ibid. pp. 95ff.), and subsequently repeated by further English and French councils. These decrees condemned canons who married to forfeit their benefices (indeed, they seem to have applied to all who committed fornication). That this rule was known in the diocese of Paris is certain: Ivo of Chartres had stated it in a letter to the bishop of Paris only a few years before Abelard's marriage. 2. In any case, there is no reason to doubt that Abelard was in higher orders. He himself assures us that it was an abuse for a canon not to be (Ep. 8, cit. Gilson, E., Héloïse et Abélard English trans. (London, 1953), p. 172).Google Scholar The word ‘clericus’ on which M. Gilson bases his view that Abelard was not at this time in orders at all was used in a variety of ways: In the passage in question it is contrasted, not with ‘presbiter', but with ‘laicus’—it is being used in the broadest (and commonest) sense, ‘a member of the clerical order’. We do not know what his orders were, but he may well have been a priest, as he certainly was within a few years of becoming a monk (ibid p. 67). M. Gilson has argued (ibid chs. 1–2) that legal impediments and the threat of deprivation were not of major consequence to either party in their discussion whether to marry; and this we may (in the main) accept.

10 I Lateran, c. 21 (Mansi, op. cit. XXI, col. 286).

11 D. 28, dictum post c. 13.

12 Mansi, op. cit. XIX, coll. 897–8, 978, 1023–5 (cf. Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit. IV, ii, pp. 1167–8, 1230, V, i, pp. 90–1). The authenticity of the decree of 1063 is not quite certain. Urban's solution is in Gratian, Decretum, D. 32, dictum post c. 6.

13 The decretals on this subject in X are in I, 17; 1, 21; III, 2–3; IV, 6; cf. also III, 32, 5–6; V, 31, 4. I have no space here for full references to those not in X.

14 Of the decretals listed in n. 13, the following were addressed to England: X, I, 17, 2–11; III, 2, 4–6; III, 3, 1–2; IV, 6, 3 (there is a critical edition of X, 1, 17, 2 in Papal Decretals relating to the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. W. Holtzmann and E. W. Kemp, Lincoln Record Society (1954), no. 5, X, 1, 17, 3 is a part of an important decretal addressed to the bishop of Worcester, which is printed in full in Gilberti Foliot Epistolae, ed. Giles, J. A., II (London, 1846)Google Scholar, no. 368—it later formed the basis of the first canon of the council of Westminster of 1175, for which see below, n. 63; X, III, 2, 4 and III, 3, 1 formed part of a single decretal, JL. 13,813). The proportion of English cases in X, I, 17 is especially striking—this title deals with the sons of priests and problems of inheritance.

15 Collectio Brugensis, XXII, 3 (ed. Friedberg, E., Die Canones-sammlungen zwischen Gratian und Bernhard von Pavia, Leipzig, 1897, p. 152).Google Scholar In the same collection (XXXVII, 1) is a decretal about a forger who was a priest's son, and claimed to have a papal letter declaring this no impediment from orders.

16 For the English lower clergy in later centuries, there is a useful catena of references collected by H. G. Richardson in Trans[actions of the] R[oyal] Hist[orical] Soc[iety], 3rd ser. VI (1912), pp. 120–3; cf. also Moorman, J. R. H., Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1945), pp. 63–7.Google Scholar For the twelfth century the locus classicus is Gerald of Wales, Opera, II (ed. J. S. Brewer), pp. 168ff., IV, pp. 313 ff. (and cf. the references in Davies, J. Conway, Episcopal acts relating to Welsh dioceses, n, Historical Society of the Church in Wales (1948), pp. 459f., 465ff.)Google Scholar; but Gerald's charges are exceedingly confused and the value of his evidence very difficult to assess.

17 The legal and other evidence about the attitude to celibacy in England in the early eleventh century is fully discussed by Darlington, R. R. in E[nglish] Historical] R[eview], LI (1936), pp. 404–7, 411.Google Scholar

18 For the proportion of English decretals see W. Holtzmann, Papal Decretals relating to the Diocese of Lincoln, p. XVII. The reason for the high proportion in general has been much discussed: it is due in part at least to the work done by English canonists in collecting decretals —perhaps mainly, as is argued by Dr C. Duggan in an unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis on Twelfth-Century Decretal Collections. There is certainly no reason to suppose that the proportion of surviving decretals which are directed to England reflects at all closely the proportion originally sent.

19 Cf. the studies referred to in n. 16: the evidence has not yet been sifted by regions or in closely circumscribed chronological periods—and only thus can any conclusions be drawn from the scandals recorded in bishops' registers or the papal dispensations granted for the ordination of the sons of priests.

20 M. D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses (London, 1053), pp. 359–65. esp. p. 364.

21 Cf. Dickinson, J. C., The Origins of the Austin Canons and their introduction into England (London, 1950), esp. ch. 1.Google Scholar

22 Durham, Norwich and Rochester (1083, c. 1094, 1080).

23 I hope to give full grounds for these statements elsewhere. Cf. Edwards, K., The English Secular Cathedrals in the Middle Ages (Manchester, 1949), pp. 8ff.Google Scholar

24 St Paul's is the only English cathedral which provides any real evidence of continuity through the Conquest.

25 Knowles, M. D., The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 697–701.Google Scholar There is no known case of a non-monastic bishop in this period; but the origins of a certain number are not known.

26 Albert of Lorraine and Regenbald were certainly holding parish churches in plurality, though whether as quasi-lay proprietors or as rectors or both is not clear (for Albert, see Round, J. H., Commune of London (Westminster, 1899), pp. 36ff.Google Scholar; C[ambridge] H[istorical] J[ournal] X, (1951), pp. 122, 124–5Google Scholar; for Regenbald, Round, Feudal England (London, 1895), pp. 421ff.Google Scholar; Harmer, F. E., Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), pp. 59–60; etc.).Google Scholar The greatest single landholder was Stigand, whose fabulous possessions have been indexed by von Feilitzen, O., The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book (Uppsala, 1937), pp. 374–5Google Scholar -For Edward's grant(s) to Leofric, see The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry, ed. Chambers, R. W., Forster, M., and Flower, R. (London 1933), pp. 5, 15.Google Scholar Guibert de Nogent takes it as a matter of course that a man should make his pile as chaplain to the Confessor (PL, CLVI, col. 909). In addition, the perquisites of office may have been as profitable as royal gifts.

27 That Stigand was married is asserted in a long footnote in Cutts, E. L., Parish Priests and their People..(London, 1898), pp. 262–3Google Scholar, which lists cases of married bishops, etc. There are some errors and almost no references given for this catalogue, which must be treated with the utmost caution; I have found no support for the statement about Stigand.

28 For Godmann, Cnut's chaplain, see Oleson, T. J., The Witenagemot in the reign of Edward the Confessor (Oxford, 1955), p. 125Google Scholar; for Aethelmaer, Domesday Book, 11, fol. 195; for Leofwine, bishop of Lichfield, Lanfranc, Ep. 4 (cf. Tait, J. in Essays in History presented to R. L. Poole, ed. Davis, H. W. C. (Oxford, 1927), pp. 155ff.)Google Scholar; for Albert of Lorraine, above, n. 26. A list of benefactors of New Minster, Winchester, of the early eleventh century contains the name of a priest's wife, but her husband's standing in the church is quite uncertain (Liber Vitae, ed. Birch, W. de G. (London-Winchester, 1892), p. 58).Google Scholar

29 For married clergy in the Welsh church, see the remarkable tables of succession to the churches in Archenfield (Herefordshire, on the Welsh border) in the Liber Landavensis (ed. Evans, J. G. (Oxford, 1893), pp. 275ff.)Google Scholar; for a general account of the evidence, see J. Conway Davies, op. cit. II, pp. 457–60, 464–8, 491–537; see esp. p. 535 (of the bishopric of Llandaff): ‘For more than a century after the Norman Conquest the bishopric was reserved for the family; for more than a hundred and fifty years after the Norman Conquest the archdeaconry was reserved for the family. The chapter of Llandaff seemed almost a closed corporation reserved for the Llancarfan family.’ There is exaggeration in this, and some of the evidence for family relationships is tenuous; but what can be established is striking enough.

30 J. Raine, The Priory of Hexham (Surtees Society, 1864), pp. l-lxvii; F. M. Powicke, Walter Daniel's Life of Ailred (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1950), pp. xxiv-xxxvi; Symeon of Durham, ed. T. Arnold (Rolls Series), I, pp. 122–3, 215ff.; II, 316.

31 D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, 1, p. 367. For Lanfranc's treatment of celibacy, cf. his Epp. 21, 62.

32 The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Camden 3rd ser. XL, 1928), pp. xxxiv, 53–4.Google Scholar An enactment similar to that of 1076 had been made in the Norman council of Lisieux (c. 1064, cc. 2–3, ed. L. Delisle, Journal des Savants (1901), p. 517), condemning priests married since the council of Rouen (1055–63; PL, CXLVII, col. 278). A more stringent canon was passed at Rouen in 1072 (Mansi, op. cit. XX, coll. 33ff.).

33 Gaufridus Grossus, Vita Bernardi Tironiensis, c. 6, §51 (PL, CLXXII, col. 1397), written after 1116, but referring to the period c. 1100, gives a circumstantial account of clerical marriage as a normal element in the social scene in Normandy, and relates how Bernard of Tiron, preaching continence in Normandy, was nearly lynched by the wives of the clergy; Orderic tells the same tale of John of Avranches, archbishop of Rouen, when he promulgated the decree of 1072 (ed. Le Prévost-Delisle, 11, p. 171). We shall presently see how high a proportion of the controversial literature in favour of marriage was written in Normandy (below, p. 14 and n. 43).

34 ‘Archidiaconatum quoque, quem in feudo ab antecessoribus suis de archiepiscopo Rotomagensi tenebat. dedit’, Orderic, II, p. 132. The phraseology is very strange, but there is no obvious way of emending the text.

35 ibid II, p. 365; cf. the Acta [archiepiscoporum Rotomagensium], PL, CXLVII, col. 277.

36 (i) Robert, archbishop of Rouen (989–1036 or 7), son of Duke Richard I (Orderic, iv, p. 294, etc.; Acta, loc. cit.). (2) Mauger, archbishop of Rouen, son of Duke Richard II (William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum ducum, ed. Marx, J. (Rouen-Paris, 1914), p. 119Google Scholar; Acta, loc. cit.; etc.). (3) Hugh bishop of Lisieux (c. 1050–77), grandson of Duke Richard I (cf. Orderic, 11, pp. 39, 71 and Douglas, D. C., E.H.R. LXI (1946), pp. 154f., 140).CrossRefGoogle Scholar (4) and (5) Hugh bishop of Bayeux (died c. 1049) (William of Jumièges, p. 102; Orderic, iii, pp. 416, etc.) and John of Avranches, bishop of Avranches(1061—68/9) and archbishop of Rouen (1068/9–79) (William of Jumièges, p. 137; Orderic, 11, p. 374, etc.), sons of Rodulf, count of Ivry, halfbrother of Duke Richard I. (6) Odo, bishop of Bayeux (1049/50–97), half-brother of the Conqueror (see n. 37). (7) Richard of Kent, bishop of Bayeux (1135–42), grandson of Henry I (Orderic, v, pp. 31, 45).

37 For Ivo, see White, G. H., Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 4th ser. XXII (1940), pp. 81 f., 88Google Scholar; for Odo, Douglas, D. C., The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church Canterbury (London, 1944), pp. 33ff., etc.Google Scholar, and the study by Bourrienne, V., ‘Odon de Conteville évêque de Bayeux’, Revue catholique de Normandie, VII–IX (1897–1900)Google Scholar

37 For Ivo, see White, G. H., Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 4th ser. XXII (1940), pp. 81 f., 88Google Scholar; for Odo, Douglas, D. C., The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church Canterbury (London, 1944), pp. 33ff., etc.Google Scholar, and the study by Bourrienne, V., ‘Odon de Conteville évêque de Bayeux’, Revue catholique de Normandie, VII–IX (1897–1900)Google Scholar

38 Hugh and Roger, bishops of Coutances (Loyd, L. C., Yorks. Arch[aeological] J[ournal], XXXI (1932–1934), pp. 99ff.Google Scholar; Orderic, iv, p. 415); Radbod, bishop of Séez (see n. 40); Sampson treasurer of Bayeux (see n. 39); Norman, dean of Séez (see n. 40); Anger of Bayeux (see p. 16); Fulk, dean of Éivreux (Orderic, 11, pp. 20, 397; Robert, archdeacon of Éivreux and Adelis his wife had a son Gilbert, who occurs in 1099–1100 (Vernier, J.-J., Charles.. de Jumièges, 1 (Rouen-Paris, 1916), no. 40)Google Scholar; Gilbert d'Évreux, precentor of Rouen and chaplain of Henry I had at least four sons, including William prior of Ste.-Barbe-en-Auge (chronicle of Ste.-Barbe, ed. R.-N. Sauvage in Mémoires de l'Académie. de Caen (1906), pp. 19ff.); the son of an archdeacon and of the dean of Coutances witness a charter of c. 1140 (Cartulaire des îles normandes, Société Jersiaise (Jersey, 1924), no. 175).Google Scholar The last three are the only instances in which it is not certain that the family was raised in the eleventh century. For other cases, see next note.

39 A witness list of 1092 contains a large number of canons of Bayeux, including Ralph de St Patrick and John his son, Anschetil de St Vigor and Ralph his nephew (Bourrienne, V., Antiquus Cartularius ecclesiae Baiocensis, I (Rouen-Paris, 1902), no. 22)Google Scholar; also Ranulf, son of Thurstin and Osbert, son of Thurstin (just possibly Ranulf Flambard and his brother: cf. C.H.J. X (1951), p. 130 and n. 18)Google Scholar; Odo, son of Oger, who was father of Matthew, archdeacon of Worcester (Bourrienne, op. cit. 1, no. 22; ii, no. 362)—and Odo's father may have been Oger, precentor of Bayeux (Bibliothèque nationale, MS. Latin 5423, p. 144). The list contains six other men with patronymics, but there is no evidence that their fathers were canons or clerics. Apart from the list, Serlo, canon of Bayeux, poet and controversialist, was son of a priest (see n. 43); and it is possible, though not certain, that Anger of Bayeux held a position in the chapter there (cf. below, p. 16). But the most distinguished family group was that of the brothers Thomas and Sampson, successive treasurers of Bayeux. The children of a priest (William of Malmesbury, G[esta] P[ontificum], ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, p. 66) called Osbert, and Muriel his wife (Liber Vitae ecclesiae Dunelmensis, ed. Raine, J., Surtees Society (1841), pp. 139–40)Google Scholar, both the brothers won English bishoprics. Thomas I became archbishop of York (1070–1100; cf. Historians of the] Ch[urch of] York, ed. J. Raine, 11, p. 99); Sampson, like his brother, was chaplain to the king and treasurer of Bayeux (Orderic, II, p. 249, ill, p. 266; Davis, H. W. C., Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, I (Oxford, 1913), no. 147Google Scholar; cf. Bourrienne, op. cit. 1, no. 23), and also possibly dean (William of Malmesbury, GP, p. 289) before he became bishop of Worcester (1096–1112). Sampson had at least two sons, Thomas II, archbishop of York (1109–14; Eadmer, Hist[oria] Nov[orum], ed. M. Rule, p. 208; Malmesbury, GP, pp. 289–90) and Richard de Douvres, canon and bishop of Bayeux(c. 1107–33; Bourrienne, op. cit. 1, no. 23; Hist. Ch. York, 11, p. 124). Humphrey (two of the name), Hugh and Roger

Bovet were canons of Bayeux in the mid and late twelfth century: Hugh and Roger held the prebend of Cartigny (Bourrienne, op. cit. 1, nos. 96, 124ff., 283–4, etc.). Hugh Bovet also claimed a canonry at Salisbury by hereditary right, but since he was only seven when his father died, he had some difficulty making good the claim (JL. 14,098). Some of these families may have been reared before the fathers were ever in orders.

40 Radbod, bishop of Séez in the 1020's and 1030's, was father of William Bonne-Ame, archbishop of Rouen 1079–1110 (Orderic, 11, pp. 64, 213, etc.); for Sampson of Worcester, see above; for Norman, dean of Seez, Barlow, F., Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux (Camden 3rd ser. LXI (1939), pp. xi–xii and notes).Google Scholar

41 Sampson was a subdeacon when he became bishop in 1096 (Eadmer, Hist. Nov., p. 74), and was presumably such throughout his career as a canon and dignitary at Bayeux. The first certain evidence of Norman canons being forbidden to marry is in 1080 (cf. n. 9 above); but in any case a canon in lower orders was an abuse.

42 The prohibition against the ordination—outside a monastery—of a priest's son was extended to all illegitimate children in the council of Poitiers of 1078 (Mansi, op. cit. xx, coll. 498–9). But this local decree never became the law of the Church. ‘Son of a priest’ was a recognised term of abuse, against which it seems to have been regarded as sufficient defence to show that the father was not in priest's orders. Cf. Herbert of Bosham's brilliant repartee to Henry II in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson, iii, p. 101. Becket must have been retailing current gossip when he so described Reginald fitzjocelin (Knowles, M. D., Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951, p. 19—Google Scholar where for twenty-three read thirty-three). Jocelin, his father, was either an archdeacon when Reginald was conceived, and so most probably a deacon (all the English archdeacons of this period whose orders are known were deacons) or already bishop of Salisbury—the former is more likely! But it is possible that we take these stories too pedantically, and that ‘priest' in this context was popularly taken to mean a clerk of any kind, like OE. ‘preost'.

43 For these writings (mostly printed in Libelli de Lite, iii) see Bohmer, H., Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 168ff.Google Scholar; A. Fliche, La réforme grégorienne, iii, pp. 13–38. For Serlo of Bayeux (himself the son of a priest) see Bohmer, H., Neues Archiv, XXII (1897), pp. 722–38Google Scholar. The most recent study of the Anonymous, his origin and his thought, is by Williams, G. H., The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D. (Harvard Theological Studies, XVIII, 1951);Google Scholar cf. Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages (London, 1953), p. 93Google Scholar n. Williams does not seem to realize how eccentric and how heretical the Anonymous' thought was, and so makes him out to be a more responsible and influential person than he can possibly have been (he even suggests that he was an archbishop). His defence of clerical marriage is in Libelli de Lite, iii, pp. 645 ff.

44 The Anonymous' tract on priests' sons is in ibid pp. 649 ff.; see also the approximately contemporary works of Serlo of Bayeux (pp. 579 ff.) and Theobald of Étampes (pp. 603 ff. and below, n. 48.)

45 Op. cit. p. 646. In the text I have omitted his characteristic ‘Quod quia de scripturis sanctis non habet auctoritatem, eadem facilitate contempnitur, qua dicitur.’

46 For the defence of lay power, see Ullmann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (London, 1955), pp. 344–58, 382–412.Google Scholar

47 The decree of 1076 (Wilkins, Concilia, 1, p. 367) appears to have been preceded by a decree from the council of 1070 (c. 15, ibid p. 365); it was followed by canons 5–8 of the council of 1102 (ibid p. 382; for the attempt to enforce these canons, cf. the letters in Anselm, Opera Omnia, ed. Schmitt, W. S., IV (Edinburgh, 1949), pp. 165–70; V (1951), p. 287)Google Scholar, and by the council of 1108, the whole of whose canons were devoted to the subject (Wilkins, op. cit. I, p. 388). For later councils, see nn. 61–3.

48 Libelli de Lite, iii, pp. 603–7; for Theobald, cf. Oxford Historical Society's Collectanea, II (ed. M. Burrows, 1890), pp. 140–2, 151–9.

49 See Appendix (to be published in the next number of this Journal).

50 Letters of John of Salisbury, ed. Millor, W. J., Butler, H. E. and Brooke, C. N. L., 1 (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1955), nos. 14–15Google Scholar; cf. nos. 78–9 for the archdeacon of Norfolk.

51 For Osbert see Clay, C. T., Yorks. Arch. J. XXXVI (1944–1947), pp. 277–9;Google ScholarMorey, Dom Adrianx, C.H.J. X (1952), pp. 352–3Google Scholar; Letters of John of Salisbury, 1, pp. 261–2.

52 C.H.J. X (1951), p. 124.Google Scholar

53 For Roger himself, Nigel, bishop of Ely, Richard fitzNeal and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, see D[ictionary of] N[ational] B[iography]; for Richard, see also Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. Johnson, C. (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1950), pp. xiv ff.Google Scholar and passim; Richardson, H. G., E.H.R. XLIII (1928), pp. 161ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for William of Ely, Richardson, , Trans. R. Hist. Soc. 4th ser. XV (1932), pp. 45–90, esp. pp. 47, 60, 90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Matilda of Ramsbury is mentioned by name in Orderic, v, pp. 120–1; for her son Roger le Poer, see ibid, and Gesta Stephani, ed. Potter, K. R. (Nelson's Medieval Texts, 1955), p. 52Google Scholar. On the strength of his name ‘le Poer', a connexion has been conjectured between Roger and Herbert and Richard Poore, successive bishops of Salisbury at the end of the century; it has further been suggested that the Poores were sons to Richard of Ilchester, a leading exchequer clerk and bishop of Winchester 1174–88 (cf. Stubbs, introduction to Howden's Chronica, iv, p. xci n; D.N.B. s v. Poor, Richard of Ilchester, etc.). There is plausibility in these suggestions, but no solid evidence on which to support them. Matilda of Ramsbury may well have been connected with Azo of Ramsbury, archdeacon of Wiltshire (Register of St Osmund, ed. W. H. R. Jones (Rolls Series), 1, pp. 215, 351) and probably dean of Salisbury from before 1139 to c. 1145 (Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, XXIII (1942), pp. 319f.)Google Scholar and his brother Roger, canon of Salisbury and archdeacon of Wiltshire after Azo (Register of St Osmund, 1, p. 351, cf. p. 349, etc.; Historia et cartularium mon. Gloucestriae, ed. W. H. Hart (Rolls Series), II, p. 106).

54 For what follows, see Brooke, C. N. L., C.H.J. X (1951), pp. III–32, especially pp. ff. 124Google Scholar; for the Belmeis family, see Stubbs' introduction to Ralph de Diceto, 1, pp. xxiff., xxviff., and Brooke, art. cit., pp. 125–7.

55 This celebrated dictum is assigned to Alexander III by Gerald of Wales, Opera, ii (ed. J. S. Brewer), p. 304.

46 Two letters of Peter of Blois relating to his nephews are preserved in a manuscript at Erfurt(Amplonian MS. F.71, fos. 190r–v, 196r–v. I owe these references to MrR.W. Southern, who kindly lent me photostats of the MS.). For Gerald of Wales' troubles with his nephew Gerald, see Opera, III, p. 325, and especially the Speculum Duorum (of which there is an account by Davies, W. S. in Archaeologia Cambrensis, LXXXIII (1928), pp. 111–34Google Scholar; an edition by the late H. E. Butler and Dr J. Conway Davies is promised).

The exchange of benefices in later centuries (of which this is only one aspect) is discussed by Thompson, A.Hamilton in The English Clergy and their Organisation in the later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), pp. 107–9Google Scholar, Dut both the phenomenon in general and its use to further family interests in particular await a full critical study.

57 For Gerald and Peter's lyrics, see Raby, F. J. E., Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1934), 11, pp. 110–11,323–4.Google Scholar

58 Cf. Brooke, art. cit.; and for Flambard, pp. 124, 129ff. It is probable, though not entirely certain, that he was dean; there is no doubt that he was a canon of St Paul's.

59 Cf. Gibbs, M., Early Charters of the Cathedral Church of St Paul, London (Camden 3rd ser. LVIII (1939)), p. xxxiii.Google Scholar

60 For Hugh of Buckland, cf. Brooke, art. cit. p. 124, n. 70; for Becket's part in the campaign of 1159, see especially FitzStephen in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, iii, pp. 33–4, and the Continuatio Beccensis and Robert of Torigni in Tongni's Chrontque, ed. L. Delisle, ii, p. 174 and I, p. 325.

61 1125 (Wilkins, op. cit. I, p. 408), 1127 (ibid. p. 410), 1129 (ibid, p 411; Henry of Huntingdon, Histona Anglorum, ed T. Arnold, pp 250–1; Anglo-Saxon chronicle E, s a 1129, followed by several later writers); cf. also 1138 (Wilkins, op. cit. I, p. 415), and below, at n. 63.

62 Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 245–6 on John of Crema; pp. 250–1 (and cf. Anglo-Saxon chronicle E, s a. 1129) on the way m which Archbishop William's simplicity was duped by Henry I, who accepted fines from the married clergy and allowed them to keep their wives. The substance of the second story is very likely correct; the tale of John of Crema's incontinence is less plausible—a memory of a different kind of his important mission is given by Gilbert Foliot, writing in 1166 (Epistolae, ed. J A. Giles, I, no. 194, pp. 282–3) Henry of Huntingdon was certainly the son of a cleric; the grounds for thinking that he succeeded his father as archdeacon are given by T Arnold in his introduction to Henry's Histona, pp. xxxi–xxxiii and notes.

63 Wilkins, op. cit. I, p 477 (the best text is in Gesta Henrici Secundi., ed Stubbs, 1, p. 85); cf. also 1195, c. 17 (Wilkins, op. cit. 1, p 502) and 1200, c. 10 (p. 507), based on the Third Lateran Council of 1179, c. 11. The canon of 1175 was based on a decretal of Alexander III addressed to the bishop of Worcester, ‘Inter cetera solhcitudmis', JL 12,254 (printed in full in Gilberti Foliot Epistolae, ed. J. A. Giles, ii, no. 368, from the Collectio Beherensis). Both decretal and canon make a frequent appearance in the early decretal collections.

64 See above, n 17.

65 The poem is by Matthew of Vendôme, and is edited by Wattenbach, W., Sitzungsberichte der k. bayer. Akademie der Wiss. zu Munchen, Philos.-philol. und hist. Classe, ii (1872), p. 599Google Scholar, cited Raby, op. cit. 11, p. 34.

66 This title was commonly used in the sixth century (cf. Vacandard, E., Études de critique et d'histoire religieuse, 1 (Paris, 1905), p. 110).Google Scholar

67 For other names, see above, notes 38,39, Brooke, art. cit., pp. 123–4 and notes; for Matilda, above, n. 53. For Alice de Percy, see William of Newburgh, ed. R. Howlett, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, etc., 11, p p. 440–1, Complete Peerage, revised ed. x, p. 442 n.; for their son Puiset, Henry du, Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres, ed. Raine, J. (Surtees Society, 1839), p. 18Google Scholar, and The Priory of Finchale (Surtees Society, 1837), pp. x, 46.Google Scholar William of Newburgh implies that Hugh had liaisons with more than one lady, and lists three sons; but it is probable that Bouchard du Puiset was Hugh's nephew, not his son (cf. Gesta Henrici Secundi, 11, p. 85; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, iii, p. 16, etc. Howden, the author of both these works, was a well-informed Northerner who, unlike William of Newburgh, preferred sound information to gossip as evidence). Alice de Percy subsequently—but still during Hugh's lifetime—married Richard de Morville (Complete Peerage, loc. cit.). This shows that she did not regard her liaison with Hugh du Puiset as a binding marriage.

68 For the Heloise of history, see t he brilliant book of E. Gilson, op. cit., and the brief but profound appraisal by Knowles, Dom David in Studies (1941), pp. 43–58, esp. pp. 48ff.Google Scholar In the light of Professor Gilson's study, it is no longer necessary to defend the authenticity of Heloise's letters. Out of the many ways in which Heloise illuminates our problem, I select two. Whoever her father may have been, she was brought up in a cathedral close, and thus gives us a rare glimpse not only of a clerical wife, but also of a child of that lost society. More important, her genius elicited from Abelard himself (in his letters to her), and more particularly from Peter the Venerable (in the letter he wrote to her after Abelard's death), two of the very few really lofty statements of the doctrine of Christian marriage written at this time.

69 It seems to me highly probable that Hispano-Arab influences played a decisive part in the origin of the European tradition of courtly love; but I am aware that it is most imprudent for a historian to express an opinion on this much-vexed question.

70 The judgment is given in Capellanus, Andreas, De Amore, ed. Trojel, E. (Copenhagen, 1892), pp. 152–5Google Scholar (English trans. Parry, J. J. (New York, 1941), pp. 106–7).Google Scholar It has been suggested that the English romances are more moral in their attitude to love and marriage—by and large—than the French (cf. Gist, M. A., Love and War in the Middle English Romances (Philadelphia, 1947), pp. 1ff., esp. p. 8).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 The way in which the canonists solved the problem of what constituted a valid marriage is shown in detail by Dauvillier, J., Le mariage dans le droit classique de l'Église (Paris, 1933).Google Scholar