This article examines ordinary priests in late medieval England who, despite clear guidelines to the contrary, employed and lived with female servants. Ecclesiastical legislation frequently and firmly warned priests against living with women, including servants, because of the potential for sexual temptation, scandal, or both. Historians have long assumed that most clerical households were homosocial, but looking closely at the living arrangements of ordinary parish priests reveals a different story. Evidence from the dioceses of Hereford and Lincoln suggests that elite clerical expectations were often ill-suited to the social and economic realities of parish life, and priests’ living arrangements reflect this incompatibility. Distrust of female clerical servants was heightened during periods of church reform, when these women bore the brunt of both reforming rhetoric and action.
