The Manly Priest. Jennifer D. Thibodeaux
to England with the Conquest of 1066. Clearly, clerical marriage existed among the parish clergy in England before this time.8 The Normans solidified the creation and support of secular cathedral chapters, in which secular canons could hold individual prebends; that many canons were married and passed their prebends to their sons was characteristic of this “new kind of very secular cathedral chapter.”9 Such chapters had existed in Normandy from around the mid-eleventh century but only in England from about 1090. By legitimizing clerical marriage for the elite clergy, by instituting married bishops and allowing their sons to inherit elite ecclesiastical appointments, Normans promoted the idea that marriage and progeny spelled an increase in social and political power. Most of the kings/dukes were complicit in allowing married clerics into their administration and, thus, to public legitimacy; in spite of reformist legislation, clerical marriages persisted and were seen as socially acceptable unions. As long as married bishops, archdeacons, deans, and other church elites existed, parish clerics could assume they too were permitted wives.
This Norman tradition of clerical marriage was well noted by early chroniclers. Gilbert Crispin described the conditions of the Norman Church in the early eleventh century, when “priests and great bishops married freely and carried arms, just like laymen.”10 Bernard of Tiron’s hagiographer highlighted the same conditions, saying that “it was customary throughout Normandy for priests to take wives publicly, to celebrate weddings, and to sire sons and daughters to whom, when they died, they left their churches by hereditary right. When their daughters married, many times, if they had no other possessions, they gave the church as a dowry.” The writer lamented that the priests would swear never to forsake their wives, and, in doing so, “they bound themselves by oath never to stop being fornicators, never to approach the body and blood of Christ except as unworthy criminals.” As Bernard preached celibacy in this region, the clerics’ wives began to fear being cast astray by their husbands. In response, these women attempted to murder Bernard, apparently unsuccessfully. A married archdeacon was so persuaded by Bernard’s eloquent preaching on the subject of fighting carnal sin that he prevented the mob of priests and their wives from harming the preacher.11 According to Orderic Vitalis, the custom of married clergy in Normandy went back to the time of Rollo in the tenth century. Priest were typically trained in warfare, but largely illiterate, and “held their lay fees by military service.” After the Council of Rheims in 1049, priests were forbidden to take wives or bear arms. Orderic cynically stated that “the priests were ready enough to give up bearing arms but even now they are loath to part with their mistresses or to live chaste lives.”12
After the conquest, the custom of clerical marriage was the single largest barrier to the reform of the secular clergy in the Anglo-Norman Church, and it was so for one very particular reason: the secular clergy did not see a conflict between marriage and service to the church. Clerics used marriage in the same manner as others in medieval society: as a medium through which legitimate heirs were created and by which land could be transmitted. In the case of second-generation Normans, the increase of landholdings through marriage was vital to their social status in a time of transition. Men who did not make successful marriages or did not produce legitimate heirs jeopardized the future of their natal family; families who did not expand their kinship network inevitably declined. The extension of a kinship network had always been a strategy of the aristocracy, but it was increasingly important for the “new men,” who had little status in England before entering royal service. By gaining royal favor, and through it increased opportunities for land- and office-holding, the new men were able to increase their social status.13 To preserve that status and expand one’s natal network, it was necessary to marry and produce legitimate sons who could inherit and extend the family’s success. Many nobles married later in life, and some were much older when they had children; this created a system where very young heirs had to be fostered by other people, especially in cases where the father was no longer living.14 There is some indication that the secular clergy also followed such a pattern of late marriage. Writing in the late twelfth century, Gerald of Wales commented that “we have seen many priests remain spotlessly continent … up to the time of becoming a canon and even up to old age—priests who, when they should have completely renounced the world and wholly dedicated themselves to God, have, at the end of their lives, committed open sins of lust and begotten children.”15
Just as marriage and the procreation of legitimate heirs were expected of those wanting to increase and maintain their family’s wealth and social status, a problem arose for the elite clergy, who, under the “new laws,” were unable to expand their family networks in the same manner. Many Anglo-Norman clerics had legitimate families before assuming clerical offices, and those who did not would have had every expectation that marriage and a family were permissible. If a cleric had already entered royal service and was functioning as a chaplain for the king, then, at some point during his service, he faced the reformist decrees on clerical marriage. Roger of Salisbury was one of these civil administrators who served Henry I before he became king. In all likelihood, Roger’s marriage to Matilda of Ramsbury came after his episcopal consecration in 1102; later that same year, he attended Anselm’s first council and would have presumably heard the anti-marriage decrees.16 He, like many other clerics, had a reasonable expectation that clerical marriage was not only permitted but accepted by Anglo-Norman culture.
The Legislation Prohibiting Clerical Marriage in the Anglo-Norman Realm
Early eleventh-century efforts to prohibit clerical marriage in England and Normandy were sporadic and ineffective, largely due to the lack of centralized reform efforts. For most of the eleventh century, the Roman pontiffs led the way in designing legislation to achieve a celibate priesthood. The term “nicolaitans” was used to refer to clerics who kept wives, a reference derived from the biblical Nicolaitans, a group known for their sexual licentiousness.17 The impetus for the Roman campaign against clerical marriages appears to have been twofold: the preservation of a ritual purity and the prevention of priestly lineages; but, ultimately, it was a reconfiguration of the sacerdotal body, one that rendered it chaste but virile. Under Pope Leo IX, papal policy shifted toward prohibiting priests from living with their wives, which was defined as an act of fornication. In 1049, measures were taken to enforce celibacy by excommunication and by ordering the laity not to attend the masses of such priests.18 Leo later added that abandoned clerical concubines should be made into slaves (ancillae) of the Lateran palace.19 Shortly afterward, a Lisieux council (1055) took the first steps in Normandy to separate clerics from their wives; the decrees of this council forbade clerics in major orders from living at home with women, under penalty of excommunication.20 Thus, the earliest Roman efforts at enforcing clerical celibacy were the literal, physical separation of men from their wives, presumably to project an image of the chaste body.
This sort of Roman legislation was further continued by Nicholas II, who reiterated Leo’s decrees, and eventually by Gregory VII. Gregory repeated the previous canons concerning celibacy in 1074, when he convened his first synod and decreed that no one would be promoted to major orders without a vow of chastity.21 He also argued that those unchaste priests and deacons should be prohibited from performing their duties. In one of his letters, he asserted,
It has come to our ears that certain of your people are uncertain whether or not priests and deacons or others who minister at the sacred altars and who persist in fornication should do duty at mass. To them we reply by the authority of the holy fathers that in no wise should ministers at the sacred altar who continue in fornication do duty, but they should be driven outside the sanctuaries until they show fruits worthy of repentance.22
Pope Urban II continued the reform efforts of his predecessors by extending the celibacy campaign to separate priests further from their wives. At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Urban decreed that priests, deacons, and subdeacons would be removed from office if they cohabitated with a woman.23 This canon was reissued at the councils convened at Rouen, Tours, Nimes, and Poitiers. Before the injunctions at Clermont, Urban, in the manner of Peter Damian, had stated at Melfi (1089) that clerical wives might be offered to noblemen as slaves, if they aided the pope with his reform.24
While the Roman initiatives against clerical marriage gained strength under the