independent religious movement. While the Saxons were subverting
Christianity in Britain, St. Patrick was successfully engaged in laying
the foundations of the Irish church.[371] We have seen (p. 76) that
celibacy was not one of the rules enforced in the infant Irish church;
but this was of comparatively little moment, for that church was almost
exclusively monastic in its character, and preserved the strictest
views as to the observance of the vows by those who had once taken
them.[372] That the principles thus established were long preserved
is evident from a curious collection of Hibernian canons, made in the
eighth century, of which selections have been published by d’Achery
and Martène. Some of these are credited by the compilers to Gildas,
and thus show the discipline of the early British as well as of the
Irish church.[373] Their tendency is towards the purest asceticism.
A penance of forty days was even enjoined on the ecclesiastic who,
without thought of evil, indulged in the pleasure of converse with a
woman.[374] So in Ireland, a council held in 672 decrees that a priest
guilty of unchastity, although removable according to the strict
rule of discipline, may be allowed, if truly contrite, to retain his
position on undergoing ten years of penitence[375]—an alternative, one
might think, rather of severity than of mercy. One canon attributed
to Gildas shows that in the British monastic system unchastity
was considered the most heinous of offences, and also that it was
sufficiently common;[376] while another alludes to the same vice among
prelates as justifying immediate excommunication.[377]
The missionary career by which the Irish church repaid the debt
that it owed to Christianity is well known, and the form of faith
which it spread was almost exclusively monastic. Luanus, one of the
monks of Benchor, is said to have founded no less than a hundred
monasteries;[378] and when Columba established the Christian religion
in Scotland, he carried with him this tendency to asceticism and
inculcated it among his Pictish neophytes. His Rule enjoins the most
absolute purity of mind as well as body;[379] and that his teachings
were long obeyed is evident when we find that, a hundred and fifty
years later, his disciples are praised for the chastity and zeal of
their self-denying lives by the Venerable Bede, who was fully alive
to the importance of the rule, and who would have wasted no such
admiration on them had they lived in open disregard of it.[380] Equally
convincing is the fact that Scotland and the Islands were claimed to
be under the supremacy of the see of York, and that during the long
controversy requisite to break down their schismatic notions respecting
the date of Easter and the shape of the tonsure, not a word was said
that can lead to the supposition that they held any unorthodox views on
the far more important subject of sacerdotal purity.[381]
* * * * *
When, a hundred and fifty years after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, Gregory
the Great undertook the conversion of the islanders, the missionaries
whom he despatched under Augustin of course carried with them the views
and ideas which then held undisputed sway in Rome. Apparently, however,
asceticism found little favor at first with the new converts, rendering
it difficult for Augustin to obtain sufficient co-laborers among his
disciples, for he applied to Gregory to learn whether he might allow
those who could not restrain their passions to marry and yet remain
in the ministry. To this Gregory replied evasively, stating, what
Augustin already knew, that the lower grades might marry, but making
no reference whatever to the higher orders.[382] He apparently did not
wish to assume the responsibility of relaxing the rule, while willing
perhaps to connive at its suspension in order to encourage the infant
Anglican church. If so, the indulgence was but temporary.
The attempt has been made to prove that marriage was permitted in the
early Saxon church, and support for this supposition has been sought
from a clause in the Dooms of King Ina, of which the date is about the
year 700, fixing the wer-gild of the son of a bishop. But the rubric
of the law shows that it refers rather to a godson;[383] and even if
it were not so, we have already seen how often in France, at the same
period, the episcopal office was bestowed on eminent or influential
laymen, who were obliged on its acceptance to part with their wives.
The Magdeburg Centuriators, indeed, describe a council held in London
in 712 or 714, by which image-worship was introduced and separation
between priests and their wives was decreed,[384] but there is no
authority cited, nor is such an assembly elsewhere alluded to, even
Cave pronouncing it evidently supposititious.[385]
These speculations are manifestly groundless. The celebrated
Theodore, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690, in his
_Liber Pœnitentialis_, forbids the marriage of the clergy under pain
of deposition, and all intercourse with such wives was punished
by lifelong penance as laymen; not only were digami ineligible to
ordination, but also even those who had kept concubines; and the zeal
for purity is carried so far that even baptism performed by priests
guilty of fornication was pronounced invalid and had to be repeated—an
expression of reprobation which it would be hard to parallel elsewhere
in the history of the church.[386] When such were the views of the
primate, and such were the laws which he prescribed, we cannot
imagine that under his vigorous rule these canons were permitted
to be inoperative in a church sufficiently enlightened to produce
the learning and piety of men like Bede and St. Aldhelm; where the
admiration of virginity was as great as that which finds utterance in
the writings of these fathers,[387] and the principles of asceticism
were so influential as to lead a powerful monarch like Ina to retire
with his queen, Ethelberga, from the throne which he had gloriously
filled, to the holy restrictions of a monastic life.
Ecgberht, who was Archbishop of York from 732 to 766, is almost equally
decisive in his condemnation of priestly irregularities, though he
returned to the received doctrine of the church that baptism could
not be repeated.[388] It is also probable that even the Britons, who
derived their Christianity from the older and purer sources of the
primitive church, preserved the rule with equal reverence. At the
request of a national council, St. Aldhelm addressed an epistle to
the Welsh king, Geruntius, to induce him to reform his church so as
to bring it within the pale of Catholic unity. To accomplish this, he
argues at length upon the points of difference, discussing the various
errors of faith and discipline, such as the shape of the tonsure,
the date of Easter, &c., but he is silent with regard to marriage or
concubinage.[389] Had the Welsh church been schismatic in this respect,
so ardent a celibatarian as Aldhelm would certainly not have omitted
all reference to a subject of so much interest to him. The inference is
therefore justifiable that no difference of this nature existed.
We may fairly conclude that the discipline of the church in these
matters was reasonably well maintained by the Saxon clergy, with the
exception of the monasteries, the morals of which institutions appear
to have been deplorably and incurably loose. About the middle of the
seventh century John IV. reproves the laxity of the Saxon monasticism
under which the holy virgins did not hesitate to marry.[390] In 734 we
find Bede, in an epistle to Ecgberht of York, advising him to create
suffragan bishoprics and to endow them from the monastic foundations,
of which there were a countless number totally neglectful of all
monastic discipline, whose reformation could apparently be accomplished
in no other way.[391] St. Boniface, whose zeal on the subject has
already been sufficiently made manifest, about the year 746 paused
in his reformation of the French priesthood to urge upon Cuthbert,
Archbishop of Canterbury, the necessity of repressing the vices of
the Saxon ecclesiastics. He dwells at considerable length upon their
various crimes and misdemeanors—drunkenness, unclerical garments,
neglect of their sacred functions, &c.—but he does not accuse them
of unchastity, which he could not well have avoided doing had there
been colorable grounds for such a charge. In fact, the only allusion
connected with the question in his epistle is a request that some
restrictions should be laid upon the permissions granted to women and
nuns for pilgrimage to Rome, on account of the attendant dangers to
their virtue; in illustration of which he states the lamentable fact
that scarcely a city in Lombardy, France, or the Rhinelands but had
Saxon courtesans derived from this source, to the shame and scandal of
the whole church.[392]
Pope Zachary seconded these representations, and in 747 Cuthbert,
yielding to the impulsion, held the celebrated council of Clovesho,
which adopted thirty canons on discipline, to remedy the disorders
enumerated by Boniface. Among these, the only ones directed against
unchastity relate solely to the nunneries, which were represented as
being in a condition of gross immorality.[393] The council does not
spare the vices of the secular clergy, and its silence with respect to
their purity fairly permits the inference that there was not much to
correct with regard to it, for had licentiousness been so prevalent
that Cuthbert had feared to denounce it, or had sacerdotal marriage
been passed over as lawful, the zeal of St. Boniface would have led to
an explosion, and Zachary would not have sanctioned the proceedings by
his approval.
The same argument is applicable to the council of Chelsea, held in 787
by the legates of Adrian I., under the presidency of Gregory, Bishop
of Ostia. The vices and shortcomings of the Anglican church were there
sharply reproved, but no allusion was made to any unchastity prevailing
among the priesthood, with the exception, as before, of nuns, on whom
we may infer that previous reformatory efforts had been wasted;[394]
and in an epistle from Alcuin to Ethelred King of Northumbria near
the close of the century there is the same reference to nuns, without
special condemnation of the other classes of the clergy.[395] That
this reticence did not arise from any license granted for marriage is
conclusively shown by the interpolation of the word _laicus_ in the
text I. Cor. VII. 2, which is quoted among the canons adopted.[396] To
the same effect are the canons of the council of Chelsea, in 816, in
which the only allusion to such matters is a provision to prevent the
election of unfit persons to abbacies, and to punish monks and nuns who
secularize themselves.[397]
On the other hand, it is true that about this time St. Swithun, after
obtaining orders, was openly married; but his biographer states that he
had a special dispensation from Leo III., and that he consented to it
because, on the death of his parents, he was the sole representative
of his family.[398] As Swithun was tutor to Ethelwulf, son of King
Ecgberht, the papal condescension is by no means impossible.
* * * * *
Such was the condition of the Anglo-Saxon church at this period. During
the century which follows, the materials for tracing the vicissitudes
of the question before us are of the scantiest description. The
occasional councils which were held have left but meagre records of
their deliberations, with few or no references to the subject of
celibacy. It is probable, however, that a rapid deterioration in the
strictness of discipline occurred, for even the power of the great
Bretwalda Ecgberht was unequal to the task of repressing effectually
the first invasions of the Northmen, and under his feebler successors
they grew more and more destructive, until they culminated in the
anarchy which gave occasion to the romantic adventures of Alfred.
It is to this period of darkness that we must attribute the
introduction of sacerdotal marriage, which became so firmly
established and was finally so much a matter of course that it
attracted no special attention, until the efforts made for its
abrogation late in the succeeding century. When Alfred undertook to
restore order in his recovered kingdom, the body of the laws which
he compiled contains no allusion to celibacy, except as regards the
chastity of nuns. The same may be said of the constitutions of Odo,
Archbishop of Canterbury, to which the date of 943 is attributed,
although they contain instructions as to the conduct of bishops,
priests, and clerks[399]—whence we may infer that the marriage even
of consecrated virgins was not uncommon, and that it was the only
infraction of the rule which aroused the opposition of the hierarchy.
Simple immorality called forth an occasional enactment, as in the laws
of Edward and Guthrun about the year 906, and in those of Edmund I.
in 944,[400] yet even to this but little attention seems to have been
attracted, until St. Dunstan undertook a reformation which was sorely
needed.
St. Dunstan himself, although regularly bred to the church, with the
most brilliant prospects both from his distinguished abilities and his
powerful kindred, betrothed himself in marriage after receiving the
lower orders. His uncle, St. Elphege, Bishop of Winchester—apparently
a churchman of the stricter school—vehemently opposed the union, but
Dunstan was immovable in his determination. Elphege, finding his
worldly wisdom set at nought, appealed to the assistance of heaven. His
prayer was answered, and Dunstan was attacked with a mysterious and
loathsome malady, under which his iron resolution gave way. He sought
Elphege, took the monastic vow (the only inseparable bar to matrimony),
and was ordained a priest.[401] This stern experience might have taught
him charity for the weakness of natures less unbending than his own,
but his temperament was not one to pause half-way. If, too, religious
conviction urged him to the task of restoring the forgotten discipline
of the church, worldly ambition might reasonably claim its share in
his motives. He could not but feel that his authority would be vastly
enhanced by rendering the great ecclesiastical body dependent entirely
upon him as the representative of Rome, and by sundering the ties which
divided the allegiance due wholly to the church.
The opportunity to effect a reformation presented itself when the young
king, Edgar the Pacific, in 963 violated all the dictates of honor
and religion in his adventure with the nun at Wilton. Her resistance
attested her innocence, and the birth of a daughter did not prevent
her subsequent canonization as St. Wilfreda; but Edgar’s crime and
remorse were only the more heightened. When the terror-stricken king
sought pardon and absolution, Dunstan was prepared with his conditions.
Seven years of penitence, during which he was to abstain from wearing
the crown, was the personal infliction imposed on him, but the most
important portion of the sentence was that by which the vices of the
king were to be redeemed by the enforced virtues of his subjects. He
promised the founding of monasteries and the reformation of the clergy;
and his implicit obedience to the demands of his ghostly judge is
shown, perhaps, less in the fact that his coronation did not take place
until 973, than in the active measures immediately set on foot with
respect to the morals of the ecclesiastics.[402]
That their morals, indeed, needed reformation is the unanimous
testimony of all the chroniclers of the period. Among all the
monasteries of England, formerly so noted for their zeal and
prosperity, only those of Glastonbury and Abingdon were inhabited by
monks.[403] The rest had fallen into ruin, or were occupied by the
secular clergy, with their wives, or worse, and were notorious as
places of the most scandalous dissipation and disorder.[404] So low
was the standard of morality that priests even scrupled not to put
away the wives of whom they grew tired, and to form new connections,
of open and public adultery;[405] and so common had this become that
a code of ecclesiastical law, probably drawn up about this time,
reproves this systematic bigamy, and appears to tacitly authorize
marriage as legitimate and honorable.[406] One author declares that
none but paupers could be found willing to bind themselves by monastic
vows;[407] and another asserts, with every show of reason, that the
clergy were not only not superior to the laity in any respect, but were
even far worse in the scandals of their daily life.[408]
When King Edgar made his peace with the church by consenting to the
vicarious penitence of the priesthood, three rigid and austere monks
were the ardent ministers of the royal determination. Of St. Dunstan,
the primate of England, I have already spoken. St. Ethelwold, his
pupil, Abbot of Abingdon, was elevated to the see of Winchester, and
commenced the movement by expelling the occupants of the monastery
there. A few who consented to take monastic vows were allowed to
remain, and the remainder were replaced by monks; but even St.
Ethelwold’s rigor had to bend to the depravity of the age, and he
was forced to relax the rigidity of discipline in non-essentials in
order to obtain recruits of a better class.[409] The difficulties
he encountered are indicated by the legend which relates that he
was poisoned in his wine and carried from table to his couch in
excruciating torment, where he lay hopeless till, reproaching himself
with want of faith, he repeated the text—“Et si mortiferum quid
biberint, non eis nocebitur,” and was cured on the instant.[410] That
his canons were quite capable of such an attempt may be assumed from
the description given of them in the bull procured by Dunstan from
John XIII., authorizing their ejection by the king. The pope does
not hesitate to stigmatize them as vessels of the devil, hateful to
all good Christians on account of their inveterate and ineradicable
wickedness.[411]
The third member of the reforming triumvirate was St. Oswald, Bishop
of Worcester, who undertook a similar transformation of the clergy
occupying the monastery of St. Mary in his cathedral city. Many
promises they made to conform to his wishes, and many times they
eluded the performance, till, losing patience with the prolonged
procrastination, he one day entered the chapel with a quantity of
monkish habits as they were vigorously chanting “Servite Domino in
timore,” when he made practical application of the text by forcing
them to put on the garments and take the vows on the spot, under the
alternative of instant expulsion.[412]
These proceedings met the unqualified approbation of Edgar, who in
964, by his “Charter of Oswalde’s Law,” confirmed the ejection of the
recusants who refused to part with their wives, and transferred all
their rights and possessions to the newcomers. In the same document he
boasted that he had instituted forty-seven abbeys of monks and nuns,
and that he hoped to increase the number to fifty.[413] The same year
a similar summary process was carried out in the convents of Chertsey
and Winchester;[414] and in 966 Edgar was able to boast of the numerous
religious houses throughout England which he had purified by replacing
lascivious clerks with pious monks.[415]
These efforts, however, tended only to restore the monastic foundations
to their original position, and left the secular clergy untouched,
except in so far as a few of them were deprived of the comfortable
quarters which they had usurped in the abbeys. This immunity it was no
part of Dunstan’s plan to permit, and accordingly Edgar issued a series
of laws restoring the obsolete ecclesiastical discipline throughout
his kingdom. By this code a lapse from virtue on the part of a priest
or monk was visited with the same penalty as homicide, with a fast of
ten years; for a deacon the period of penitence was seven years; for
the lower grades, six years. The monk, priest, or deacon who maintained
relations with his wife was subjected to the same punishment; but there
is no mention of degradation or deprivation of benefice.[416]
The struggle was long, and at one time the three reformers seem to have
grown wearied with the stubborn resistance which they met, while the
zeal of King Edgar grew more fiery as, with the true spirit of the
huntsman, he followed up the prey, his ardor increasing as the chase
grew more difficult. In 969 he eloquently addressed Dunstan, Ethelwold,
and Oswald, blaming their lukewarmness in the good cause, and promising
them every support and assistance in removing this opprobrium from
the church.[417] Stimulated by these reproaches, Dunstan summoned a
council which adopted a canon depriving unchaste priests of their
benefices.[418] Still the conflict continued, and a charter dated in
974, the last year of Edgar’s reign, shows that he persevered to the
end with unabated zeal.[419]
* * * * *
The contumacious clerks may have been silenced; they were not subdued,
and they but waited their opportunity. It came in 975, with the early
death of Edgar and with the dissensions caused by his widow, Elfritha,
who endeavored to deprive of the succession his eldest son, the
youthful Edward, fruit of a former marriage. During the confusion,
the ejected priests banded together and bribed Elfhere, the powerful
Ealdorman of Mercia, together with some other magnates, to espouse
their cause. In many abbeys the regulars were expelled and the priests
with their wives were reinstated. In East Anglia, however, the nobles
took sides with the monks, and, rising in arms, valiantly defended
the monasteries. At length, on the accession of Edward, a council
was assembled to make final disposition of the question. The married
priests were present, and promised amendment; their noble protectors
pleaded earnestly for them; the boy-king was moved, and was about to
pronounce in their favor, when a miracle preserved the purity of the
church. The council was sitting in the refectory of the monastery of
Hyde, the headquarters of the ascetic party; Edward and Dunstan were
enthroned separately from the rest, with their backs to a wall on
which, between them, hung a small crucifix. At the critical moment,
just as the king was yielding, the crucifix spoke, in a low tone
inaudible to all save Edward and the primate, “Let not this thing be
done”—the mandate was imperative, and the married clergy lost their
cause.[420]
Still the stubborn priests and their patrons held out, and another
miracle was necessary—this time a more impressive one. A second council
was called to discuss the matter, and was held at Calne in 978. During
the heat of the argument the floor gave way, carrying with it the
whole assembly, except St. Dunstan, who remained triumphantly and
miraculously perched upon a joist, while his adversaries lay groaning
below, in every variety of mutilation.[421] His triumph, however, was
but short. The same year the pious child Edward perished through the
intrigues of Elfritha, whose son, Ethelred the Unready, succeeded to
the throne. The mixed political and religious character of these events
is shown by the canonization of Edward, who, though yet a child, was
regarded as a martyr by the ascetics, whose cause he had espoused.
As Elfritha had evidently sought the alliance of the secular clergy to
strengthen her party, her success proved disastrous to the cause of
reform. The respite of peace, too, which had blessed the island during
the vigorous reigns of Athelstan the Magnificent and Edgar the Pacific,
gave place to the ravages invited by the feeble and vacillating policy
of Ethelred the Unready; the incursions of the pagan Danes became
more and more frequent and terrible; and what little respect had been
inculcated for the strictness of discipline was speedily forgotten in
the anarchy which ensued.