time Gratian, the greatest canonist of the age, was engaged in
the compilation of his “Concordia discordantium Canonum,” a work
undertaken at the request of the papal curia to restore to the canon
law the preëminence which it was fast losing in consequence of the
recently revived study of the Justinian jurisprudence. Published in
1151 under the auspices of Eugenius himself, and presented to the world
as the authoritative exposition of the laws and discipline of the
church, it was everywhere received with acclamation, and has remained
to this day the foundation of the canon law. Yet Gratian himself, in
this work without appeal, distinctly declares his opposition to the
doctrine of Innocent and Eugenius, asserting that a deacon can lawfully
marry if he chooses to abandon the ministry, and that the sacrament of
marriage is so potent that no antecedent vow can render it void.[788]
The new law was long in winning its way to general respect, nor can it
be a subject of wonder if those who disregarded the acknowledged canons
of the church by marrying in orders, or by permitting such marriages in
those under their charge, should neglect a rule of recent origin and of
more than doubtful propriety. The church, however, was committed to it,
and, moreover, could see in its eventual recognition a more effectual
means of accomplishing the long desired object than in any expedient
previously tried. By destroying all such marriages, pronouncing them
null and void, inflicting an ineffaceable stigma on wife and offspring,
subjecting the woman to the certainty of being cast off without
resource and without option on the part of the husband, the position of
the wife of an ecclesiastic would become most unenviable; her kindred
would prevent her from exposing herself to such calamities, and no
priest could succeed in finding a consort above the lowest class, whose
union with him would expose him to the contempt of his flock.
How slender was the immediate result of the efforts of Innocent and
Eugenius, however, is manifested by the allusions of Geroch, Provost
of Reichersperg, who, writing about the middle of the century,
complains that any one who would shun intercourse with Nicolitan and
simoniacal heretics must quit the world, for it was full of them, and
he maintains the propriety of calling them heretics because they openly
defended and justified their evil courses.[789] Indeed, so shamelessly
were their transgressions displayed, that the faithful were sometimes
scandalized by the sight of the priests’ wives assisting their husbands
in the ministry of the altar;[790] while conventual discipline had
sunk so low that nuns were in the habit of deferring their formal vows
until the lassitude of old age should render the restraints thereby
assumed easy to be endured,[791] and canons led a life which was only
distinguishable from that of the laity by its shamelessness.[792] Nor
was this confined to Germany. In France, Hugh, Archbishop of Rouen,
complains that those who married in orders openly defended their evil
practices and quoted Scripture to sustain themselves.[793]
In England, as seen in a preceding section, the new theory of Innocent
and Eugenius remained a dead letter. Indeed, as late as 1470 Sir John
Fortescue incidentally alludes to a recent case in which a priest named
John Fringe, who had lived in orders for three years, procured two
false witnesses to swear that he had previously been betrothed to a
certain maiden, and this preliminary promise of marriage was held by
court to supersede his priestly ordination; he was ejected from the
priesthood and compelled to marry the girl, with whom he lived fourteen
years, until he was executed for treason by the Lancastrians during the
wars of the Roses.[794] In Spain, as we have already seen, priestly
marriage was forbidden by the secular law as late as the latter half
of the thirteenth century, and priests in consequence were wont to
protect their partners by entering into the most solemn compacts, the
customary employment of which shows that they must have been habitually
enforced by the municipal tribunals regardless of the censures of the
church.
* * * * *
The long pontificate of Alexander III., extending from 1159 to 1181,
was absorbed for the most part by his deadly strife with Frederic
Barbarossa. Yet, even before he was released from that ever-present
danger, he found leisure to urge the cause of sacerdotal celibacy; and
after the humiliation of his mortal enemy he devoted himself to it
with a zeal which earned for him among his contemporaries the credit
of establishing its observance.[795] He who, as the legate Roland,
had nearly paid, under the avenging sword of Otho of Wittelsbach, the
forfeit of his life for his rude boldness at the imperial court, was
little likely to abate one jot of the claims which the church asserted
on the obedience of layman and clerk; and he recognized too fully the
potency of the canons of Lateran and Rheims not to insist upon their
observance. The very necessity under which he found himself, however,
of repeating those canons shows how utterly neglected they had been,
and how successfully the clergy had thus far resisted their reception
and acknowledgment. Thus when, in 1163, he held the council of Tours,
he was obliged to content himself with a canon which allowed three
warnings to those who publicly kept concubines, and it was only after
neglect of these warnings that they were threatened with deprivation of
functions and benefice;[796] and when, in 1172, his legates presided
over the council of Avranches, which absolved Henry II. for the murder
of A’Becket, the Norman clergy were emphatically reminded that those
who married in holy orders must put away their wives, and this in terms
which indicate that the rule had not been previously obeyed.[797]
Yet notwithstanding this formal declaration, only a few years later
we find the Archbishop of Rheims applying to him for counsel in the
case of a deacon who had committed matrimony, to which Alexander
of course replied that the marriage was no marriage, and that the
offending ecclesiastic must be separated from the woman, and undergo
due penance.[798] The persistence of the pope, and the necessity
of his urgency, are farther shown by sundry epistles to various
English bishops, in which the rule is enunciated as absolute and
unvarying;[799] and he takes occasion to stigmatize such marriages with
the most degrading epithet, when he graciously pardons those concerned,
and permits their restitution after a long course of penitence, on
their giving evidence of a reformed life.[800]
Yet even Alexander was forced to abate somewhat of his stern
determination, in consideration of the incorrigible perversity of
the time, though he seems not to have remarked that he abandoned the
principle by admitting exceptions, and that the reasons assigned in
such individual cases might, with equal cogency, be applied to the
total withdrawal of the rule. When the Calabrian bishops informed
him that clerks in holy orders throughout their dioceses committed
matrimony, he ordered that priests and deacons should be irrevocably
separated from their wives; but, in the case of subdeacons of doubtful
morals, he instructed the prelates that they should tacitly connive at
the irregularity, lest in place of one woman, many should be abused,
and a greater evil be incurred, in the endeavor to avoid a less.[801]
This worldly wisdom also dictated his orders to the Bishop of Exeter,
in whose diocese subdeacons were in the habit of openly marrying. He
directs an examination into the lives and characters of the offenders;
those whose regular habits and staid morality afford fair expectation
of their chastity in celibacy are to be forcibly separated from their
wives; while those whose disorderly character renders probable their
general licentiousness if condemned to a single life are not to be
disturbed—taking care, however, that they do not minister at the altar,
or receive ecclesiastical benifices.[802]
Alexander adopted the principle that a simple vow of chastity did
not prevent marriage or render it null, but that a formal vow, or
the reception of orders, created a dissolution of marriage, or a
total inability to enter into it;[803] but Celestin III. carried the
principle still farther, and decreed that a simple vow, while it did
not dissolve an existing connection, was sufficient to prevent a future
one.[804]
Alexander did not confine himself to this portion of the question, but
with ceaseless activity labored to enforce the observance of celibacy
in general, and to repress the immorality which disgraced the church
throughout Christendom—immorality which led Alain de l’Isle, the
“Universal Doctor,” to characterize the ecclesiastics of his time as
being old men in their inefficiency and young men in their unbridled
passions.[805] Alexander’s efforts were particularly directed to put
an end to the practice of hereditary priesthood, and its constant
consequence, hereditary benefices. If I have made little allusion to
this subject during the century under consideration, it is not that the
church had relaxed her exertions to place some limit on this apparently
incurable disorder, or that the passive resistance to her efforts had
been less successful than we have seen it on previous occasions. The
perpetual injunctions of Alexander show at once the universality of
the vice, and the determination of the pontiff to eradicate it. At
the same time it became a frequent, and no doubt a profitable portion
of the duties of the papal chancery, to grant special dispensations
when those who held such preferment, or who desired to retain their
wives, underwent the dangers and expense of a journey to Rome, and
were rewarded for their confidence in the benignity of the Holy Father
by a rescript to their bishops, commanding their reinstatement in the
benefices from which they had been ejected.[806] The power to grant
such dispensations was shrewdly reserved as the exclusive privilege
of the papal court;[807] and a high churchman of the period assures
us that there was no difficulty in obtaining them.[808] It need not,
therefore, surprise us that Alexander’s successor, Lucius III., found
the hereditary transmission of the priestly office claimed as an
absolute right.[809] And not only did the claims of the papal chancery
thus interfere with the execution of the law by its power of granting
dispensations, but its appellate jurisdiction was constantly used to
avert punishment from the worst offenders. Thus Lucius III., about the
year 1181 was obliged to grant to Maurice de Sully, Bishop of Paris,
the right to dispossess of their benefices and functions, without
appeal, certain notorious concubinarians who, on being threatened with
the application of the law, had defied him by interposing an appeal to
Rome.[810] This centralization of all power in the papal court, and the
unblushing venality of the Roman officials, meet us in every age as
the efficient obstacle to the efforts of reforming prelates throughout
Europe.
The uncertainty of this conflicting legislation, at times enforced,
and at times dispensed with by the supreme power, led to innumerable
complications and endless perplexity in private life. Indeed, a large
portion of the canons are founded on responses given by the popes to
settle cases of peculiar difficulty arising from ignorance or neglect
of the discipline enjoined, and many of these reveal extreme hardship
inflicted on those who could be convicted of no intentional guilt.
Perhaps the most noteworthy instance of the troubles caused by the
new regulations was that of Bossaert d’Avesnes, which resulted in
a desperate war to determine the possession of the rich provinces
of Flanders and Hainault. As it illustrates the doubts which still
environed these particular points, and the conflicting decisions to
which they were liable, even from the infallibility of successive
popes, it may be worth briefly sketching here.
When Baldwin of Flanders, Emperor of Constantinople, died in 1206,
his eldest daughter Jane succeeded to his territories of Flanders
and Hainault, while his second child, Margaret, was placed under
the guardianship of Bossaert d’Avesnes. Bossaert was a relative of
her mother, Mary of Champagne, and though he held the comparatively
insignificant position of chantre of Tournay, he was yet a man of
great repute and influence. With the assent and approbation of the
estates of Flanders, Margaret and Bossaert were married, the issue of
the union being three sons. Whether the fact of his having received
the subdiaconate was publicly known or not is somewhat doubtful; but
he seems at length to have been awakened to a sense of his uncertain
position, when he went to Rome for the purpose of obtaining a
dispensation and legitimating his children. Innocent III. not only
refused the application, but commanded him to restore Margaret to
her relatives and to do penance by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Disregarding these injunctions, he lived openly with his wife after his
return and was excommunicated in consequence. At length Margaret left
him and married Guillaume de Dampierre, while Bossaert was assassinated
during a second visit to Rome, where he was seeking reconciliation
to the church. When at last, in 1244, the Countess Jane closed her
long and weary career by assuming the veil at Marquette, without
leaving heirs, the children of Margaret by both marriages claimed
the succession, and Margaret favored the younger, asserting, without
scruple, that her elder sons were illegitimate. The difficult question
was referred to St. Louis for arbitration, and in 1247 the good king
assigned Flanders to Gui de Dampierre and Hainault to Jean d’Avesnes,
thus recognizing both marriages as legitimate. This, of course,
satisfied neither party. Innocent IV. was appealed to, and in 1248 he
sent commissioners to investigate the knotty affair. They reported
that the marriage of Bossaert had been contracted in the face of all
Flanders, and that the d’Avesnes were legitimate, which judgment was
confirmed by Innocent himself in 1252. Thus fortified, Jean d’Avesnes
resisted the proposed partition, and a bloody civil war arose. The
victory of Vacheren placed the Dampierre in the hands of their
half-brothers, and promised to be decisive, until Margaret called in
Charles de Valois, bribing him with the offer of Hainault to complete
the disinheriting of her first-born. The war continued until Louis,
returning from the East in 1255, compelled the combatants to lay down
their arms, and to abide by his arbitration.[811]
In this case we see Innocent III. deciding that marriage was
incompatible with the subdiaconate. Yet it is a striking illustration
of the uncertainty which still surrounded the matter to find the
same pope, in 1208, commanding a subdeacon of Laon to return to the
wife whom he had abandoned on taking orders, and to treat her in all
respects as a wife. Innocent is not to be suspected of any temporizing
concession to prevailing laxity, and yet in this case he overruled the
uninterrupted tradition of the canons that married men taking orders
should thenceforth treat their wives as sisters; and the doubts which
experienced ecclesiastics entertained with regard to the law are
visible in the fact that when the wife complained of her abandonment
to the metropolitan authorities at Rheims they did not pretend to give
judgment, but sent the testimony in the case at once to Innocent for
his decision.[812]
Another curious case occurring about the same time illustrates the
complexity of the questions which arose and the manner in which the
selfishness of ascetic zeal sometimes eluded even the very slender
barriers with which the church limited its gratification. As we have
seen, it was an ancient rule that no man could assume monastic vows
without the assent of his wife, with the additional condition that
she must at the same time enter a nunnery. It appears that a husband
desiring to become a monk, and finding his wife obstinately opposed
to his designs, enlisted the services of various priests to influence
her, carefully concealing from her the obligation which her assent
would impose upon her to take the veil. Still she obstinately refused,
until at last he threatened to castrate himself, when she yielded
and went through the ceremony of placing with her own hands his head
on the altar. The wife thus abandoned took to evil courses, and the
husband-monk applied in person to Innocent III. to learn whether he
ought to remain in his order, seeing that his continence might be
responsible for her unchastity. In spite of the deceit practised upon
the wife, Innocent resolved his doubts in favor of the maintenance of
his vows, giving as a reason that her adulteries deprived her of claim
on him. At the same time, nothing was said as to compelling the woman
to take the veil.[813]
* * * * *
In view of these perplexities, it is no wonder that even the resolute
spirit of Alexander III., dismayed at the arduous nature of the
struggle, or appalled at the ineradicable vices which defied even
papal authority, at times shrank from the contest and was ready to
abandon the principle. If we may believe Giraldus Cambrensis, who, as
a contemporary intimately connected with the highest ecclesiastical
authorities in England, was not likely to be mistaken, and whose long
sojourn at the court of Innocent III. would have afforded him ample
opportunities of correcting a misstatement, Alexander had once resolved
to introduce the discipline of the Greek church in Western Europe,
permitting single marriages with virgins. To this he had obtained
the assent of his whole court, except his chancellor Albert, who was
afterwards pope under the name of Gregory VIII. The resistance of
this dignitary was so powerful as to cause the abandonment of the
project.[814] Alexander, indeed, was not alone in this conviction.
Giraldus himself was fully convinced that such a change would be most
useful to the church, though as archdeacon of St. David’s he had
displayed his zeal for the enforcement of the canon by measures too
energetic for the degeneracy of the age, and though he occupies, in
his “Gemma Ecclesiastica,” twenty-one chapters with an exhortation to
his clergy to abandon their evil courses.[815] Men of high character
did not hesitate to take even stronger ground against the rule. The
celebrated Peter Comestor, whose orthodoxy is unquestioned, taught
publicly in his lectures that the devil had never inflicted so severe a
blow on the church as in procuring the adoption of celibacy.[816]
These were but individual opinions. The policy of the church remained
unaltered, and Alexander’s successors emulated his example in
endeavoring to enforce the canons. Clement III. took advantage of the
profound impression which the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin (Oct.
1187) produced on all Europe, when the fall of the Latin kingdom
was attributed to the sins of Christendom. He preached a general
reformation. Abstinence from meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays for
five years, and various other kinds of mortification were enjoined
on all, to propitiate a justly offended Deity, but the clergy were
the objects of special reproof. Their extreme laxity of morals, their
neglect of the dress of their order, their worldly ambition and
pursuits, drinking, gambling, and flocking to tournaments, and the
unclerical deportment which left little difference between them and
the laity, were some of the accusations brought against them. To their
incontinence, however, was chiefly attributed the wrath of God, besides
the measureless scandals to which their conduct exposed the church, and
they were commanded to remove all suspected females from their houses
within forty days, under pain of suspension from their functions and
revenues.[817] That these rebukes were not the mere angry declamation
of an ascetic is shown by the declaration of Celestin III., a few years
later, that throughout Germany the custom still prevailed of fathers
substituting in their benefices their sons, born during priesthood, so
that frequently parent and offspring ministered together in the same
church;[818] and the extent of the demoralization is evident when we
find the sons of priests and deacons alluded to as a class ineligible
to knighthood in a constitution of Frederic Barbarossa in 1187.[819]
The regular clergy offered no exception to the general relaxation of
discipline. In 1192 Odo, Bishop of Toul, felt himself forced to deplore
the wickedness of monks who left their monasteries and publicly took to
themselves wives, but he could devise no better means of arresting the
scandal than excommunicating them and their growing families.[820]
Yet, with all his ardor, Clement admitted that celibacy was only
a local rule of discipline, and that there was nothing really
incompatible between marriage and the holy functions of the altar.
The time had not yet come when the council of Trent could erect the
inviolable continence of the priesthood into an article of faith, and
Clement was willing to allow that priests of the Greek church, under
his jurisdiction, could legitimately be married and could celebrate
mass while their families were increasing around them.[821]
* * * * *
Innocent III., who, by the fortunate conjunction of the time in which
he flourished with his own matchless force of character, enjoyed
perhaps the culmination of papal power and prerogative, at length
brought to the struggle an influence and a determination which could
scarcely fail to prove decisive on any question capable of a favorable
solution. By his decretals and his legates he labored assiduously to
enforce obedience to the canons, and when, in 1215, he summoned the
whole Christian world to meet in the fourth council of Lateran, that
august assembly of about thirteen hundred prelates, acting under his
impulsion, and reflecting his triumph over John of England and Otho of
Germany, spoke with an authority which no former body since that of
Nicæa had possessed. Its canons on the subject before us were simple,
perhaps less violent in their tone than those of former synods, but
they breathed the air of conscious strength, and there was no man that
dared openly to gainsay them. A more rigid observance of the rules was
enjoined, and any one officiating while suspended for contravention
was punishable with perpetual degradation and deprivation of his
emoluments. Yet the rule was admitted to be merely a local ordinance
peculiar to the Latin church, for, in the effort made by the council to
heal the schism with Constantinople, the right of the East to permit
the marriage of its priests was acknowledged by a clause visiting
with severer penalties those who by custom were allowed to marry, and
who, notwithstanding this license, still permitted themselves illicit
indulgences. The disgraceful traffic by which in some places prelates
regularly sold permissions to sin was denounced in the strongest terms,
as a vice equal in degree to that which it encouraged; and the common
custom of fathers obtaining preferment in their own churches for their
illegitimate offspring was reprobated as it deserved.[822]