The Early Decretists and Clerical Sexuality

The decretists routinely reiterated conventional admonitions that clerics of all ranks, but especially those in major orders, must not only avoid living with women, but should also shun excessive familiarity with female servants and other women with whom they came in contact.^[1233] The Summa “Elegantius” par­ticularly cautioned against eating and drinking in feminine company and ob­served that carnal coupling often followed conviviality at the table.^[1234] It is also evident that these warnings were routinely ignored by many clerics—Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux (d.

Despite continued efforts by prelates and councils, clerical marriage and concubinage were by no means on the verge of extinction in the second half of the twelfth century. The majority of clerics in minor orders were married, and substantial numbers of those in major orders, including such prominent prel­ates as the Patriarch of Jerusalem, continued to have more or less permanent and public relationships with women. The succession of priests’ sons to their fathers’ clerical positions, moreover, was by no means a thing of the past.²⁷² Al­though Pope Celestine III (1191-98) referred to this latter practice as a pecu­liar vice of Germanic regions, there is no reason to believe that it was confined to the Teutonic world.²⁷³ Indeed, ordinary people often preferred that their priests be married.

The peasants say that a priest cannot live alone [reported an Alsa­tian chronicler] and therefore it is better that he have his own wife, for otherwise he will pursue everybody else’s wives and sleep with them.²⁷⁴

Church leaders had little patience with such sentiments as these.

The decretists did not debate the issue of the desirability of celibacy as a policy. Instead they focused their efforts on trying to account for the law as they found it and on coping with problems of enforcement. One theoretical issue

²¹¹The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, no. 132, ed. Frank Barlow, Camden Society Pub­lications, 3d ser., vol. 61 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1939), pp. 198-99. In Epist. 136 (pp. 206-207) Arnulf also recounted the case of a vicar of his diocese who took as his concubine the mother of the lord of the manor in which his parish was located.

²⁷²Distinctiones Monacenses to D. 28 c. 17, quoted in Filippo Liotta, La continenza dei chierici net pensiero Canonistieo classico da Graziano a Gregorio IX, Quaderni di Studi Senesi, vol. 24 (Milan: A. Giuffre, 1971), p. 131; John of Salisbury, Hist, pont. 3, ed. Chibnall, pp. 8-9; Giraldus Cambrensis, Dejure et statu Menevensis ecclesiae, and Speculum ecclesiae 3.8, in his Opera 3:128—29 ^and 4-170; Volkert Pfaff, “Das kirchliche Eherecht am Ende des zwδlftcn Jahrhimderts," ZRG, KA 63 (1977) 90. On Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem and his notorious womanizing see La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1197), 38-39, ed. Margaret Ruth Morgan, Documents pour servir a This- toire des croisades, vol. 14 (Paris: PauI Geuthner, 1982), pp. 50-52.

²⁷³JL 17,606; 2 Comp. 3.4.3; Pfaff, “Kirchliche Ehcrecht,” p. 87.

²⁷⁴De rebus Alsaticis 1, in MGH, SS 17:232; Pfaff, “Kirchliche Eherecht,” p. 90.

²⁷⁵Giraldus Cambrensis₁ Gemma ecclesiastica 2.6, in his Opera 2:187-88; Baldwin, “Campaign to Reduce Clerical Celibacy,” p.

that did trouble them, however, was the source of the obligation. Since secular priests did not take a formal vow of celibacy, whence did their obligation to chastity arise? Rolandus proposed the hypothesis that a tacit, unarticulated vow of celibacy was somehow implied in the act of ordination and that observance of the discipline thus flowed from admission to higher orders.²â„˘ This explanation failed to satisfy the more rigorous—and more historical-minded—decretists. Huguccio, for one, stoutly rejected the theory of the υotum adnexum; no obli­gation to celibacy is inherent in ordination, he declared, for otherwise how could one explain the long-standing practice of clerical marriage in the Eastern Churches? Huguccio asserted correctly that the Western Church instituted the practice of celibacy as a disciplinary measure. Thus the obligation to observe celibacy rested upon the constitution of the Church and was not an intrinsic feature of holy orders.²⁷⁷

As for monks and others who actually did take vows of celibacy, the de- crctists differed about the relative seriousness of their sexual misbehavior. Rufinus argued that it is better for those who made simple vows of chastity to marry than to fornicate, but added that their offenses were more serious than adultery.²⁷⁸ Paucapalea, however, had maintained that the marriage of those who took vows of celibacy, although a serious lapse, was less serious than adul­tery. He also criticized those who denied the validity of such marriages.²⁷⁹

Clerics in minor orders who had not taken vows of celibacy may keep con­cubines, according to Stephen of Tournai, so long as they do not seek promotion to higher ranks. But Rolandus maintained that their eligibility for promotion depended upon the nature of the relationship: concubinage with marital affec­tion, he declared, created an impediment to later promotion, while simple cohabitation without marital affection did not.²⁸⁰ As for priests’ concubines,

^27eRolandus, Summa to C.

²⁷⁷ Huguccio, quoted in Liotta, Continenza del chierici, pp. 116-18; Gaudemet, “Celibat ceclesiastique,” pp. 28-29.

²⁷⁸Rufinus, Summa to C. 27 q. 1 c. 41-42, cd. Singer, pp. 438-40. Others said much the same of sexually delinquent nuns; Rolandus, Summa to C. 27 q. 1 c. 5 and c. 21, ed. Thaner, pp. 119-21; gloss to C. 27 q. 1 c. 9, in B.L. Stowe 378, fol. 164vb: “Immo magis peccat uirgo quia a statu cadit maiore.” Sicard of Cremona likewise viewed such lapses very seriously; Summa to C. 27 q. 1 in B.L. MS Add. 18,367, fol. 54va: “Quidam nu­bentes post uotum uocant adulteros. Ego autem dico quod grauiter peccant.... Fidei contractus inter homines nulla solet ratione dissolui; quanto magis pollicitatio domino facta sine uindicta solui non potest; item Cypriano c. eodem q. nec aliqua [C. 27 q. 1 c. 4]. Si Superueniens maritus sponsam suam cum adultero iacentem uiderit, indignatur et fremit et per dolorem zeli gladium portat. Nonne et domino noster Christus? Zelotes cum uirginem sibi dicatam cum adultero cernit gladium portat, quem in extremi iudicii diem omnes timere debemus.”

²⁷⁹Paucapalea, Summa to C. 27 q. 1 c. 41, ed. Singer, pp. 112-13.

²⁸⁰Stephen of Tournai, Summa to D. 32 c. 8 v. aut continentiam, ed. Schulte, p. 49; Rolandus, Summa to D. 33, ed. Thaner, p. 7. Duggan, “Equity and Compassion,” p. 63, passes rather lightly over the differences among the decretists on this subject; his char- Rufinus shared the conventional opinion that they should be turned out of their consorts’ dwellings, but he declared that the notion that these women should be sold into servitude was absurd and deserved no support.^{[1235] [1236]} While the de- cretists generally agreed that the faithful should be discouraged from frequent­ing services conducted by priests who lived in open concubinage, Rufinus noted that some writers taught that they should resort to this sort of boycott only after a formal complaint about the matter had been presented to the bishop, and judgment had been given against the offender.

The decretists also disagreed about the penalties that should be imposed on clerics in major orders who were guilty of concubinage or fornication. The con­ventional wisdom held that such clerics should lose both their offices and their benefices, but not all writers agreed with this.^[1238] The Summa Parisiensis urged that the circumstances of each case should be considered in arriving at the ap­propriate punishment and added that as a rule young priests should be less harshly punished than older men, in whom the fires of hist presumably burned less vigorously.^[1239] Rufinus maintained that in any case the old penal law was no longer observed rigorously and that it was not current practice to depose priests for sexual offenses, but merely to suspend them from their priestly func­tions until they reformed.^[1240] Fornication, he added, was only a moderately se­rious offense for clerics and need not be harshly punished, a sentiment with which Joannes Bazianus fully agreed.^[1241] Even Huguccio, who was not inclined to look mildly upon carnal delicts, urged moderation in these matters, although he added that the penalties for priestly marriage ought to be more severe than those for casual fornication.^[1242]

Mildness and moderation did not, however, characterize the views of the de- cretists so far as the treatment of the sons of clerics was concerned. Instead, the decretists often treated clergymens children more harshly than earlier writers had done. The decretists classed all children of clerics as illegitimate and thus denied them the right to inherit parental property. The severity of the de­cretists’ treatment of the children of clerics contrasts strikingly with their rela­tively restrained views about the punishment of clerical transgressors. This contrast results in part, presumably, from the legal writers’ concern to maintain a strict and uncompromising opposition to clerical marriage, but also reflects their concerns with Church property.^[1243]

The decretists by and large supported the conventional and long-standing prohibition of the ordination of twice-married men.