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Chapter 2

Legal Discourse and the Reality of Clerical Marriage

In the year 1072, the reforming archbishop of Rouen, John d’Avranches, tried to enforce the 1064 canons of Lisieux at a provincial synod. Orderic Vitalis is the only chronicler to document the reaction of the clergy to the news that they could no longer have wives:

For ten years he fulfilled his duties as metropolitan with courage and thoroughness, continuously striving to separate immoral priests from their mistresses (pelicibus): on one occasion when he forbade them to keep concubines (concubinas) he was stoned out of the synod, and fled exclaiming in a loud voice: “O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance.”¹

This episode of priestly resistance was not unique in the region. It shows the vast difference between reformers and the priesthood they hoped to reform. Sexualized chastity and the ideology of the manly celibate must have appeared as strange concepts for the Anglo-Norman clergy as it did for the laity. Ecclesiastical reform was not just contrary to the practice of clerical marriage in Normandy and England; it enforced laws that went against the very fabric of traditional conceptions of manliness. Efforts to enforce sacerdotal celibacy may have begun in the early eleventh century, but clerics in these regions continued to marry like other men in their communities. How effective these early reform efforts were across Europe is not known, but Anglo-Norman clerics did not immediately put aside their wives on hearing of the first Roman decree on mandated celibacy.

In Normandy, monastic chastity and clerical marriage coexisted as two sides to religious life. Normandy produced and supported monastic revivals in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, while also supporting the tradition of clerical marriages. This was the climate of the Church until reformers like Lanfranc, John d’Avranches, and Anselm, among others, crossed the lines between the two ecclesiastical career paths, disseminating the model that made one vocation (monastic) the ideal for the other (clerical). Until the war on clerical marriage began, clerics lived like other men in their communities; they married, they had children, and they practiced a gender identity more similar to laymen than to monks. The laws prohibiting clerical marriage forced clerics into a dilemma, a choice between their marriage and their livelihood. Aside from the emotional aspects of separation, forsaking one’s wife deprived the priest of his social status in his local community, for it removed one of the perceived markers of adult male identity. It also forced the cleric to delegitimize his children publicly. A priest who refused clerical celibacy could theoretically lose his livelihood and impoverish his family.

Married clerics’ noncompliance with celibacy is indicative of their attitude toward the laws and the reformers themselves. The papacy may have been preaching against “fornicating” priests and their “whores” since 1059, a message enhanced by such notables as Peter Damian, but a different reality existed for Anglo-Norman priests and the secular clergy in general, a reality in which marriage formed a legitimate part of their lives and contributed to their masculine status in their communities. The ideal of the manly celibate contributed to and enhanced the laws against clerical marriage, laws that, if observed, would “monasticize” the priesthood. This fixed ideology of manliness left no place for the women and children of the secular clergy. Yet clerics found ways to circumvent these laws and to continue their customs well through the twelfth century.

Married Clergy and Manliness After the Conquest

In 1096, a party of Anglo-Norman bishops gathered to witness the consecration of two bishops-elect: Samson, to the diocese of Worcester, and Gerard, to the diocese of Hereford.² These two men represented the two vast spectrums of those who served the episcopacy. Samson, bishop-elect, was married with at least one son. Gerard was committed to the cause and enforcement of clerical celibacy. The other bishops present fell somewhere in between. Thomas I, archbishop of York, brother of Samson, and a priest’s son, had a reputation for chastity. Maurice, bishop of London, was not known for celibacy and supposedly was prescribed an “emission of humours” to remedy his ill health.³ Herbert Losinga, bishop of Norwich, had previously lived an unchaste life but changed for the better and became a model bishop. Gundulf of Rochester was a bishop known for his saintly life. At the head of this party was the archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, whose reputation for holiness and reform was known throughout England and Normandy. At the turn of the eleventh century, these bishops represented the older traditions of the Anglo-Norman clergy and the newer one, based on an ascetic, celibate ideal of clerical life.

As the medieval Church was establishing its control over marriage, redefining it as indissoluble and monogamous, Normans continued to operate under a cultural system that placed control over marriage in the hands of the parties involved. Marriage was dictated by local custom, not by a remote group of reforming clergy.⁴ There was nothing exceptional about the way that Normans associated marriage and procreation with masculine social status; other medieval cultures made similar connections. The Normans did, however, place great emphasis on the possession of functioning male genitalia. To achieve the social status of a male, one was required to have a functional male body. This is the reason Norman aristocrats frequently engaged in castrating their political enemies, even for nonsexual crimes.⁵ The ability to govern, over one’s household or one’s locale, was tied to an essentialist definition of masculinity.

Norman culture exalted fecundity as part of a system of “predatory kinship,” a system that would seem to exclude vowed celibates, yet this network of power included ecclesiastics, both married and celibate. In 989, Duke Richard gave the archbishopric of Rouen to his son Robert, who served the see until 1037. Archbishop Robert had three sons with his partner Herleva. William the Bastard continued this tradition and appointed trusted kinsmen to all of the episcopal seats in Normandy. His brother Odo took the see of Bayeux in 1049; he, along with the (married) Hugh of Lisieux, William of Evreux, Ivo of Sées, and John of Avranches, were warriors “drafted into the family business as bishop.”⁶ In the post-Conquest Church, it was largely the aristocratic elite who entered the elite ranks of bishops, deans, and archdeacons, along with the “new men,” ambitious royal servants who received powerful positions.⁷ These men were appointed by the king/duke to high ecclesiastical positions and, in many cases, had already established marital households. While the Anglo-Norman Church could include celibate clerics in elite positions, married clerics were certainly not excluded.

The Normans did not transplant the institution of clerical marriage 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 reform papacy, efforts to achieve similar measures were enacted by the archbishops in England and Normandy. The experiences of archbishops like Lanfranc and Anselm in eradicating clerical marriage reveal the many problems with the institution of such laws. What these bishops pursued as reform policy was not strictly Roman, although it shared some of the same goals. In addition to the severe policies toward clerical marriage and clerical concubines, the papacy also passed decrees against lay investiture, decrees that were not promulgated at the earliest reform councils in Normandy.²⁵ Instead, the Anglo-Norman councils created laws on clerical marriage that fit into a wider initiative to define a standard of religious manliness.

Lanfranc’s council at Winchester (1076) took a departure from the stricter, Roman rules on clerical marriage by allowing currently married priests to keep their wives, but prohibiting both secular canons and new ordinands from doing the same. Lanfranc’s intent behind this decree was unclear but likely meant that married clerics should live with their wives chastely. When contrasted to the laws of 1072 promulgated by John d’Avranches at Rouen, these were lenient measures. John d’Avranches took a hardline approach worthy of the Roman initiatives by renewing the canons of Lisieux (1064). These decrees had said that priests, deacons, and canons who had taken wives and concubines since 1063 must put them aside; even clerics in minor orders were advised to remain unmarried, a clause unseen in any other legislation of this period.²⁶ John’s position on this issue is interesting, given that his brother Hugh had been a married bishop of Bayeux. John’s Rouen synod also stipulated that married clerics could not obtain any part of the revenue of their churches, even if a continent vicar served as a substitute, and that archdeacons should also model chastity for their clergy and not “smuggle” any women into their homes. These decrees went farther than previous synodal legislation, stipulating that those clerics who had “lapsed” publicly would not automatically be allowed to return to their churches, even after doing penance, for this would only encourage further incontinence. Only in extraordinary circumstances should an incontinent priest be allowed to return.²⁷

John’s decrees were significant, not only for their severity but also because they gestured toward the model of the manly celibate. A public lapse revealed a disorderly, priestly body, one that showed failure to restrain sexual desire. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, John’s renewal of the Lisieux canons and his extension of severe penalties were met with one of the most notorious riots in Norman history, in which the assembly of married priests reacted to the legislation by casting stones at the archbishop.²⁸ Lanfranc, as abbot of St. Stephen’s of Caen, had presided with Archbishop Maurilius over a similar set of severe decrees at the earlier Council of Rouen. Lanfranc, then, was part of introducing hardline tactics against married priests in Normandy twelve years earlier; when presiding over the Winchester council as archbishop of Canterbury, he backtracked from his previous position. The reasons behind this move are entirely speculative. Lanfranc may have learned from previous experiences that such legislation was hardly enforceable and could result in short-staffed parish churches, or he may have been pressured by his suffragan bishops to take a more gradual approach to the problem.²⁹ This raises an important question. Were Norman priests easier to discipline and separate from their wives than English ones? Or was the policy at Rouen in 1064 such an abysmal failure that Lanfranc learned to take a different approach with incontinent clergy?

Lanfranc’s experience as the new archbishop of Canterbury brought him into intimate contact with the problem of clerical marriage, as he encountered married bishops. In 1071, he wrote a letter to Pope Alexander II, seeking advice on how to treat the case of Bishop Leofwine of Lichfield, who publicly acknowledged his own wife and children. Leofwine was not the only married bishop, as Lanfranc discovered. In a second letter to Pope Gregory VII in 1073, Lanfranc admitted that “bishops, the very men who should be shepherds of souls, in their endless craving for worldly glory and the delights of the flesh are not only choking all holiness and piety within themselves but the example of their conduct is luring their charges into every kind of sin.”³⁰ Lanfranc knew very well that the existence of married bishops reinforced a lay model of masculinity, making the problem of clerical marriage quite difficult to eradicate, as it modeled improper behavior to the lower clergy. If Lanfranc’s 1076 decrees had been effectively enforced, it would have created a two-tier system, with older clerics allowed to keep their wives but newer clerics displaced from this tradition; the effect would have been to encourage the perception that clerical marriage was allowed (for some).

Lanfranc was well aware of John d’Avranches’s efforts in Normandy to eradicate clerical marriage. In a letter to the archbishop of Rouen, Lanfranc openly acknowledged his admiration of John’s legislative efforts and dispelled any notions that he had criticized John for not controlling his clerics more effectively. Instead, he lauded John for his strong-handed efforts at ecclesiastical discipline and reiterated that he himself, as defined in the decrees of Winchester, would prohibit any new canons, priests, or deacons from marriages or else deprive them of their benefices.³¹ But Lanfranc’s understanding of implementing such strict policies is made evident from his advice to other bishops on the subject. In a letter to Herfast, bishop of Thetford, Lanfranc advocated a perhaps milder punishment for a cleric irregularly ordained a deacon and who also happened to be married. Lanfranc advised that, since the man was unwilling to put away his wife, he should be taken out of the deaconate and ordained to a minor order; if the cleric later decided to live chastely and commit to it permanently, then he could recover his deaconate.³² This was a quite reasonable solution for the time; the priesthood might bring a higher degree of manliness, but some were better off pursuing marriage like the laity. The importance of a chaste life was made evident once again when Lanfranc advised the archdeacons of Bayeux concerning the deposition of a priest who committed manslaughter. The archdeacons desired to know how long the priest had to wait to celebrate Mass, after having committed such a crime. Lanfranc’s response indicates what the archbishop saw as the paramount issue. He advised the archdeacons to examine the life of the priest and see if he was truly penitent; “above all whether he is determined to maintain physical chastity from now on and promises that he will maintain it until the end of his life.” While the circumstances of the case are not known, it appears that the priest may have been married or living with a woman. If the priest lived continently, he would be able to celebrate Mass after the completion of his penance for the crime of manslaughter. Lanfranc warned, “but if not, it will be hazardous for you and disastrous for him if with unclean hands he dare to sanctify the body and blood of Christ.”³³ This case shows the relative view of such infractions in the mind of Lanfranc. Manslaughter could be expiated through penance and continent living, but incontinence risked the reputation of the priesthood and threatened pollution of the sacrament.

Overall, Lanfranc’s policy on clerical celibacy exhibits an understanding of the times and an ability to work with incontinent clerics while still maintaining loyalty to the campaign against clerical marriage. The decrees of Winchester had been largely ineffective, as the continued promulgation of celibacy canons suggest. Six years after Winchester and eight years after Rouen, a synod convoked at Lillebonne by William the Conqueror and Archbishop William Bona Anima of Rouen adopted measures that prohibited canons, deans, priests, deacons, and subdeacons from living with women and ordered that those accused of such would have to defend themselves in court. Those who failed to prove their innocence were deprived of their churches. The sentiment of Lillebonne was similar to earlier Norman synods, like that of Rouen (1072), but it departed sharply in its manner of penalty. It ordered incontinent clerics to clear themselves in the bishop’s court, unless they were accused by a parishioner or layman; in such a case, the accused was ordered to prove his innocence in a mixed court of laymen and clergy. The penalty was harsh for those deemed guilty: lifetime forfeiture of church benefice. William the Conqueror spearheaded this hardline policy, making it clear at the synod that he was not trying to usurp the power of the bishops over their clergy, while at the same time assigning blame on the bishops for their failure on this matter. The king also stipulated that bishops and their agents could not extort any fines from unchaste priests.³⁴ Lillebonne, in encouraging the laity to take an active role in disciplining errant clerics, began the unseemly trend of lowering the masculine authority and status of the priest in his community. By allowing the parishioner to judge an unchaste priest, this measure reversed the roles of confessor and penitent. The reform ideal of elevating the spiritual status of the priest and sanctifying his role in the Mass collided with actions taken by the king and ecclesiastics at Lillebonne, who placed the laity in a position of authority, at least in cases involving incontinent clerics.

On the other side of the English Channel, Lanfranc’s successor Anselm continued to battle clerical marriage, adopting even more severe measures. After Lanfranc’s death, English cathedral chapters experienced a “heyday” of married clerics, beginning around 1090.³⁵ Anselm’s Council of Westminster (1102) reiterated that archdeacons, canons, priests, and deacons could not marry, and if currently married could not retain their wives. His measures marked a sharp departure from Lanfranc’s leniency thirty years earlier. Subdeacons, a group not always included in previous legislation, also had to renounce their wives, if they had made a profession of chastity. Priests could not celebrate Mass as long as they were married, and parishioners were banned from attending services officiated by concubinous priests. In recognition of the growth of the office of archdeacon and its concomitant power, those who became archdeacons had to be ordained, at a minimum, to the rank of deacon (which required celibacy). The harsher aspects of these decrees lay in the ban on attendance at Masses celebrated by married priests.³⁶ By mandating that the laity boycott the church services of married priests, these laws once again provided the means of assault on the masculine honor of the clergy, an assault encouraged by distant reformers, whether from Rome or an Anglo-Norman council. The married priest was removed as a leader in his community, with respectable social status, and transformed into an object of derision, subject to ridicule and denigration at the hands of his parishioners. Yet it is not clear that the parishioners of these communities were opposed to the marriage of their village priest and would have ceased attending services. Daniel Bornstein’s work on late medieval Cortona indicates that, even centuries after the prohibition on clerical marriage, rural priests were still living with women, and that this was publicly known in the community without censure; the community was strictly concerned that church services not be neglected.³⁷ Still, the most curious aspects of this council lie not in the canons promulgated but in those bishops present at this council. Of those prelates present, three already had, or would, marry and have clerical sons: Samson of Worcester, Robert Bloet of Lincoln, and Roger of Salisbury. The laws should have had some impact on these married bishops, even if they had married before their consecration. There is, however, no indication the laws adversely affected their personal or professional lives.

Anselm’s actions in 1102 produced a flurry of letters addressed to him from his ecclesiastical colleagues on the subject, especially from bishops who had difficulty with the implementation of these policies. After the council, Herbert of Losinga, bishop of Norwich, experienced such problems in enforcing the statutes. The priests in his diocese were unwilling to give up their women, and this posed a problem since married/concubinous priests were not allowed to officiate at services. Anselm advised Herbert to find chaste priests who could serve instead; if not, then the archbishop advised his suffragan that monks were to replace unchaste priests at the altar. Anselm also suggested that Herbert elicit the support of the laity in expelling such clerics from their churches; if these clerics were not willing to go, “let all the Christians act against them.” Referring to a specific case of clerical incontinence, Anselm went even farther with his directive, urging parishioners to expel both the fornicating priest and his wife from their community and to seize their land, “until they come to their senses.”³⁸

Implementing such severe decrees on married priests would have resulted in a shortage of priests, as the letter to Herbert of Losinga suggested. Without a priest, a community would not have had access to final absolution. This was such a pressing issue that Anselm sought advice from Pope Paschal II on the matter, asking, “is it permitted to receive absolution and the body of the Lord when in danger of death from priests who have women when no chaste priest is present? If this is permitted, and such priests refuse to administer to those in need because their masses are scorned, what is to be done?” Paschal’s reply was that viaticum from any cleric, even an unchaste one, was preferable to jeopardizing the soul. This series of letter exchanges suggests that some married priests rebelled because their masses were banned by the Church, and they were being publicly denounced by their own parishioners. Paschal’s comment was that, if these priests refused to provide the last sacrament to a dying parishioner, “they are to be punished most rigorously as murderers of souls.”³⁹

Married clerics found ways to keep their women, even claiming that it was legal to do so. Gerard, the archbishop of York, sought counsel from Anselm because those clerics closest to him, secular canons of his cathedral chapter, were devising loopholes to evade the statutes of Westminster. The canons argued to Gerard that “according to the council there will be no women in our houses. But no regulation of the Council prohibits us from meeting women alone and without witness in the houses of our neighbors.” Gerard complained that those canons who had been appointed priests and deacons had never renounced their wives and still publicly acknowledged them. These clerics seemed more interested in benefiting financially from their prebends than in benefiting spiritually from their duties at the altar. Other clerics resisted ordination because they did not want to take a vow of chastity.⁴⁰ Anselm’s response to Gerard’s letter did not discuss the problem of the canons’ loophole, but his letter to William, the archdeacon of Canterbury, did provide guidance on the subject. As in the case of York, clerics in William’s archdeaconate were also seeking a way around the legislation prohibiting clerical marriage. In particular, archdeacons and canons moved their women out of their homes in the towns, but into their country manors.⁴¹ Anselm made a somewhat surprising decision, saying that “for the time being, until something else is laid down, this should be tolerated if they make a resolute promise not to have intercourse with them, nor to speak to them without legitimate witnesses.” For those priests who refused to abandon their wives, the canons of the council were to be observed, and these priests were not to celebrate Mass. Yet Anselm allowed that, if these priests could find chaste replacements, they could then keep their benefices until Lent.⁴²

The Westminster canons of 1102 were not upheld, and, with Anselm in exile, Henry I began collecting the cullagium, a tax on married clerics, as a revenue-raising tactic. William of Malmesbury records that the decrees of the council were immediately ignored and “the first to offend were those who had made the rules,” a statement likely referring to the bishops who presided over that council.⁴³ The collection of the cullagium by the king’s officials made it appear that the practice of clerical marriage was officially tolerated, especially in the absence of the reforming archbishop. In 1105, Anselm’s letter to Prior Ernulf about concubinous priests shows that many priests and even the king may have inherited an unclear understanding of the decrees of Winchester, which allowed then currently married priests to keep their wives. The king’s decree that “they could have both churches and wives as they had at the time of his father [the Conqueror] and Archbishop Lanfranc” was either a misunderstanding of the Winchester decrees or an intentional tactic to justly collect the cullagium from concubinous priests. Anselm declared boldly that such “execrable unions” had never been accepted by the Council of Winchester and that any priests living with women anywhere in England faced deprivation of their benefices.⁴⁴

After Anselm’s second exile had ended, he held a second Council of Westminster (1108), in which the effort to eradicate clerical marriage was renewed; in fact, the only records of this council suggest it was exclusively concerned with the problem of clerical marriage. Anselm’s biographer Eadmer, who documented the proceedings, explained that many priests in England had fallen back into their old marriages or even taken on new relationships during the time of the archbishop’s exile; this laxity explained the need for another directive, one that would attempt to prevent the “loopholes” of the previous council. The 1108 decrees were even more severe than the ones promulgated six years earlier. While the spirit of the decrees remained the same as the 1102 conciliar statutes, the change in administrative enforcement was most notable. Priests, deacons, and subdeacons could not cohabit with any women, except close relatives as defined by the Nicene consanguinity canons. Priests had to put away their women, out of their homes and out of proximity to their homes. Priests and their women could not meet in any private home; if necessity required that they speak to their women, they had to do so “out of doors” in front of at least two witnesses. If priests violated this decree and were accused by two witnesses or by the “common talk of the parishioners,” they faced canonical compurgation. The guilty were to be deprived of their benefices. Those who insisted on cohabitating with women and celebrating Mass had 8 days to decide between the two; afterward, the unreformed would be excommunicated. As part of these decrees, controls were enacted to ensure that cullagium and other forms of extortion did not persist. Archdeacons and deans were singled out for their likely involvement in such extortion. Finally, the council declared that priests who abided by the law and put aside their women were to abstain from celebrating the divine office for forty days and have suitable vicars serve their churches. If they relapsed into their former habits, these clerics would have their property seized, along with their concubines, and both handed over to the bishop.⁴⁵

What is notable about Eadmer’s reporting of the 1108 council is that of the numerous, lengthy directives regarding clerical unions, not one uses the term uxor (wife) to describe the female partner of a priest. Eadmer’s choice to describe priests’ partners differently from his description of the 1102 council may have been intentional. In 1102, he describes these women as they must have appeared to all in Anglo-Norman society: legitimate wives. But by 1108 the necessity of further legislation to eradicate this problem led him to address them as the Church now viewed them—the “women” (feminas or mulieres) of priests.⁴⁶