Henry 1540. And finally, after these things thus disputed and alleged, the said Anselm concludeth the matter with this final censure and determinaA.D. tion, as followeth : "In that these men (he speaketh of married priests) do put on the holy vestments, or do touch the holy vessels, they do lay violent hands upon Christ. And in that they presume impudently to offer, they do in a manner visibly crucify Christ upon the altar. The ministry of such is read to be a persecution, or rather a crucifying of Christ," &c. His conclusion or censure. ANSWER TO ANSELM'S REASONS AGAINST PRIESTS' MARRIAGE. Lo! here, the mighty reasons, the strong timbered arguments, and the deep divinity, wherewith this Anselm, and all others that draw after his string, go about to impugn the lawfulness of priests' marriage. Because the Israelites, when they should appear before the Lord at mount Sinai, were commanded to keep from their wives three days; and because the priests of the old law in doing their function, as their turn came about, refrained the company of their wives for that present time; ergo, priests of the new law must at no time have any wives, but live always single, &c. And why might not Anselm as well argue thus: The people of Israel, approaching to the mount, were commanded in like sort to wash their garments: ergo, priests of the new law, who are occupied every day about the altar, ought every day to wash all their garments. Moses, approaching to the presence of the Lord in the bush, was commanded to put off his shoes: ergo, priests of the new law, who are ever approaching to the presence of their God, should never wear shoes. Of king David and his company, who but once in all their life did eat of the shew-bread, it was demanded by the high-priest, whether they had kept them from their wives three days before: ergo, kings and the people of the New Testament, who every year eat the bread of the Lord's board, more precious than ever was that "panis propositionis," should abide all their life wifeless and unspoused. But here Anselm should have considered how by these Scriptures, we are taught not to put away our wives, but wisely to distinguish A time for times, when and how to have them. For, as Solomon teacheth that all things. there is a time for all things, so is there a time to marry, and a time not to marry; a time to resort, a time to withdraw; a time of company, a time of abstinence and prayer, which St. Paul calleth, Tрóσkaiрov; and as he speaketh of a time of prayer and abstinence, so he speaketh also of a time of resorting together, and addeth the cause why:2 Lest Satan,' saith he, tempt you for your incontinency.' Special And thus should Anselm, with Solomon and Paul, have considered examples the order and distinction of times. Oftentimes in Scripture, that is break no general orders. commanded to some, and at some time, which extendeth not to others; and that which for a time is convenient, is not, by-and-by, always convenient: neither that which for a time is forbidden in Scripture, is therefore forbidden for ever: neither ought special (1) Per hoc autem quod sacras vestes induunt, vel sacra vasa tangunt, Christo violenter manus injiciunt. Per hoc autem quod impudenter offerre præsumunt, Christum quodam modo visibiliter in altari crucifigunt. Legitur ministerium eorum Christi persecutio, imo crucifixio appellatur.' (2) Ne tentet vos Satanas propter incontinentiam vestram,' &c. 1 Cor. vii. 5. examples to break general orders: neither again do extraordinary Henry prohibitions make a universal rule. tion of the from their is no They were then commanded to sequester themselves from their A. D. wives at the coming of the Lord: not that the coming of the Lord 1540. did break wedlock, but his commandment did bind obedience; and Separatherefore obeyed they, because they were commanded. And yet Israelites were they not commanded to put away their wives, but only to wives for separate themselves for a time; and that not for months and years, three days but only for three days: which abstinence also was enjoined them, argument not in the presence, nor at the appearing of the Lord, but three days priests before his descending to them on the hill. Whereby it appeareth should that the use of their wedlock neither displeased God, being present, marry. nor yet did drive his presence away, when he was come; for he remained there present amongst them, on the hill, forty days notwithstanding. Furthermore, this time of separation from their wives, as it was expressly commanded to them of God, so was it not long nor tedious, but such as was neither hard for them, nor inconvenient for the time: giving us thereby to understand, how to use separation in wedlock wisely, that is, neither at every time, nor yet too long. that never tion in how it is For as they do not well, who never follow the time of St. Paul, Separacalled Tрookαipov, for abstinence and prayer; so do they worse, who wedlock, fall into that Tapaкaipòv, whereof St. Paul again giveth us warning: 'Ne tentet vos Satanas per incontinentiam vestram.' But worst of all used. do they, who so separate their wives clean from them, and so abjure all matrimony, that they fall headlong into the devil's pitfall of fornication and all filthy abomination. And therefore the Lord, foreseeing the peril thereof, said unto the people, "Estote parati in diem tertiam, et ne appropinquetis uxoribus vestris," &c.; appointing indeed a separation from their wives; but yet, knowing the infirmity of man, he limiteth the time withal, adding, "in diem tertiam," and goeth no further. He saith not, as Anselm said in the council of Winchester,2 "Jurabunt presbyteri, diaconi, et subdiaconi, uxores suas omnino abjurare, nec ullam deinceps cum iis conversationem habere, sub restrictione censuræ," &c. The like order also was taken by the Lord with the priests of the Old Testament, who, although they were enjoined to withdraw themselves from their wives during the time of their priestly service, yet, for avoiding fornication, they were permitted to have their wives notwithstanding. So that both their absenting from their wives served to sanctification, and their resorting again unto them served to avoid adultery and fornication. of the But here our priestly prelates will object, that because they be objection continually conversant about the priestly function, therefore a per- papists. petual sanctification is of them specially required. Whereunto I answer, First: The priestly function of those high priests, sacrificing for the people in the old law, representeth only the function of Christ, Answer the High Priest, sacrificing for the sins of the world, who truly and jection. (1) Exod. xix. 15. (2) Of London, A.D. 1108, judging by the repeated references to a particular council; though the words here quoted have not been met with. See notes on pp. 333 and 339. Gabriel Cossartius is of opinion that we have the statutes of one at least of these councils, namely, that held in 1102, only in an abbreviated form. See the Acta Conciliorum (Par. 1714), tom. vi. col. 1863-Ed. to the ob Henry only performed that pure chastity in his sanctified body, which the law then in those priests prefigured. VIII. A. D. 1540. Secondly Speaking now of the priests of the New Testament (and speaking properly), the Scripture neither knoweth nor admitteth any No sacri- priest to sacrifice to God for the sins of man, but only the High King and Priest Christ Jesus. ficer but Christ. Marriage more convenient for priests of the new law the old. than of Matri mony no a furtherance to sanctification. Thirdly Unto that Priest all others be but servants and ministers; of whom some be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some preachers having the gift of utterance, some interpreters and doctors having the gift of understanding, some deacons serving the Lord's board. The office of all whom chiefly consisteth in ministering the word, next in administering the sacraments. Fourthly Forasmuch as in these, principally above all others, pureness and sanctification of life is required, as much as, and more too, than was in the priests of the old law, from whom all fornication, adultery, incest, and uncleanness of life ought most to be banished; therefore, in these especially, above the priests of the old law, matrimony and spousage is most requisite and convenient, whosoever he be, who otherwise cannot contain; according to the apostle, saying, Unusquisque uxorem suam habeat propter fornicationem."1 Fifthly: Neither is this matrimony in these, any hinderance to their hinder- sanctification before God, but rather furthereth and helpeth their ance, but sanctification; forasmuch as where matrimony is not, there commonly reigneth adultery, fornication, and all kinds of filthiness; according to the true saying of Bernard," "Take from the church honourable marriage and the bed undefiled, shalt thou not replenish it with concubinaries, with incestuous persons, Sodomitical vices, and finally with all kinds of beastly filthiness ?" No public law in against before The truth of which saying lacketh no kind of examples for confirmation, if we list here to ransack the lives of these glorious despisers of matrimony, even from Lanfranc, the first ringleader of this dance here in England, with Paulus,3 monk of Caen, his nephew, whom Matthew Paris misdoubted to be his own son, even to Stephen Gardiner with his gold locks, the author and work-master of these six articles. But to the reasons of Anselm hitherto sufficient; which, of themselves, be so frivolous and gross, that only to recite them is enough to confute the same. Permitting therefore the rest to the discussing of divines, it shall England suffice for our purpose, professing here to write stories, to declare and priests' make manifest, by process of times and histories, that this cruel law, marriage compelling ministers of the church to abjure matrimony, entered not Lanfranc into this land before Lanfranc A.D. 1076, and Anselm his successor, as sem both may appear by the multitude of priests' sons lawfully begotten in matrimony, and succeeding in the churches here in England, testified by the epistle of pope Paschal to Anselm before, and also may appear likewise by the council of Anselm, holden at Winchester, which partly was touched before, and now the full act we have more largely and An (1) 1 Cor. vii. 2. 4 (2) Tolle de ecclesia honorabile connubium et torum immaculatum, nonne replebis eam concubinariis, incestuosis, seminifluis, mollibus, masculorum concubitoribus et omni denique genere immundorum?' Bern. Sup. Cant. Serm. vi. (3) Paulus monachus Cadonensis, Archiepis. Lanfranci nepos, imo aliquorum relationibus consanguinitate propinquior.' Matth. Paris. (4) London (A.D. 1108), not Winchester. See the third note on page 333.-ED. (5) This act is given, with some variation, by Florentius Wigorniensis in his 'Chronicon ex expressed, to be read and seen of all posterity, as hereunder may be Henry seen.1 VIII. 1540. law of took no And yet this unreasonable statute of Anselm, so diligently defended A.D. with sharp censures and penalties, had no such great speed, neither in the lifetime of the said Anselm, nor long after his death; but that The cruel divers priests notwithstanding still kept their wives, or after his death Anselm they returned to their wives again, through the sufferance of the great then famous and learned king, named Henry Beauclerk, who some place. thing stayed the importunity of this monkish prelate, and willed the priests should keep both their wives and their churches, as they did before in Lanfranc's days." Then, after Anselm, followed Radulph, archbishop of Canterbury, in whose time was no great stir against the priests that were married. About the time of this archbishop, king Henry I. called a council at London, where he obtained of the spiritualty a grant to have the punishment of married priests (which the spiritualty afterwards did much repent); whereby the priests, paying a certain sum to the king, were suffered to retain their wives still, as is above storied. Next after this Radulph, then succeeded William Corbeil, surnamed De Turbine, who renewed again the constitution of Anselm against married priests, especially by the help of Johannes, priest, and cardinal of Crema, the pope's legate, sent the same time into England, A.D. 1125. Of which cardinal of Crema, because enough hath been before declared," how, after his stout replying, in the council of London, against the married state of priests, exclaiming what a shameful thing it was to rise from a polluted bed, to make Christ's body, the night following he was shamefully taken with a notable whore, &c., as is apparent before. I will therefore pass over that matter, returning again to William chronicis,' p. 653. edit. Francof. 1601. For 'extra hortum,' upon which there is a marginal explanation in Foxe, given in the tail note (a), Florentius reads 'extra chorum.' The same chronicler inserts A.D. 1108, as the date of this council, and confirms it by naming Thomas as the archbishop of York: Gerard having died in May that year. Florentius makes no reference to Winchester. See the third note on page 333.-ED. (1) The Act against Priests' Marriage, concluded in the Council at Winchester, under Anselm, A.D. 1104.a Hæc sunt statuta de archidiaconis, presbyteris, et canonicis in quocunque gradu constitutis, quæ Wintoniæ statuerunt Anselmus Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis, et cum eo, Girardus Archiepiscopus Eboracensis, et omnes alii Angliæ episcopi, in præsentia gloriosi regis Henrici, assensu omnium baronum suorum. Statutum est, ut presbyteri et diaconi castè vivant, et fœminas in domibus suis non habeant, præter proxima consanguinitate sibi junctas, secundum hoc quod sancta Nicena Synodus definivit. Illi verò presbyteri, diaconi, sive subdiaconi, qui post interdictum Londinensis concilii fœminas suas tenuerunt, vel alias duxerunt, si elegerint in sacris ordinibus remanere, jurent quod cum eis carnale commercium non habebunt amplius. Statutum est etiam ut prædictæ fœminæ in domo cum eis scienter non conveniant, neque hujusmodi fœminæ in territorio ecclesiæ habitent. Si autem propter aliquam honestam causam eos colloqui oporteat, cum duobus ad minus legitimis testibus extra domum colloquantur. Si vero duobus aut tribus legitimis testibus, vel publica parochianorum fama, aliquis eorum accusatus fuerit, quod hoc statu tum transierit, purgabit se adjunctis secum ordinis sui idoneis testibus, sex si presbyter, quinque si diaconus, quatuor si subdiaconus fuerit. Cui autem hæc purgatio defecerit, ut transgressor sacri statuti judicabitur. Illi verò presbyteri, qui divini altaris et sacrorum ordinum contemptores præelegerint cum uxoribus suis habitare, à divino officio remoti, extra hortum ponantur, infames pronunciati. Eadem sententia archidiaconos et canonicos omnes complectitur, et de abjurandis uxoribus, et de vitanda earum conversatione, et restrictione censura si statuta transgressi fuerint. Jurabunt et archidiaconi omnes, quod pecuniam non accipient pro toleranda transgressione hujus statuti, neque ullo modo tolerabunt presbyteros uxoratos cantare, vel vicarios habere, et quod ipsi non dissimulabunt per archidiaconatus suos hoc inquirere, et fideliter episcopis suis renunciabunt, et attente, et fidelitèr de exequenda hujus rei vindicta episcopos suos adjuvabunt. Qui verò archidiaconus, vel diaconus hoc jurare noluerit, archidiaconatum vel diaconiam irreparabiliter perdet. Presbyteri vero, qui relictis uxoribus Deo et sacris ordinibus servire elegerunt, quadraginta dies ab officio cessantes, pro se vicarios habebunt, injuncta eis pœnitentia secundum quod episcopis eorum visum fuerit. Notes upon the Act. (a) Read, 'Council of London, A.D. 1108,' and for Girardus, 'Thomas.' See Note 5, on the last page (338), and also the third note on page 333.-ED. (b) Forte, 'extra hortum' paradisi intelligit. (2) Ex Epist. Anselm. 77. (3) of this cardinal of Crema read before, vol. ii. page 181. The priests Henry the archbishop, who with the cardinal legate aforesaid, although he busily occupied himself in reproving the matrimony of priests, insoA. D. much that he would give them no longer respite to put away their 1540. wives but from Michaelmas to St. Andrew's day following, yet could he not bring his purpose to pass but that the priests still continued with their wives by the king's leave, as the Saxon stery plainly recordeth in these words: "Pir bebedre Ancebircop Pilliam of Cantenbriger.and ealle pa leod Bircoper ðaða pæpon on Engelonde. and ne forstod noht ealle da boblacer. eall heoloon hep piper be bær Kinger leue. гpa sþa hi cap didon,”1 That is to say in English, "This William, archkept their bishop of Canterbury, and the bishops who were in England, did command, and yet all these decrees and biddings stood not all held their wives by the king's leave, even so as they before did." bishop's hard was this cause to be won, that the archbishop at length gave it over, and left the controversy wholly unto the king.2 Whereupon he decreed that the priests should remain with their wives still. And so continued they after that, in the time of Theobald after him, of Thomas Becket, Richard Baldwin, Stephen Langton, Richard, Edmund. Boniface, Peckham, and others, during well-near the time, after Anselm, of two hundred years. wives, contrary to the arch commandment. Priests So And, lest the quarrelling adversaries, being peradventure disposed here to cavil, should object and say that such marriage amongst the spiritual men might be private and secret, but not openly known, nor quietly suffered by any law of this realm: to avoid, therefore, what may be by them objected, I thought it good, and as a thing neither impertinent nor unprofitable to this story, and for the further satisfying of the reader's mind herein, to infer and make known, by good record, not only that the liberty of marriage, amongst spiritual men, hath continued within this realm during the time aforesaid, to wit, two hundred years, or thereabouts, after Anselm; and that not in secret wise, but also openly; and being known, the same to be suffered, and lawfully allowed of, in such sort as both they, their wives, how long children, and assigns, might inherit and enjoy lands, tenements, and tinued in other hereditaments, by way of feoffment, deed of gift, or any other after An- assurance, in such sort, manner, and form, as laymen, their heirs and assigns, at this day lawfully may do: as by divers writings and instruments, showed to us at the writing hereof, by divers men whose names hereafter follow (some to this day remaining fair sealed, some by antiquity and long keeping much worn, and their seals mouldered and wasted), is very evident and manifest to be seen. The copies whereof, being by us truly and faithfully excerpted out of the very originals (being yet extant), we have hereunder inserted." with wives, they con England selm. (3) Certain Instruments and Evidences of ancient Record, declaring the Marriage of Priests to have Sciant præsentes et futuri quod ego Williel. de Blunwel, miles, concessi, dedi, et hac præsenti charta mea confirmavi Stephano de Saxlingham, clerico, et Matildæ uxori suæ pro homagiis et servitiis suis et pro sex marcis argenti quas mihi dederunt in gersumam, unam peciem terræ arabilis, quæ jacet in campo de Neuton in cultura, inter messuagium Galfridi Sulyard, et cœmeterium ecclesiæ de Neuton, inter terram Radulphi Malherbe, et terram Joannis de Neuton, et abuttat super regiam stratam versus orientem, et super terram quæ fuit Henrici Popiltele versus occidentem: habendam et tenendam de me et hæredibus meis, illis et hæredibus suis aut quibuscunque dare, legare, vendere vel assignare voluerint, in quocunque statu fuerint, liberè et quietè, in feodo, perpetuè et hæreditariè: reddendo inde annuatim mihi et hæredibus meis duos denarios, scilicet ad festum Sancti Andreæ unum denarium, et ad nativitatem Sancti Joannis Baptistæ unum |