him. For these reasons, the campaign against simony was a necessary part of the ecclesiastical
struggle for power.
Very similar considerations applied to clerical celibacy. The reformers of the eleventh century
often spoke of "concubinage" when it would have been more accurate to speak of "marriage."
Monks, of course, were precluded from marriage by their vow of chastity, but there had been no
clear prohibition of marriage for the secular clergy. In the Eastern Church, to this day, parish
priests are allowed to be married. In the West, in the eleventh century, most parish priests were
married. Bishops, for their part, appealed to Saint Paul's pronouncement: "A bishop then must
be blameless, the husband of one wife." * There was not the same clear moral issue as in the
matter of simony, but in the insistence on clerical celibacy there were political motives very
similar to those in the campaign against simony. â€
When priests were married, they naturally tried to pass on Church property to their sons. They
could do this legally if their sons became priests; therefore one of the first steps of the reform
party, when it acquired power, was to forbid the ordination of priests' sons. ‡ But in the
confusion of the times there was still danger that, if priests had sons, they would find means of
illegally alienating parts of the Church lands. In addition to this economic consideration, there
was also the fact that, if a priest was a family man like his neighbours, he seemed to them less
removed from themselves. There was, from at least the fifth century onwards, an intense
admiration for celibacy, and if the clergy were to command the reverence on which their power
depended, it was highly advantageous that they should be obviously separated from other men
by abstinence from marriage. The reformers themselves, no doubt, sincerely believed that the
married state, though not actually sinful, is lower than the state of celibacy, and is only
conceded to the weakness of the flesh. Saint Paul says: "If they cannot contain, let them marry;"
§ but a really holy man ought to be able to "contain." Therefore clerical celibacy is essential to
the moral authority of the Church.
* I Timothy III, 2.Â
§
I Corinthians VII, 9.â
€
See Henry C. Lea, The History of Sacerdotal Celibacy.â
€
¡In 1046, it was decreed that a clerk's son cannot be a bishop. Later, it was decreed that he
could not be in holy orders.