164 Celtis, Conrad
remarry. Remarriage by the laity was also not encouraged.
These have been the rules for the Eastern Church ever
since.
WESTERN CHURCHIn the West the GREGORIANREFORM, driven by monas-
tic asceticism, was propagated from the 11th-century
texts demanding the chastity of the clergy. This reform
movement tried to turn the laity against priests who
kept concubines or wives without formal marriage. It
also sought to clarify the distinction between the laity
and the clergy more distinctly and feared the develop-
ment of family and dynastic succession for the property
of the church. The First Lateran Council of 1123
accepted the ordination of married men, only if they
abandoned their wife. The validity of sacraments from
an unchaste priest, however, was constantly affirmed.
The personal state of the priest could not be allowed to
enter into the validity of the sacraments he might
administer. The sacramental role of the priest, as such,
could not be questioned.
QUESTIONING AND REALITYThere were questions about the necessity of clerical
celibacy from the beginning among synods of the clergy,
secular authors, and canonists. Heretical groups such as
the LOLLARDSwere ardently opposed to it. It was consis-
tently on the agenda of reformers, such as John GERSON,
who sought to increase the number of priests and clean
up their reputation as fornicators, a common literary
device. In practice, the rules were not consistently
applied, but the majority of the clergy did not have regu-
lar female or male sexual companions. The number of
illegitimate children fathered by clerics in the later Mid-
dle Ages was perceived to have been high, but we cannot
be sure. The laity was not overly concerned about these
situations if the priest was a respected pastor. Records
documenting investigation of clerical discipline for dioce-
san and parish reform did turn up examples of clerical
inconstancy, but there seemed also to be some decline in
concubinage. At the same time there was more evidence
for fornication and adultery. Many of the higher clergy,
including several popes, were not setting good examples.
See alsoBASIL THEGREAT,SAINT; CHASTITY;CHRYSOS-
TOM,JOHN,SAINT; FAMILY AND KINSHIP; MARRIAGE; NUNS
AND NUNNERIES; VIRGINITY.
Further reading: John Chrysostom, On Virginity:
Against Remarriage,trans. Sally Rieger Shore (Lewiston,
N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1983); Anne Llewellyn Barstow,
Married Priests and the Reforming Papacy: The Eleventh-
Century Debates (New York: E. Mellen Press, 1982);
Roman Cholij, Clerical Celibacy in East and West
(Leominster, England: Fowler-Wright Books, 1988);
Michael Frassetto, ed. Medieval Purity and Piety: Essays on
Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform (New
York: Garland, 1998).
Celtis, Conrad(Konrad, Conrad Pickel, “the Archhu-
manist”)(1459–1508)influential German humanist, poet
Born on February 1, 1459, in a peasant family near
Würzburg, Celtis ran away at the age of 18 to study. He
spent the next 20 years studying and teaching at a succes-
sion of universities: COLOGNE, Heidelberg, Erfurt, Ros-
tock, Leipzig, CRACOW,NUREMBERG, and Ingolstadt,
before settling at the University of VIENNAin 1497 to
teach poetry, RHETORIC, classics, and literature. He wrote
plays and poetry, rediscovered old and neglected German
literary works, established debating societies, and edited
classics, such as Tacitus’s Germaniain 1500.
In 1487 he became the first German poet laureate.
His travels involved two years in ITA LYbetween 1487 and
1489, when he met many Italian humanists. Although
generally disillusioned by Italy and its culture, he was
inspired by an academy in ROMEto start similar societies
in GERMANY where humanists could meet and work
together. Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530) was among
his friends and correspondents.
Celtis’s studies on the Greek and Hebrew languages,
his editions of Latin authors, and his Latin dramas
promoted a humanist movement based on his ideas of
education and a revival of German culture. Another
desire, to write a comprehensive geographical and histor-
ical book about Germany, was never fulfilled. He died in
Vienna of syphilis on February 4, 1508.
Further reading:Konrad Celtis, Selections,ed. and
trans. Leonard Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1948).cemeteries and graveyards Ancient necropolises or
“cities of the dead” were situated by law outside inhab-
ited places, either in open country or beside the roads
approaching towns or cities, like the underground CATA-
COMBS. Medieval burial places were enclosed enclaves
attached to a PARISHand moved into towns and villages.
This practice reflected a change in the relations between
the living and the dead, who needed to be assisted or
capable of giving assistance in an afterlife or on earth.
Cremation was no longer much practiced after the early
Middle Ages. Christian cemeteries were reserved for
believers only, not pagans, Jews, unbaptized infants, or
the excommunicated. Along with parish churches
directly subject to episcopal jurisdiction, monasteries and
the convents of the new MENDICANT ORDERS from the
13th century also provided lucrative burial grounds for
their members and, for a price, the laity.
In the Middle Ages there were simple internments in
churchyards and later inside the church building either
under the pavement or in more elaborate, or sometimes
even artistically impressive and monumental, TOMBS.In
antiquity, the dead by law had to be taken outside the
walls of a city and then buried or put into catacombs. By
the sixth century, burials were performed by a church in