The secular clergy in England, 1066-1216 / Hugh M. Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, Hugh M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clergy--England--History--To 1500.

Clergy.

History.

England--Church history--1066-1485.

England.

Church history.

Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Church history--Middle Ages.

Physical Description:

xi, 422 pages, 8 pages of plates : color illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

The secular clergy-priests and other clerics outside of monastic orders-were among the most influential and powerful groups in European society during the central Middle Ages. The secular clergy got their title from the Latin word saeculum, meaning the world, and secular clerics kept the Church running in the world beyond the cloister wall, with responsibility for the bulk of pastoral care and ecclesiastical administration. This gave them enormous religious influence, although they were considered too worldly by many contemporary moralists, who were appalled, for instance, at how many of them resisted clerical celibacy. Although their worldliness created many tensions, it also gave the secular clergy much influence. Contemporaries treated elite secular clerics as equivalent to knights, and some were as wealthy as minor barons. Secular clerics had a crucial role in the rise of royal bureaucracy, one of the key historical developments of the period. They were instrumental to the intellectual and cultural flowering of the twelfth century, the rise of the schools, the creation of the book trade, and the invention of universities. They performed music, produced literature in a variety of genres and languages, and patronized art and architecture. Indeed, this volume argues that they contributed more than any other group to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Yet the secular clergy as a group have received almost no attention from scholars, unlike monks, nuns, or secular nobles. In The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216, Hugh Thomas aims to correct this deficiency through a major study of the secular clergy below the level of bishop in England during this period. Book jacket.

Contents:

I Models of Clerical Behavior

1 Introduction 3

2 The Model Priest and his Antithesis 17

1 The exalted status of priests and clerics 20

2 The critique of the clergy 24

3 The Aristocratic Cleric 37

1 The aristocratic status of elite clerics 38

2 Clerics and aristocratic culture 42

3 Social, moral, and religious tensions 48

II The Clergy and the World

4 The Wealth of the Secular Clergy 55

1 Ecclesiastical incomes 56

2 Secular sources of clerical income 71

3 Clerics and economic development 75

4 Religious anxiety about clerical wealth 81

5 Patronage and Advancement 87

1 The competition for benefices 88

2 Acquiring benefices: simony, inheritance, and nepotism 90

3 Acquiring benefices: lordship, service, and friendship 99

4 Acquiring benefices: morals and education 109

5 Patronage, tension, and anxiety 114

6 Courtiers, Bureaucrats, and Hell 117

1 Service to ecclesiastical magnates, secular lords, and the king 118

2 Lay and clerical administrators 122

3 Literacy, numeracy, education, and bureaucracy 125

4 The religious critique of courts and clerical courtiers 139

7 Clerical Marriage and Clerical Celibacy 154

1 The campaign for clerical celibacy 155

2 Resistance to the campaign for clerical celibacy 164

3 Exhortation and the impact on priests' partners and children 178

4 How successful was the drive for clerical celibacy? 183

5 Same-sex relationships and the secular clergy 186

8 Kinship, Household, Hospitality, and Friendship 190

1 Kinship 191

2 Household and hospitality 196

3 Friendship 199

9 Violence, Clerical Status, and the Issue of Criminous Clerks 209

1 Clerics, violence, and taboos 210

2 Clerical violence and the Becket dispute 214

3 Causes and motives of clerical violence 222

III The Cultural and Intellectual Impact of the Clergy

10 English Secular Clerics and the Growth of European Intellectual Life in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance 227

1 English clerics and continental centers of learning 228

2 England and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance 238

3 The proliferation of intellectuals among the secular clergy 239

11 Secular Clerics as Collectors and Donors of Books 246

1 Numbers of books owned by secular clerics 248

2 Types of books owned by secular clerics 254

3 The impact of book ownership by secular clerics 260

12 Secular Clerics as Authors and Intellectuals 266

1 The varieties of intellectual work by secular clerics 267

2 Secular clerics and "practical" knowledge 277

3 Controversies over learning 289

13 Secular Clerics as Cultural Patrons and Performers 298

1 Secular clerics and the "performing arts" 299

2 Secular clerics as patrons of art 307

3 Secular clerics, architecture, architectural sculpture, and wall painting 313

4 Intellectuals and art 318

IV The Religious Life of the Clergy

14 Clerics and Religious Life 323

1 Efforts to improve pastoral care 324

2 Sacraments, worship, intercession, and the Christian habitus 331

3 The pious activities of secular clerics 335

4 Skepticism and intolerance 338

15 The War against the Monks 343

1 The rivalry and its causes 344

2 Competition over authority and morality 353

3 Peacemaking, cooperation, and ambivalence 357

4 The secular clergy as second best 360.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198702566

0198702566

OCLC:

890440697