Eighth-Century "Traditional" Marriage
Today I started reading a mystery novel by Peter Tremayne, Badger's Moon. This book continues his series feturing Sister Fidelma. The stories are set place in mid-eighth-century Ireland.
To orient his readers who might be unfamiliar with the customs and laws of the time, Tremayne puts an "Historical Note" at the beginning of the books.
Today as I read the "Note", I was particularly taken with the following section describing customs concerning marriage and priestly celibacy during the period. In the context of modern-day teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing by arch-conservatives over priestly traditions and marriage traditions, traditions that are frequently claimed to have persisted unchanged for thousands of years (or since the Bible was written, whichever came first), there are many enlightening observations about the number of forms of legal marriage at the time (i.e., more than merely one), and a suggestion that celibacy for priests (not always the norm, one will note) seems to have come about because of inheritance concerns and intense lobbying by an arch-conservative misogynist. (Sound familiar?)
One might also note, as celibacy came to be inforced, the glorious ways that women were treated by the Pope [!] within the confines of "traditional marriage".
In spite of previous explanations on this matter, however, a few readers were surprised when in The Haunted Abbot it was revealed that Sister Fidelma and her companion Brother Eadulf had undertaken one of the nine legal forms of marriage under Irish law.
While there were always ascetics in the churches who sublimated physical love in dedication to the deity, it was not until the Council of Nice in AD 325 that clerical marriages were condemned (but not banned) by the hierarchy of the Western Church. Celibacy was not a popular concept. It arose in Rome mainly from the customs practised by the pagan priestesses of Vesta and the priests of Diana, which became an inheritance of Roman culture.
By the fifth century, Rome had forbidden its clerics from the rank of abbot and bishop to sleep with their wives — implying they were still marrying — and shortly after, even to marry at all. The main reason appears to be property concerns, for Pope Pelagius I (AD 536-61) decreed that sons of priests should not be allowed to inherit church property. The general clergy were discouraged from marrying by Rome but not expressly forbidden to do so.
The celibacy lobby in Rome became strong and it was Peter Damian (AD 1000-1071), a leading theologian whose writings reveal him to be a misogynist, who became a major influence and persuaded Pope Leo IX (AD 1049-54) to enforce celibacy on all clergy. Leo IX ordered the wives of priests to be sent as slaves to Rome for the Pope to 'dispose of'. In AD 1139, Innocent II tried a softer approach by requesting all priests to divorce their wives. But Pope Urban II, in AD 1189, decreed that wives of priests could be seized and sold as slaves by any of the European feudal lords. The priests fought back. It took Rome a long time to enforce universal celibacy. The Celtic Church took centuries to give up its anti-celibacy and fall in line with Rome, while in the Eastern Orthodox Church priests below the rank of abbot and bishop have retained their right to mary until this day.
[Peter Tremayne (pseud. for Peter Berresford Ellis), Badger's Moon (St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2003) pp. xi-xii.]
And here's a bonus quotation, from the same "Historical Note" (page ix):
The law of primogeniture, the inheritance by the eldest son or daughter, was an alien concept in [eighth-century] Ireland. Kingship, from the lowliest clan chieftain to the High King, was only partially hereditary and mainly electoral. … If a ruler did not pursue the commonwealth of the people, he was impeached and removed from office.
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., The Art of Conversation