Professional Documents
Culture Documents
But the anti-Gregorians could also use terror tactics. Many of the
reformers found themselves the object of assassination attempts. The
1
Self and society in Medieval France; the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent (1064?-c. 1125) edited with an introd. and
notes by John F. Benton. ( 1970), p. 51
Church responded by declaring clerical wives slaves of the Church and
decreeing that sons of clergy could not take orders, unless they were to
become monks. There were desperate actions taken on the part of priests’
wives. Some committed suicide; others physically attacked bishops; one
reportedly poisoned the wife of the lord who forced her from her husband. 2
The life of a former priest’s wife and her children was bleak, and often their
reputation was ruined in addition to their economic circumstances.
Despite all the turmoil, the Church gradually made progress, and by
the year 1200 there were few, if any, married priests, and the Church was
making headway in declaring that even deacons and subdeacons could not
have wives.
2
Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Married priests and the reforming papacy: the eleventh-century
debates (1982)