Book contents
- Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234
- Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Sigla
- Introduction
- 1 Transformations and Long-Term Explanations
- 2 The Christian Roman Empire, c. 400
- 3 c. 400: Practical Complexities and Uncertainties
- 4 c. 400: Uncertainty about Grace
- 5 Papal Rulings and Ritual
- 6 Hierarchies
- 7 Clerical Status and Monks
- 8 Returning Heretics
- 9 Pelagianism and the Papacy
- 10 Leo I
- 11 Post-Imperial Syntheses
- 12 Early Papal Laws in the Barbarian West
- 13 Carolingian Culture and Its Legacy
- 14 1050–1150
- 15 Theology and Law
- 16 c. 400 and c. 1200: Complexity, Conversion, and Bigamia
- 17 Clerics in Minor Orders
- 18 Choosing Bishops
- Overall Conclusions
- Book part
- Select Bibliography
- Index
7 - Clerical Status and Monks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2022
- Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234
- Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Sigla
- Introduction
- 1 Transformations and Long-Term Explanations
- 2 The Christian Roman Empire, c. 400
- 3 c. 400: Practical Complexities and Uncertainties
- 4 c. 400: Uncertainty about Grace
- 5 Papal Rulings and Ritual
- 6 Hierarchies
- 7 Clerical Status and Monks
- 8 Returning Heretics
- 9 Pelagianism and the Papacy
- 10 Leo I
- 11 Post-Imperial Syntheses
- 12 Early Papal Laws in the Barbarian West
- 13 Carolingian Culture and Its Legacy
- 14 1050–1150
- 15 Theology and Law
- 16 c. 400 and c. 1200: Complexity, Conversion, and Bigamia
- 17 Clerics in Minor Orders
- 18 Choosing Bishops
- Overall Conclusions
- Book part
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Clerics and monks were originally chalk and cheese. The clergy were an increasingly complex system committed to highly structured hierarchy – but there were unresolved uncertainties about the precise form it should take. The chapter discusses for instance the clerical cursus honorum, reactions against fast-track promotion, and the bigamia rule against clerics in higher orders marrying more than once and the rule’s relation to pagan marriage. The apostolic see was called in to clarify problems arising from these systems and also from the awkward relation between clerics and monks. Monasticism was an unstructured movement, sometimes out of control, at one point banned from towns by imperial law. The interpenetration of the clerical and monastic systems only intensified the challenge of integrating them. The problem would recur in different forms throughout the history of the Latin Church, and the difficulty of coordinating the two overlapping systems had the unintended consequence of strengthening the papacy, constantly called in to integrate monks within the religious legal system and adjust the differences between the two religious elites. The process is already in evidence with the earliest papal jurisprudence.
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- Papal Jurisprudence, 385–1234Social Origins and Medieval Reception of Canon Law, pp. 74 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022