The celibacy within marriage of the secular clergy may have been a response to the celibacy of monks, because monks were becoming prominent in Western Christianity in the fourth century. Originally lay, without clerical orders, their relation to the ordinary clergy, while not hostile, was complicated and problematic from the start. What happened when clerics became monks or vice versa, for instance? Dealing with the interactions of these two elites would be a central role of the papacy ever afterwards. In the early papal legislation we see the start of this mediating role.