Note 953 — Chapter IX · THE CLERGY AND MONKS.

In 1102 archbishop Anselm excommunicated married priests, sacerdotes concubinarios; Wendover, who records this act, expresses a doubt about its prudence. “Hoc autem bonum quibusdam visum est, et quibusdam periculosum, ne, dum munditias viribus maiores expeterent, in immunditias labarentur.” Wend. ii. 171. The results at this day in Ireland are well known, and the case is very similar in the Roman Catholic part of Hungary. See Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, i. 114. Shortly before the Reformation, the inconveniences arising from this state of things were felt to be so intolerable, yet the danger to society from a strict enforcement of the rule so great, that in some parts of Europe the bishop licensed their priests so take concubines, at a settled tariff, and further raised a sum upon each child born. Erasmus relates that one bishop had admitted to him the issuing of no less than twelve thousand such licenses in one year. In his diocese the tax was probably light, the peasants sturdy, and the female population more than ordinarily chaste. It was not unusual for the English kings to compel the priests to redeem their focariae or concubines, which amounts to much the same thing. This occurred in the years 1129 and 1208. See Wendover, ii. 210; iii. 223.