meaning. I therefore give the canon in the original Latin, leaving it to the reader to translate, and to decide whether the deduction I have drawn from it is justified. It is as follows: 'Quicunque clericus ab hostiario usque ad sacerdotem sine tunica visus fuerit, atque turpitudinem ventris et nuditatem non tegat, et si non more Romano capilli ejus tonsi sint, et uxor [ejus] si non velato capite ambulaverit, pariter a laicis contemnentur, et ab Ecclesia separentur.'[1]
Shortly before the Anglo-Norman invasion, there is reason to believe that some of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries in the land were married men; but, on the other hand, these cases must have been exceptional, for Giraldus Cambrensis, who delights in mentioning anything he can find disparaging to the Irish Church, whilst he charges the Irish clergy with habitual drunkenness, says that they are especially eminent for the virtue of continence, and goes on to remark that it may be considered almost a miracle that where wine has the dominion lust does not rule also. On the other hand, there was still in his day much resemblance between the Welsh and the Irish; and he tells us that in the Welsh Church there was to be found a married clergy, for he says, 'The sons after the decease of their fathers succeed to the ecclesiastical benefices not by election, but by hereditary right, possessing and polluting the sanctuary of God.' He also tells us that the same habit was followed in Brittany—a
- ↑ Haddan and Stubbs Councils and Eccl. Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. ii. p. 328. Some MSS. omit the word ejus, put in brackets above, and the cardinal builds greatly on this. To any ordinary person, 'a man and wife' and 'a man and his wife' would mean the same thing.
