GROWTH OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH 283 married lives, 1 but the rule was often poorly observed, and Gregory the Great had to instruct the bishops Celibacy of of Gaul concerning it in his day. In the tenth the cler sy and eleventh centuries there were many married clergy in England, in northern Italy, in Germany, and elsewhere.
- Those who believed in the celibacy of the clergy not only
regarded such priests as leading impure and sinful lives, but had another cogent reason for prohibiting clerical marriage. Married priests were too liable to transmit to their sons their ecclesiastical offices and the church property under ! their care. If the Church was to remain a career open to every one, an institution where ability might rise to high i position regardless of social rank, and if the clergy were not J to become a hereditary caste, it was felt that they must remain single. Feudalism was threatening to overwhelm the Church as it had overwhelmed almost every other institution and phase of society. The Church was the great- Danger of lest landholder in existence; in the Carolingian becoming 'period one third of all Gaul belonged to the feudalized
- Church, a fact that would have caused Julius Caesar to rub
! his eyes in amazement had he awaked from the grave then. i Most church lands were now in the form of fiefs which the clergy either held as vassals or had granted out as lords to i others. Therefore, there was danger that the clergy would i become mere feudal nobles and forget their religious duties, ! or that greedy feudal nobles who cared nothing for religion would become bishops and abbots to get the use of the church lands. If bishops and abbots were worldly self- seekers, there was little hope that the monks and priests I under their surveillance would be what they should. This entrance of unworthy men into church positions, this climbing of wolves into the sheep-fold, seemed to thoughtful persons of that age to be effected in two ways, by simony and by lay investiture. Simony was an abuse 1 In the East, on the other hand, a church council at Constantinople, in 688-694, declared that those who were already married before taking higher orders need not separate from their wives unless they became bishops, but that must not marry after one had been ordained a subdeacon. onen
