mentioned in the following extracts, was also a place of a similar description:—
"April 25. 1682.—About nine, this night, it began to lighten, thunder, and rain. The next morning, there was the greatest flood in St. James's Park ever remembered. It came round about the fences, and up to the gravel walks—people could not walk to Webb's and Storie's.
"April 3, 1685.—This afternoon nine or ten houses were burned or blown up, that looked into S. James's Park, between Webb's and Storie's."—Diary of Phillip Madox, MS. formerly in the possession of Thorpe the bookseller.
No. 3. Capel Court.—So named from Sir William Capell, draper, Lord Mayor in 1503, whose mansion stood on the site of the present Stock Exchange.—Pennant's Common-place Book.
No. 4. Bloomsbury Market.—This market, built by the Duke of Bedford, was opened in March, 1730. Query, was there a market on the site before?—Ibid.
No. 5. Bartlet's Buildings.—Mackeril's Quaker Coffee-house, frequently mentioned at the beginning of the last century, was in these buildings.– Ibid.
No. 6. St. Olave's, Crutched Friars.—Names of various persons who have occupied houses in this parish: Lady Sydney, 1586—Lady Walsingham, 1590—Lady Essex, 1594—Lord Lumley, 1594 —Viscount Sudbury, 1629—Philip Lord Herbert, 1646—Dr. Gibbon, 1653—Sir R. Ford, 1653—Lord Brounker, 1673—Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1700—Extracts from the Registers made by the Rev. H. Goodhall, 1818.
WIVES OF ECCLESIASTICS
In reply to your correspondent's query as to the "wives of ecclesiastics," I find amongst my notes one to this effect:—
ERROR, to assume in ancient genealogies that a branch is necessarily extinct, simply because the last known representative is described as "Clericus," and ergo, must have died S.P.L.
It will be obvious to many of your readers that Clericus is nomen generale for all such as were learned in the arts of reading and writing, and whom the old law deemed capable of claiming benefit of clergy,—a benefit not confined to those in orders, if the ordinary's deputy standing by could say "legit ut clericus."
The title of Clericus, then, in earlier times as now, belonged not only to those in the holy ministry of the Church, and to whom more strictly applied the term Clergy, either regular or secular, but to those as well who by their function or course of life practised their pens in any court or otherwise, as Clerk of the King's Wardrobe, Clerks of the Exchequer, &c. Though in former times clerks of this description were frequently in holy orders and held benefices, it must be evident that they were not all so of necessity; and the instances are so numerous where persons having the title of "Clericus" appear nevertheless to have been in the married state, and to have discharged functions incompatible with the service of the Church, that the assertion will not be denied that the restrictions as to contracting matrimonial alliances did not extend to clerks not in holy orders or below the grade of subdiaconus. The Registrum Brevium furnishes a precedent of a writ, "De clerico infra sacros ordines constituto non eligendo in officium." This distinction alone would prove that other clerks were not ineligible to office. The various decrees of the Church may be cited to show that the prohibition to marry did not include all clerks generally. Pope Gregory VII., in a synod held in 1074, "interdixit clericis, maxime divino ministerio consecratis uxores habere, vel cum mulicribus habitare, nisi quas Nicena Synodus vel alii canones exceperunt."
The statutes made by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas, Archbishop elect of York, and all the other bishops of England, in 1108, in presence of King Henry I., and with the assent of his barons, confine the interdiction respecting marriages to Presbyteri, Diaconi et Subdiaconi, and a provision is made by them for those cases where marriages had been contracted since the interdict at the Council of London (that probably in 1103), viz. that such should be precluded thereafter from celebrating mass, if they persist in retaining their wives. "Illi vero presbyteri, diaconi, subdiaconi, qui post interdictum Londoniensis Concilii foeminas suas tenuerunt vel alins duxcrunt, si amplius missam celebrare voluerint, eas a se omnino sic facient alienas, ut nec illae in domos eorum, nec ipsi in domos earum intrent.... Illi autem presbyteri qui divini altaris et sacrorum ordinum contemptores praelegerint cum mulicribus habitare a divino officio remoti, omnique ecclesiastico beneficio privati, extra chorum ponantur, infames pronunciati. Qui vero rebellis et contemptor foeminam non reliquerit, et missam celebrare presumpserit, vocatus ad satisfactionem si neglexerit, viiij. die excommunicetur. Eadem sententia archidiaconos et cononicos omnes complectitur, et de mulieribus relinquendis et de vitanda carum conversatione, et de districtione censurae si statuta transgressi fuerint.... Presbyteri vero qui relictis mulieribus, Deo et sacris altaribus servire elegerint, xl. dies ab officio cessantes, pro se interim vicarios habebunt, injuncta eis poenitentia secundum hoc quod episcopis corum visum fuerit." In 1138 the penalty for priests marrying was deprivation of their benefices, and exclusion from the celebration of divine service:—"Sanctorum patrum vestigiis inhaerentes, presbyteros, diaconos, subdiaconos uxoratos, aut concubinarios, ecclesiasticis officiis et beneficiis privamus, ac ne quis eorum missam audire praesumat Apostolica auctoriate prohibemus."
Many such decrees have been made at various synods and councils holden for reformation of the clergy, but I can find none wherein marriage is interdicted to clerks generally. I will refer to one more only, viz. that made in the Council of London, held at Westminster in 1175. Here it will be seen most distinctly that the prohibition against entering the marriage state was confined expressly to Clerici in sacris ordinibus constituti, and that is was not only lawful for clerks below the grade of subdeacon to marry, but that having subsequently once entered the marriage state and being subsequently desirous ad religionem transire, and to continue in the service of the Church, they could not do so and be separated from their wives unless de communi consensu; if they continued, however, to live with their wives, they could not hold an ecclesiastical benefice: "Si quis sacerdos vel clericus in sacris ordinibus constitutus, ecclesiam vel ecclesiasticum beneficium habens publice fornicarium habeat," &c.... "Si qui vero infra subdiaconatum constituti matrimonia contraxerint, ab uxoribus sius nisi de communi consensu ad religionem transire voluerint, et ibi in Dei servitio vigilanter permanere, nullatenus separentur: sed cum uxoribus viventes, ecclesiastica benficia nullo modo percipiant. Qui autem in subdiaconatu, vel supra, ad matrimonia convolaverint, mulieres etiam invitas et renitentes relinquant."
This it will be seen that the title "Clericus" under some circumstances, affords no certain indication that a lawful marriage may not have been contracted by the person so described and consequently that he might not have prolem legitimam.
It does not follow that William de Bolton was an ecclesiastic because he was called Clericus; that designation being, even in that early time, often used in a lay sense.
I have just come across an instance of a prior date. In the Liberate Roll of 26 Henry III. the king directs a payment to be made "to Isabella, the wife of our beloved clerk, Robert of Canterbury, to purchase a robe for our use." Even in the reign of Richard I. it may be doubtful whether the term was not used with both meanings; for in the charter of Walter Mapes, granting certain lands, among the witnesses are "Rogero, capellano, Willelmo, capellano, Thoma, clerico meo, Waltero, clerico, Jacobo, clerico, Bricio, fermario meo."
[In addition to the information afforded by the preceding communications "A SUBSCRIBER" will find much curious illustration of this subject in Beveridge's Discourses on the Thirty-Nine Articles, where he treats of the Thirty-second article "On the Marriage of Priests."
He must however consult the edition printed at the Oxford University Press in 1840, which contains for the first time Beveridge's Discourses on the last Nine
