of Anglo-Norman bishops gathered to witness the consecration of two bishops-elect: Samson, to the diocese of Worcester, and Gerard, to the diocese of Hereford.2 These two men represented the two vast spectrums of those who served the episcopacy. Samson, bishop-elect, was married with at least one son. Gerard was committed to the cause and enforcement of clerical celibacy. The other bishops present fell somewhere in between. Thomas I, archbishop of York, brother of Samson, and a priest’s son, had a reputation for chastity. Maurice, bishop of London, was not known for celibacy and supposedly was prescribed an “emission of humours” to remedy his ill health.3 Herbert Losinga, bishop of Norwich, had previously lived an unchaste life but changed for the better and became a model bishop. Gundulf of Rochester was a bishop known for his saintly life. At the head of this party was the archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, whose reputation for holiness and reform was known throughout England and Normandy. At the turn of the eleventh century, these bishops represented the older traditions of the Anglo-Norman clergy and the newer one, based on an ascetic, celibate ideal of clerical life.
As the medieval Church was establishing its control over marriage, redefining it as indissoluble and monogamous, Normans continued to operate under a cultural system that placed control over marriage in the hands of the parties involved. Marriage was dictated by local custom, not by a remote group of reforming clergy.4 There was nothing exceptional about the way that Normans associated marriage and procreation with masculine social status; other medieval cultures made similar connections. The Normans did, however, place great emphasis on the possession of functioning male genitalia. To achieve the social status of a male, one was required to have a functional male body. This is the reason Norman aristocrats frequently engaged in castrating their political enemies, even for nonsexual crimes.5 The ability to govern, over one’s household or one’s locale, was tied to an essentialist definition of masculinity.
Norman culture exalted fecundity as part of a system of “predatory kinship,” a system that would seem to exclude vowed celibates, yet this network of power included ecclesiastics, both married and celibate. In 989, Duke Richard gave the archbishopric of Rouen to his son Robert, who served the see until 1037. Archbishop Robert had three sons with his partner Herleva. William the Bastard continued this tradition and appointed trusted kinsmen to all of the episcopal seats in Normandy. His brother Odo took the see of Bayeux in 1049; he, along with the (married) Hugh of Lisieux, William of Evreux, Ivo of Sées, and John of Avranches, were warriors “drafted into the family business as bishop.”6 In the post-Conquest Church, it was largely the aristocratic elite who entered the elite ranks of bishops, deans, and archdeacons, along with the “new men,” ambitious royal servants who received powerful positions.7 These men were appointed by the king/duke to high ecclesiastical positions and, in many cases, had already established marital households. While the Anglo-Norman Church could include celibate clerics in elite positions, married clerics were certainly not excluded.
The Normans did not transplant the institution of clerical marriage to England with the Conquest of 1066. Clearly, clerical marriage existed among the parish clergy in England before this time.8 The Normans solidified the creation and support of secular cathedral chapters, in which secular canons could hold individual prebends; that many canons were married and passed their prebends to their sons was characteristic of this “new kind of very secular cathedral chapter.”9 Such chapters had existed in Normandy from around the mid-eleventh century but only in England from about 1090. By legitimizing clerical marriage for the elite clergy, by instituting married bishops and allowing their sons to inherit elite ecclesiastical appointments, Normans promoted the idea that marriage and progeny spelled an increase in social and political power. Most of the kings/dukes were complicit in allowing married clerics into their administration and, thus, to public legitimacy; in spite of reformist legislation, clerical marriages persisted and were seen as socially acceptable unions. As long as married bishops, archdeacons, deans, and other church elites existed, parish clerics could assume they too were permitted wives.
This Norman tradition of clerical marriage was well noted by early chroniclers. Gilbert Crispin described the conditions of the Norman Church in the early eleventh century, when “priests and great bishops married freely and carried arms, just like laymen.”10 Bernard of Tiron’s hagiographer highlighted the same conditions, saying that “it was customary throughout Normandy for priests to take wives publicly, to celebrate weddings, and to sire sons and daughters to whom, when they died, they left their churches by hereditary right. When their daughters married, many times, if they had no other possessions, they gave the church as a dowry.” The writer lamented that the priests would swear never to forsake their wives, and, in doing so, “they bound themselves by oath never to stop being fornicators, never to approach the body and blood of Christ except as unworthy criminals.” As Bernard preached celibacy in this region, the clerics’ wives began to fear being cast astray by their husbands. In response, these women attempted to murder Bernard, apparently unsuccessfully. A married archdeacon was so persuaded by Bernard’s eloquent preaching on the subject of fighting carnal sin that he prevented the mob of priests and their wives from harming the preacher.11 According to Orderic Vitalis, the custom of married clergy in Normandy went back to the time of Rollo in the tenth century. Priest were typically trained in warfare, but largely illiterate, and “held their lay fees by military service.” After the Council of Rheims in 1049, priests were forbidden to take wives or bear arms. Orderic cynically stated that “the priests were ready enough to give up bearing arms but even now they are loath to part with their mistresses or to live chaste lives.”12
After the conquest, the custom of clerical marriage was the single largest barrier to the reform of the secular clergy in the Anglo-Norman Church, and it was so for one very particular reason: the secular clergy did not see a conflict between marriage and service to the church. Clerics used marriage in the same manner as others in medieval society: as a medium through which legitimate heirs were created and by which land could be transmitted. In the case of second-generation Normans, the increase of landholdings through marriage was vital to their social status in a time of transition. Men who did not make successful marriages or did not produce legitimate heirs jeopardized the future of their natal family; families who did not expand their kinship network inevitably declined. The extension of a kinship network had always been a strategy of the aristocracy, but it was increasingly important for the “new men,” who had little status in England before entering royal service. By gaining royal favor, and through it increased opportunities for land- and office-holding, the new men were able to increase their social status.13 To preserve that status and expand one’s natal network, it was necessary to marry and produce legitimate sons who could inherit and extend the family’s success. Many nobles married later in life, and some were much older when they had children; this created a system where very young heirs had to be fostered by other people, especially in cases where the father was no longer living.14 There is some indication that the secular clergy also followed such a pattern of late marriage. Writing in the late twelfth century, Gerald of Wales commented that “we have seen many priests remain spotlessly continent … up to the time of becoming a canon and even up to old age—priests who, when they should have completely renounced the world and wholly dedicated themselves to God, have, at the end of their lives, committed open sins of lust and begotten children.”15
Just as marriage and the procreation of legitimate heirs were expected of those wanting to increase and maintain their family’s wealth and social status, a problem arose for the elite clergy, who, under the “new laws,” were unable to expand their family networks in the same manner. Many Anglo-Norman clerics had legitimate families before assuming clerical offices, and those who did not would have had every expectation that marriage and a family were permissible. If a cleric had already entered royal service and was functioning as a chaplain for the king, then, at some point during his service, he faced the reformist decrees on clerical marriage. Roger of Salisbury was one of these civil administrators who served Henry I before he became king. In all likelihood, Roger’s marriage to Matilda of Ramsbury came after his episcopal consecration in 1102; later that same year, he attended Anselm’s first council and would have presumably heard the anti-marriage decrees.16
