In message <004601c49f28$ca351080$6e67e150@j3k4c7>, Donald Tomkinson <don.tomkinson@lineone.net> writes >I'd be grateful if someone could tell me the year when English clergy >were permitted to, and did, marry. the rot set in in 1534 or so - monks emerging from the dissolved monastries had never been allowed to marry, but some now did. Cloistered clergy were not allowed to marry at all before this. Parish clergy, even in mediaeval times, were always likely to marry (needing a wife to look after the animals on the glebe etc.) Marriage was also frowned on even soon after 1534 for the upper clergy, like Bishops (which is not to say they didn't from the time when Henry VIII split from the Pope). Most people accepted marriage for the clergy after 1560ish -However, famously, Elizabeth on meeting the wife of a Bishop quite some way down her reign, was very sniffy 'Madame I may not call you., Mistress I scorn to call you, therefore I know not what i may call you' - and swep' past Curiously, Fellows of Oxford and Cambridge were not supposed to marry while they retained their University appointment (till at least c1870) A few did, slipping over the border into Bucks to do so, and keeping their women tucked away out of the City. > -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

Further to what Eve has said on the subject, there have been married clergy for hundreds of years and certainly way before the Reformation. There were periodic "drives" initiated from Rome to have the practice outlawed but it was never wholly successful. One example that springs readily to my mind is the 2nd Bishop of Lincoln (1092-1123) who had also been Chief Justiciar,Chancellor and a confidant of 2 kings .He was initially a clerk in the royal household. He had a son who became Dean of Lincoln. During the Bishop's time one of the earliest "drives" was started. All this is well documented by Henry of Huntingdon. Frequent mentions are made in early Visitations of the clergy being married or co-habiting. ---------------------------------------- My Inbox is protected by SPAMfighter 1733 spam mails have been blocked so far. Download free www.spamfighter.com today!

In message <001d01c4a0be$6e135e50$a2a42e50@john>, John <overholt@tiscali.co.uk> writes >Further to what Eve has said on the subject, there have been married clergy >for hundreds of years and certainly way before the Reformation. It was common for parish clergy, but frowned on for manstics, and ooh wicked, smack wrist, for cathedral clergy. Which, of course, never stopped a determined lecher. > >There were periodic "drives" initiated from Rome to have the practice >outlawed but it was never wholly successful. > One example that springs readily to my mind is the 2nd Bishop of Lincoln >(1092-1123) >who had also been Chief Justiciar,Chancellor and a confidant of 2 kings >.He was initially a clerk in the royal household. >He had a son who became Dean of Lincoln. During the Bishop's time one of >the earliest "drives" was started. True enough (and wasn't he a royal bastard to begin with?) But it was polite to call the offspring 'nephews' - and even the Popes had those, in quantity -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society