The Public Debate on Clerical Marriage in the Late Eleventh Century

• Autores: Leidulf Melve
• Localización: Journal of ecclesiastical history, ISSN 0022-0469, Vol. 61, Nº 4, 2010, págs. 688-706
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The article offers an analysis of the public debate on priestly marriage, conducted in the last decades of the eleventh century. This was the first debate on the subject in six hundred years, erupting in the context of the reform movement. Although the theme of priestly marriage was mentioned in the Carolingian period as well as in the tenth and first half of the eleventh century, it was the anonymous defence of clerical marriage, the Epistola de continentia clericorum, that gave rise to a wide-ranging public debate. The article examines this debate in terms of the argumentative approaches used by the participants, the aim being to emphasise an important undercurrent in the understanding of priestly marriage contrary to the official – or Gratian – view on the issue.