The drive towards ever greater clerical standards was undeniably powerful in the early part of the sixteenth century. The Humanist ideal of a clerical paragon, a godly priest who would serve as a model for lay piety was gaining popularity. Arguments on subjects ranging from fornication to education ranged across Europe, while in the archdiocese of Cashel, teachers were forbidden to admit to their lectures those, “de quibus non est spes quod in ecclesia Dei profecerint,” of whom there was no hope that he would progress in the church of
God.80 Only the very best of candidates were to be accepted into the priesthood.
These words serve to highlight the precarious position of the secular clergy. The clerics operated at the forefront of the spiritual battleground, labouring within the parishes in chapels and churches across Europe. The structure of the Church was such that although its influence was all pervasive, primary contact with the laity was through these parish priests. These curates resided amongst their parishioners and were often drawn from a similar background. Intellectually and economically, the differences between peasant and priest were often small, although in matters of spirituality, the distinction was significant. A beneficed clergyman was responsible for the cure of souls; more specifically, it was only through the person of the priest that the laity could fulfil their obligations. Last rites and baptism, confession and marriage, these all came under the curate’s purview. Most important of all, however, was the mass itself, and only a priest could perform the rites. This ‘sacred superiority’ set the priest over and above his parishioners.
Conversely, though, it also put him at their mercy. In England and Wales, regular visitations were enacted at diocesan and archdiocesan level, in which the laity were free to air any grievances about their parochial incumbent with the visitors. Similar, if less well documented, visitations were carried out in Ireland; Jefferies has found that in the diocese of Clogher, episcopal visits were held twice each year, once in May and again by All Hallows.81 The only Irish visitation record to survive the Tudor period is that for two deaneries of Armagh, dated to 1546. The contents of this show investigations into the celebration of mass, celibacy, recitation of divine office and enquiries with the laity;82 they betray striking
80 ‘Concilium provincial Cashellense Limerici celebratum, in quo sequential statute ordinate sunt, 1453’ in D. Wilkins (Ed.) Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae ab Anno MCCCL ad Annum MDXLV (London, 1737), 568.
81 H.A. Jefferies, ‘Papal letters and the Irish Clergy’, 81-101. 82
Idem., ‘The visitation of the parishes of Armagh inter hibernicos in 1546’, in C. Dillon and H.A. Jefferies, eds., Tyrone: history and society (Dublin, 2000), 163-180.
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similarities between the visitations in Clogher and those in England. Despite a lack of direct evidence, it is likely that a similar custom was perpetuated throughout Ireland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including the south-western dioceses. An archiepiscopal levy of Cork parishes from 1437 (compiled for an archdiocesan visitation) emphasises the occurrence of visitations in Cashel.83
Priests had to maintain cordial relationships with their parishioners to avoid lawsuits, whether capricious or deserving. Even so, clerics were often the victims of this process. One particularly inadequate English priest of Saltash, in Devon, suffered a series of vicious attacks accusing him of fornication, drunkenness, failure to administer the last rites, rape, a failure to teach, and much more besides.84 Beyond this, the laity held the ultimate sanction; the ability to withhold revenue. Largely reliant upon tithes for their income, beneficed priests were incredibly vulnerable to a discontented and organised parish. Furthermore, it seems that such an embargo carried at least a degree of official approval – it certainly resonates with Pope Gregory VII’s assertion that the masses of unfit priests should be shunned.85
Similarly, the early fifteenth century dialogue, Dives and Pauper, offers several canonistic reasons for the non-payment of tithes.86
Priests did not solely come under pressure from the laity. Bishops and other office holders exerted their authority over clerics frequently through various means, from episcopal judgements that terminated disputes, to diocesan and archdiocesan synods. In the archdiocesan synod of Cashel from 1453, which contains over 100 tenets, there are many which enjoin the laity to follow certain behavioural codes, but still more that constrain clerical conduct. For example, article two instructed that the hours of prayer and other festivals must be rung on three bells, on penalty of a 40d fine.87 Another ordained that each church must hold at least three images, “the blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Cross and the patron of the place, in whose honour the church is dedicated, as well as an honourable and
83 PROI MS 2N.60.4B
84 R.N. Swanson, ‘Problems of the Priesthood in Pre-Reformation England’, The English Historical Review, 105, 417 (October, 1990), 845-6. Swanson’s article provides a very useful summary of the secular clergy in England. Given the contemporary intention that ecclesia inter anglicos should be a reproduction of the English ecclesiastical construct, its conclusions remain relevant in an Irish context.
85 R.I. Moore, The Origins of European Dissent (London, 1963), 54-5.
86 P.H. Barnum, ed, Dives and Pauper, Volumes 1-2; Volume 280 of Early English Text Society (Original
Series) (Oxford, 1980).
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consecrated vessel for the body of Christ.”88
These injunctions met with many others to directly influence the secular clergy.
Nevertheless, for many in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, priesthood remained an attractive career; consequently, personal ambition provided yet another strain upon the relationship between priest and cure. Significantly, numbers of priests were high. One estimate has suggested that a ratio of 1:32 (priests to laity) existed in Scotland,89 while Swanson has calculated that 4-6% of the population of Norwich were in major orders.90 Similar figures are harder to calculate for Ireland, due to a scarcity of sources, but the number of delations in the Calendars of Papal Letters suggests that there was a reasonable degree of competition for benefices in the south-western dioceses. Between 1477 and 1482, there were 21 letters of litigation relating to the dioceses of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, which sought to deprive a priestly incumbent to the good fortune of the author. These comprised 60% of the total number of letters involving these sees in that period91 and indicate significant competition for clerical postings.
In his famous Convocation Sermon, John Colet, the Dean of St Paul’s, expounded upon the numerous failings of the Church and its clerics, before continuing that, “we should be reformed... we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world... But this reformation and restoration in ecclesiastical affairs must needs begin with you... your priests and the whole clergy.”92
An orthodox reformer, Colet was speaking not of Protestant Reformation; he envisioned no grand break with Rome but a wealth of smaller changes designed to improve the Church. Significantly though, the Dean emphasises the role of the secular clergy. Despite their problematic position, such was their spiritual influence that they were the best tool for the promulgation of reform amongst the laity. Consequently, it becomes important to investigate their readiness for the oncoming storm, to consider how they would react to the upheaval of the reformations.
88Ibid., 565.
89 L.B. Macfarlane, William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland (Aberdeen, 1995), 164. 90 R.N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1994), 109.
91 Whitman, ‘A succession dispute ‘, 36. 92
J. Colet, ‘Convocation Sermon’, in J.H. Lupton, A life of John Colet; with appendix of some of his English writings (London, 1909), 293-304.
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In the south-western dioceses of Ireland, the ministry of the secular clergy was largely adequate, if defined by local polities. The presence of Anglo-Norman over Gaelic elites created a marked distinction, one which had a heavier emphasis on the parish. Although there were significant areas that required reform, the laity were, in the main, contented and the provision for worship sufficient. In the context of the early sixteenth century, this would translate into the absence of any real reforming zeal.
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