History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume II Part 51

718 See some curious evidence of the extent to which the practice of the hereditary transmission of ecclesiastical offices was carried, in Lea, pp. 149, 150, 266, 299, 339.

719 Lea, pp. 271, 292, 422.

720 Ibid. pp. 186-187.

721 Lea, p. 358.

722 Ibid. p. 296.

723 Ibid. p. 322.

724 Ibid. p. 349.

725 The reader may find the most ample evidence of these positions in Lea. See especially pp. 138, 141, 153, 155, 260, 344.

726 Synesius, _Ep._ cv.

727 Lea, p. 122. St. Augustine had named _his_ illegitimate son Adeodatus, or the Gift of G.o.d, and had made him a princ.i.p.al interlocutor in one of his religious dialogues.

_ 728 Dialog._ iv. 11.

729 This is mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon, who was a contemporary.

(Lea, p. 293.)

730 The first notice of this very remarkable precaution is in a canon of the Council of Palencia (in Spain) held in 1322, which anathematises laymen who compel their pastors to take concubines. (Lea, p. 324.) Sleidan mentions that it was customary in some of the Swiss cantons for the parishioners to oblige the priest to select a concubine as a necessary precaution for the protection of his female parishioners.

(Ibid. p. 355.) Sarpi, in his _Hist. of the Council of Trent_, mentions (on the authority of Zuinglius) this Swiss custom. Nicolas of Clemangis, a leading member of the Council of Constance, declared that this custom had become very common, that the laity were firmly persuaded that priests _never_ lived a life of real celibacy, and that, where no proofs of concubinage were found, they always a.s.sumed the existence of more serious vice. The pa.s.sage (which is quoted by Bayle) is too remarkable to be omitted. "Taceo de fornicationibus et adulteriis a quibus qui alieni sunt probro caeteris ac ludibrio esse solent, spadonesque aut sodomitae appellantur; denique laici usque adeo persuasum habent nullos caelibes esse, ut in plerisque parochiis non aliter velint presbyterum tolerare nisi concubinam habeat, quo vel sic suis sit consultum uxoribus, quae nec sic quidem usquequaque sunt extra periculum." Nic. de Clem. _De Praesul. Simoniac._ (Lea, p.

386.)

731 This was energetically noticed by Luther, in his famous sermon "De Matrimonio," and some of the Catholic preachers of an earlier period had made the same complaint. See a curious pa.s.sage from a contemporary of Boccaccio, quoted by Meray, _Les Libres precheurs_, p. 155. "Vast numbers of laymen separated from their wives under the influence of the ascetic enthusiasm which Hildebrand created."-Lea, p. 254.

732 "Quando enim servata fide thori causa prolis conjuges conveniunt sic excusatur coitus ut culpam non habeat. Quando vero deficiente bono prolis fide tamen servata conveniunt causa incontinentiae non sic excusatur ut non habeat culpam, sed venialem.... Item hoc quod conjugati victi concupiscentia utuntur invicem, ultra necessitatem liberos procreandi, ponam in his pro quibus quotidie dicimus Dimitte n.o.bis debita nostra.... Unde in sententiolis s.e.xti Pythagorici legitur 'omnis ardentior amator propriae uxoris adulter est.' "-Peter Lombard, _Sentent._ lib. iv. dist. 31.

733 Many wives, however, were forbidden. (Deut. xvii. 17.) Polygamy is said to have ceased among the Jews after the return from the Babylonish captivity.-Whewell's _Elements of Morality_, book iv. ch.

v.

734 Levit. xii. 1-5.

735 Ecclesiasticus, xiii. 14. I believe, however, the pa.s.sage has been translated "Better the badness of a man than the blandishments of a woman."

736 This curious fact is noticed by Le Blant, _Inscriptions chretiennes de la Gaule_, pp. xcvii.-xcviii.

737 See the decree of a Council of Auxerre (A.D. 578), can. 36.

738 See the last two chapters of Troplong, _Influences du Christianisme sur le Droit_ (a work, however, which is written much more in the spirit of an apologist than in that of an historian), and Legouve, pp. 27-29.

739 Even in matters not relating to property, the position of women in feudalism was a low one. "Tout mari," says Beaumanoir, "peut battre sa femme quand elle ne veut pas obeir a son commandement, ou quand elle le maudit, ou quand elle le dement, pourvu que ce soit moderement et sans que mort s'ensuive," quoted by Legouve, p. 148.

Contrast with this the saying of the elder Cato: "A man who beats his wife or his children lays impious hands on that which is most holy and most sacred in the world."-Plutarch, _Marcus Cato_.

740 See Legouve, pp. 29-38; Maine's _Ancient Law_, pp. 154-159.

741 "No society which preserves any tincture of Christian inst.i.tutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law: but the proprietary disabilities of married females stand on quite a different basis from their personal incapacities, and it is by keeping alive and consolidating the former that the expositors of the canon law have deeply injured civilisation. There are many vestiges of a struggle between the secular and ecclesiastical principles; but the canon law nearly everywhere prevailed."-Maine's _Ancient Law_, p. 158. I may observe that the Russian law was early very favourable to the proprietary rights of married women. See a remarkable letter in the _Memoirs of the Princess Daschkaw_ (edited by Mrs. Bradford: London, 1840), vol.

ii. p. 404.

_ 742 Germania_, cap. ix. xviii.-xx.

_ 743 De Gubernatione Dei._

744 See, for these legends, Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_.

745 Tacitus, _Germ._ 9; _Hist._ iv. 18; Xiphilin. lxxi. 3; Amm.

Marcellinus, xv. 12; Vopiscus, _Aurelia.n.u.s_; Floras, iii. 3.

746 Valer. Max. vi. 1; Hieron. _Ep._ cxxiii.

747 Plutarch, _De Mulier. Virt._

748 Plutarch, _Amatorius_; Xiphilin. lxvi. 16; Tacit. _Hist._ iv. 67.

The name of this heroic wife is given in three different forms.

749 On the polygamy of the first, see Greg. Tur. iv. 26; on the polygamy of Chilperic, Greg. Tur. iv. 28; v. 14.

750 Greg. Tur. iv. 3.

751 Ibid. iii. 25-27, 36.

752 Fredegarius, x.x.xvi.

753 Ibid. lx.

754 Eginhardus, _Vit. Kar. Mag._ xviii. Charlemagne had, according to Eginhard, four wives, but, as far as I can understand, only two at the same time.

755 Smyth's _Lectures on Modern History_, vol. i. pp. 61-62.

756 Milman's _Hist. of Latin Christianity_, vol. i. p. 363; Legouve, _Hist. Morale des Femmes_, p. 57.

757 See, on these laws, Lord Kames _On Women_; Legouve, p. 57.

758 Favorinus had strongly urged it. (Aul. Gell. _Noct._ xii. 1.)

759 These are the reasons given by Malthus, _On Population_, book iii.

ch. ii.

760 St. Augustine (_De Conj. Adult._ ii. 19) maintains that adultery is even more criminal in the man than in the woman. St. Jerome has an impressive pa.s.sage on the subject: "Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, aliae Christi; aliud Papia.n.u.s, aliud Paulus nostri praecepit. Apud illos viris impudicitiae fraena laxantur et solo stupro atque adulterio condemnato pa.s.sim per lupanaria et ancillulas libido permitt.i.tur, quasi culpam dignitas faciat non voluntas. Apud nos quod non licet feminis aeque non licet viris; et eadem servitus pari conditione censetur."-_Ep._ lxxvii. St. Chrysostom writes in a similar strain.

761 See Troplong, _Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit_, pp.

239-251.

762 We find, however, traces of a toleration of the Roman type of concubine in Christianity for some time. Thus, a Council of Toledo decreed: "Si quis habens uxorem fidelis concubinam habeat non communicet. Caeterum is qui non habet uxorem et pro uxore concubinam habet a communione non repellatur, tantum ut unius mulieris, aut uxoris aut concubinae ut ei placuerit, sit conjunctione contentus."-1 _Can._ 17. St. Isidore said: "Christiano non dicam plurimas sed nec duas simul habere licitum est, nisi unam tantum aut uxorem, aut certo loco uxoris, si conjux deest, concubinam."-_Apud Gratianum_, diss. 4. Quoted by Natalis Alexander, _Hist. Eccles._ Saec. I. diss.

29. Mr. Lea (_Hist. of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, pp. 203-205) has devoted an extremely interesting note to tracing the history of the word concubine through the middle ages. He shows that even up to the thirteenth century a concubine was not necessarily an abandoned woman. The term was applied to marriages that were real, but not officially recognised. Coleridge notices a remarkable instance of the revival of this custom in German history.-_Notes on English Divines_ (ed. 1853), vol. i. p. 221.