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160 Chapter 3
Again, it is not so surprising that the papacy was compliant with
the wishes of kings in relation to married clerics. Popes did not
hold any particular brief for this awkward marginal category. It is
likely that the celibate higher clergy generally looked down on them
for having things both ways. So if the papacy had simply agreed
to reclassify married clerics as subject to secular justice, adequate
explanations in terms of power interests and ingrained prejudices
would be at hand and one would not have to bring marriage symbolism
into the account.
It is clear, however, that popes did not feel they could simply turn
a large category of clerics over to secular justice without implicitly
abandoning the idea that only the church courts judged the clergy.
That idea was clearly stronger than any prejudice there may have
been against clerics who could not cope with celibacy.The popes
could not abandon married clerics purely because they were married:
so long as the marriage was not against canon law, they would
be abandoning them as clerics.
The ‘bigamy’ theory helped the popes to meet monarchs half
way. It gave them a principled rationale for giving kings some of
what they wanted without running the risk of conceding the thin
end of the wedge. Their cooperation with kings could be quite
genuinely presented as a sti·ening of canon-law principle rather
than a dilution of it.
In fact, a strong current of academic canon-law opinion seems
to have been in favour of some such change, though it was not the
only view. The commentary on the Decretals of Gregory IX by
Innocent IV (Sinibaldo dei Fieschi) was apparently written when
he was already pope (incredibly enough, and an encouragement to
all administrators with academic urges). He argues thus in the passage
printed below as Document 3. 2. Ifaclericinminororders
does something altogether contrary to his status, he loses it. The
examples are: marrying for a second time or marrying a woman
not a virgin; or becoming a knight and employing violence (seva
exercuerit)—by which he presumably means becoming a real fighting
knight as opposed to acquiring this status for the sake of social
esteem, administrative oce, etc. On the other hand, if someone
became the kind of knight who did not use violence or if he married
a virgin, he could keep his clerical status. The fact that Innocent
IV apparently assumes that one could be a knight and a
Vergier-Boimond, ‘Bigamie (l’irr‹egularit‹e de)’, 872.