148 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 10. 
“ The history above-mentioned of Ralph, the chap- 
lain’s marriage, and his wife’s presenting him to the 
rectory, is a piece of antiquity highly valuable, as it 
fully and plainly proves, that in the year 1174, when 
Turbus, the Bishop of Norwich died, the church of 
Rome allowed of the marriage of the clergy, and their 
sons succeeding them in their church preferments, and 
that there was no positive law, either canon or civil, to 
hinder it, as their own records and the register of 
Langley testify. And it is further to be observed that 
one of the witnesses in this cause deposed, that he 
knew Ringolf the grandfather, Ralph the son, and 
Hermerus the grandson, all rectors successively of the 
church of Randworth with Pankford chapel annexed, 
and the same thing was also deposed by Ralph, 
chaplain of Randworth, son of Hermer.” 
I take the following passage from Henry’s His- 
tory of England, vol. viii. p. 36. (edit. 1814) :— 
‘* What were called ipso facto or ipso jure suspensions 
and deprivations (by which those priests who were 
guilty of certain irregularities and vices were declared 
to be suspended from their offices, or deprived of their 
benefices), came first into use in this period (13th cen- 
tury). The first example we meet with of suspension 
and deprivation of this kind is in the constitutions of 
Otho, the Pope’s legate, in the synod of London, a. p. 
1237, By the 15th of these constitutions it is decreed, 
that all married priests be ipso jure deprived of their 
benefices, that all their goods, even those which they 
had gotten with their wives, be applied to the use of 
the church, and that their children be incapable of 
church-preferments. But this was an obstinate plague 
(as they ealled it) which for several centuries baffled 
all the power and cunning of the court of Rome, and 
required extraordinary methods to drive it out of the 
church.” CAWAG: 
Instances of married priests are by no means 
of uncommon occurrence in ancient charters, at 
least down to the end of Edward IIL; were it 
necessary, I could furnish your correspondent with 
several examples from charters in my possession. 
The following passage from Sir Roger ‘Twysden’s 
Defence of the Church will, I think, supply a satis- 
factory answer to your correspondent. it occurs 
chap. ix. p. 204—5. of Professor Corrie’s edi- 
tion : — 
“ For permitting of matrimony to the clergy, it is 
undoubted all here had the liberty of marrying before 
Lanfrane, in a council held at Worcester (Winchester 
—note), 1076, did rather advise than command the 
contrary, which Huntindon (who was himself the son 
of one in holy orders) says was first prohibited by 
Anselm, 1102. But * multi presbyterorum  statuta 
concilii Londoniensis . . . postponentes, suas feminas 
retinebant, aut certe duxerant quas prius non habebant,’ 
&e.; so that his constitutions came quickly neglected 
—Ppriests both marrying and retayning their wives.... 
Divers constitutions were afterwards made by several 
legates in the point, as by Stephen Langton at Oxford, 
1222, registered by Lyndewode; yet it is manifest 
they did secretly contract marriage, which some are 
of opinion they continued till towards the end of 
Edward the Third’s reign. This I am the rather in- 
duced to believe out of that in Knyghton, that John 
de Athilwerl, clerk, was slain by his wife and servant 
in his own house, at Leicester, 1344, for which fact 
she was burnt and he hanged. Now I conceive, had 
she been only his concubine, or his servant, she had 
not sufferred by the judgment of burning for the 
murder, but hanging only ; neither can I interpret the 
word ‘ clericus’ for other than one in holy orders pro- 
hibited marriage by the canons of Rome; though I 
know ‘large loquendo,’ as our Lyndewode hath it, 
‘omnes in ecclesia ad divinum officium ordinati,’ are 
sometimes so styled; of which, such as were ‘infra 
subdiaconatum ’ might retain their wives, but those who 
were in ‘subdiaconatu,’ or above, were to quit them, 
But the canons yet remaining, made at sundry times 
from Lanfrane even to Chichele, by the space of more 
than three hundred years, enough assure us this point 
of celibate was not easily imposed on the English 
clergy, and that such as laid it might take it off 
again.” 
From the above historical statement we might 
be prepared for the instances of priests’ wives 
which every now and then occur in old charters. 
Ryarsh Vicarage. Lampert B. Larkine. 
If you do not think that enough already has 
been said upon this subject, I should be glad to 
direct your attention to a passage from Chaucer 
cited in Campbell's valuable and most interesting 
Lives of the Lord Chancellors (vol. i. p. 259.). 
The noble and learned author gives a conclusive 
answer to your correspondent’s difficulty, when, 
writing of William of Wickham, he says— 
“Tt has been supposed that he had early taken 
deacon’s orders, because in 1352 he was styled ‘clericus,’ 
or elvrk ; but this designation was given to men in civil 
employments, although not in the Church, and hitherto 
he had no ecclesiastical function or benefice. On the 
6th of December, 1361, he was admitted to the order 
of ‘acolyte; he was ordained subdeacon on 12th 
March, 1362, and priest on 12th June following.” 
D. of L. O. Wm. Harpy. 
On the floor of the chancel of Nutfield church, 
Surrey, are some brass plates representing a man 
in the ordinary civilian’s dress, and a lady in a long 
gown by his side, neither of them presenting any 
peculiarities of costume; under them, however, is 
the following inscription :— 
“ Orate pro animabus Willielmi Grafton quondam 
clerici hujus ecelesie et Johanne uxoris ejusdem et 
Johannis filii eorundem, quorum animabus propitietur 
deus. Amen.” 
The man has no tonsure. Over them are two coats 
of arms, the one bearing Or, a chevron, the other 
the same impaling a saltire. ‘There is no date on 
the monument, but, from the costume and execu- 
tion, it may be placed somewhere about the year 
1450. The absence of the tonsure and ecclesias- 
tical dress seem to show that William Grafton did 
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