At 09:06 PM 12/28/00 -0000, you wrote:
>[snip]
>
>orderic vitalis mentions a certain physician (forgot
>his name) who was a canon of Chartres, and who also
>happened to be married and was not, apparently, a cleric
>of any kind.
>
>We need to be clear about our terms here (with due respect, Christopher).
>The physician may not have been a "cleric" in the modern sense but if he was
>a University-trained physician (as opposed to a barber-surgeon) then he was
>definitely "Clericus" in the Neck-Verse, benefit-of-the-Clergy sense.
>
>As I understand it, the post-Gregorian position was that a Canon could be in
>Minor as opposed to Major Orders; a man in Minor Orders MIGHT marry BUT if a
>Canon married he was expected to forfeit his prebend. Possibly where such a
>canon had family influence his matrimonial status might be overlooked .....
>
>BMC
>
Even married laymen held the office of Abbots in some monasteries. You can
see this at MonteCassion in the monumental funary scultures of the main
church. In effect the office which was proper to the clerical or monastic
sense, came to be conceived as having its own independence and its civil
duties which became preeminate in the management of large estates, to its
original spiritual duties, were often bestowed upon laymen. I'd expect this
to be more common in the late Medieval and Tridentine periods. Certainly
bishops for example held the office of counts, and increasingly bishops
were thus considered secular nobles; hence the investiture controversy; but
this is another level.
So I see no necessary, exclusive reason for a canon to be a cleric in the
hiearchical sense; but rather in the sense of a clerk to day; that is an
official. You'd have to know about the local situation to discern more
aptly whether a given cannonry was peopled by layment or clergy; though the
presumption is clergy.
Sincerely in Christ,
Br. Alexis Bugnolo
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