At 10:00 AM 9/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Mr Darron: I should think that the basic "popular opposition" to
>clerical privilege can be found in the teaching of all the so-called
>heresies, ranging from the Cathars to the Waldensians.
this is actually a form of apostolic thinking -- going back to a time when
there were no clergy and men and women were not separated in the
religiously dedicated community. we see it clearly in the early 11th
century in what some french historians call the "le grand refus." the fact
that the emergence of the clergy in the 3rd century was linked to the
"monarchical" episcopacy, a form of religious organization that mimicked
that of the roman empire -- aristocratic hierarchy and all -- made the
clergy a notable target of many anti-authoritarian millennial groups as well.
>They are often
>neglected because of the desire to see a unified Christian society under
>the Roman church in the middle ages.
you mean a desire on the part of modern historians?
>But at the time ..... The
>"governmental opposition" is to be found in the hostility of secular
>princes and town governments to aspects of the privilegium fori and to
>clerical exemption from taxes.
also hostility to the inquisitorial practices of the clergy, which depended
on the secular authorities to do the executing.
>Other than suggesting that you read the
>magnificent Gabrial Le Bras, I think that Prof. Brundage at Kansas is the
>best one to give you a lot of information on that point. Besides, secular
>governments, whether princely and urban republican, often insisted with
>some success on appointing clergy, which constitutes a related problem.
>There the scholarly literature is vast ("also vast", I really should say),
>and includes such wonderful studies as those of Geoffrey Barraclough on
>Papal Provisions of 1935 and Dietrich Kurze on Pfarrerwahlen im
>Mittelalter of 1966. Yours, John Mundy
>
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