Publication details
Mates of Priests in the Archdiocese of Prague at the Turn of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in Narrative and Administrative Sources
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Legally, the mandatory celibacy of priests was decreed by the second Lateran council (1139), however, priests and clerics accepted this demand very slowly in Bohemian lands. During the 13th century, the reformist efforts of the Prague bishops led to the situation when marriage of the clergy was no longer seen as a social norm but the reality of the priests did not change fundamentally. During the 14th and early 15th centuries, we still find evidence many priests of sharing a household with their mates, which was frowned upon by their ecclesiastical superiors. In this paper, I will focus on these women and their position in the Prague archdiocese at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, using a variety of sources. The problem of priests’ concubinage commonly appears in both the synodal sermons and the official records, i.e. as synodal statutes and acts of corrector cleri who served among the diocese clergy as a criminal judge. |
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