Description - Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation by Helen L. Parish
An examination of the debate over clerical marriage in Reformation polemic and of its impact on the English clergy in the second half of the 16th century. Clerical celibacy was more than an abstract theological concept; it was a central image of medieval Catholicism which was shattered by the doctrinal iconoclasm of Protestant reformers. The study sets the debate within the context of the key debates of Reformation, offering insights into attempts to break with the Catholic past, and illustrating the relationship between English polemicists and their continental counterparts. The debate was not without practical consequences, and the author sets this study of polemical arguments alongside an analysis of the response of clergy in several English dioceses to the legalization of clerical marriage in 1549. Conclusions are based upon the evidence of wills, visitation records, and the proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts. Despite the printed rhetoric, dogmatic certainties were often beyond the reach of the majority, and the author's conclusions highlight the chasm which couls exist between polemical ideal and practical reality during the turmoil of the Reformation.
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