CLERICAL ILLEGITIMACY IN THE DIOCESE OF SODOR:

EXCEPTION OR RULE IN THE LATE MEDIEVAL CHURCH?1

Sarah Thomas

A tabloid headline in January 2006 concerning a Hebridean Catholic priest, a mistress

and a child may have exuded outrage and even surprise, but, within the context of his

medieval predecessors, his actions were not necessarily extraordinary. The surviving

supplications from the diocese of Sodor – which comprised the Hebrides, Arran and

Bute and, prior to 1387, the Isle of Man – to the papacy in the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries make it clear that the keeping of concubines and the fathering of children

was common-place and that it was equally common that those children progressed

into the ranks of clergy. The high proportion of clerical children entering the Church

in the diocese of Sodor has been interpreted as symptomatic of the nature of a Gaelic

society predominantly organised along hereditary principles; in particular, it has been

suggested that the stigma of concubinage and illegitimacy ‘was not so great in the

Highlands and Islands’ compared with elsewhere in Scotland.2 However, when the

situation in Sodor is compared with other regions of western Christendom, it becomes

clear that Gaelic clergy were not necessarily behaving any differently to their

counterparts elsewhere. This paper sets out the issue of clerical illegitimacy in the

1 This paper has its origins in my Ph.D. which was funded by the Carnegie Trust. My thanks go to

my Ph.D. supervisors at the University of Glasgow, Martin MacGregor and Stephen Driscoll, who

gave valuable advice and guidance. I am grateful to the editors of this volume for inviting me to

submit my paper. I also thank Nicholas Evans for his assistance, patience and proof-reading skills. All

remaining mistakes and errors are of course my own.

2 Annie I. Dunlop, ‘Notes on the Church in the Dioceses of Sodor and Argyll’, Records of the

Scottish Church History Society, 16 (1968), 179–84 (p. 184). Other historians have echoed Dunlop’s

argument that the Church and the clergy in the West Highlands and Islands displayed significant

cultural differences; for example, A.D.M. Barrell, ‘The Church in the West Highlands in the Late

Middle Ages’, Innes Review, 54 (2003), 23–46 (p. 41); John Bannerman, ‘The Lordship of the Isles’,

in Scottish Society in the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Jennifer M. Brown (London: Arnold, 1977),

pp. 209–240 (p. 232); Martin MacGregor, ‘Church and Culture in the Late Medieval Highlands’, in

The Church in the Highlands, ed. by James Kirk (Edinburgh: Scottish Church History Society, 1998),

pp. 1–36 (p. 7). Recent work contextualising Sodor and Argyll with the Church in western Europe

suggests clerical illegitimacy and concubinage were widespread and not exclusive to Gaelic society.

On this, see Iain Gerard MacDonald, ‘The Secular Church and Clergy in the Diocese of Argyll from

c. 1189 to 1560’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow, 2008) and Sarah E.

Thomas, ‘ “From Rome to the Ends of the Habitable World”: The Provision of Clergy and Church

Buildings in the Hebrides, c. 1266 to c. 1472’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of

Glasgow, 2009). I would like to thank Iain MacDonald for giving me a copy of his thesis.

context of the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the

diocesan legislation before examining the evidence for clerical illegitimates in Sodor

and in Western Europe.

Clerical Celibacy in the Late Medieval Church

The principle of forbidding clergy to marry and have sexual relations predated the

Gregorian Reforms, with ecclesiastical legislation on abstinence from sexual

intercourse dating back to the early fourth century.3 However, a key difference

compared with later legislation was that the fourth-century Church advocated clerical

continence – that is to say abstinence from sexual intercourse within marriage – rather

than abstinence from marriage as clerical celibacy demanded.4 It was the reform

movement of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, often referred to as the Gregorian

Reforms, which promulgated new strictures regarding clerical celibacy.5 According to

Gregory VII, unchaste clergy were to be forbidden to celebrate mass, separated from

their wives or concubines and, as the Pope stated in a letter to Patriarch Sigehard of

Aquileia, to be debarred from holding benefices.6 These ideas along with the decree of

the Lateran Council of 1059 crystallized into the canons of the First Lateran Council

of 1123 and the Second of 1139.7 The Council of 1139 stated categorically that

ordination into major orders was prohibited marriage and by this it meant that any

offspring of such clerics were illegitimate.8 Consequently, from the twelfth century

onwards, all clerics in major orders – bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, regular

canons, monks and professed clerics – were forbidden either to marry or to have

sexual intercourse.9

3 See Paul Beaudette, ‘“In the World But Not of It”: Clerical Celibacy as a Symbol of the

Medieval Church’, in Medieval Purity and Piety, Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious

Reform, ed. by Michael Frassetto (New York and London: Garland, 1998), 23–46 (p. 24); see also

Laura Wertheimer, ‘Children of Disorder: Clerical Parentage, Illegitimacy, and Reform in the Middle

Ages’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 15 (2006), 382–407 (p. 385). 4 Beaudette, p. 27.

5 Beaudette, p. 34.

6 Uta-Renate Blumenthal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and the Prohibition of Nicolaitism’, in Medieval

Purity and Piety, Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform, ed. by Michael

Frassetto (New York and London: Garland, 1998), 239–267 (p. 249). 7 Blumenthal, p. 253; Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Volume 1 Nicaea I to Lateran V, ed.

by Norman P. Tanner (London and Georgetown: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press

1990) p.191 & p.198. 8 Wertheimer, ‘Children of Disorder’, p. 393; Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, p.198.

9 See Bernard Schimmelpfennig, ‘ “Ex Fornicatione Nati”: Studies on the Position Of Priests’

Sons from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 11

(1980), 3–50, (p. 11) and Beaudette, p. 24.

Ostensibly, legislation on sexual matters, it was argued, was justified by the need

to maintain the ritual purity of officiating clergy, a measure that may also have

represented an attempt by the Church to distinguish itself from the secular world,

abstinence underpinning and emphasising the moral superiority of the clergy to the

laity.10

Proponents of celibacy argued that sexual cleanliness was essential for the

priest properly to fulfil his sacramental duties at the altar.11

However, an underlying

rationale may also have been to prevent sons of clerics inheriting ecclesiastical

property, something by which the Church would have stood to lose considerably.12

Whilst these were all reasons put forward by the reformers, we should also consider

the context of the Investiture Contest. The campaign to put an end to the investiture of

clerics for ecclesiastical offices by laymen – and, by extension, secular influence over

the Church – is often seen primarily in terms of Pope Gregory VII’s dispute with

Emperor Henry IV. In reality, however, it was a much more protracted and far-

reaching process, resulting in the delineation of secular and ecclesiastical spheres and

in increased power for the papacy.13

As a result of these conflicts and changes,

boundaries between lay and clerical were redefined and Christian society definitively

divided into two, with the clergy separate from and above the laity.14

As part of this,

clerical celibacy, in addition to dress and tonsure, became a key marker distinguishing

the clergy from the secular sphere.

If clerics did produce children, these were considered illegitimate by the Church

and were forbidden to be ordained.15

Laura Wertheimer argues that ‘the reformers

clearly had priests’ sons in mind when they created the defectus natalium, and

concerns about inheritance of clerical office reappeared continually in the decrees that

became the canon law on the matter’.16

Defectus natalium not only covered priests’

sons, but also other men of illegitimate birth. ‘Illegitimacy’ covered two main groups:

on the one hand, children born of ‘simple fornication’ (i.e. unmarried parents who had

committed no other sin), and, on the other, those resulting from forbidden

relationships (i.e. born of supposedly celibate parents, or of adulterous and incestuous

relationships).17

Sanctions against those who failed to abide by rules on clerical

10

See Robert E. Rhodes, Ecclesiastical Administration in Medieval England, the Anglo-Saxons to

the Reformation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), p. 62, as well as Beaudette, p. 40 and Wertheimer, ‘Children of Disorder’, p. 384 and p. 395.

11 Charles A. Frazee, ‘The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church’, Church History,

41 (1972), 149–67 (p. 154). 12

Rhodes, p. 60; Schimmelpfennig, p. 9. 13

Walter Ullman, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1972),

p. 153 14

Beaudette, p. 39. 15

Wertheimer, ‘Children of Disorder’, p. 393 and p. 399. 16

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth and the English Clergy, 1198–1348’, Journal of Medieval

History, 31 (2005), 211–29, (p. 212). 17

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 212.

celibacy included temporary or permanent withdrawal of ecclesiastical benefices and

public opprobrium, with Christian communities encouraged to boycott offenders.18

Clerical Celibacy and Episcopal Statutes

The basis of the ecclesiastical legislation on clerical celibacy and marriage provided

by the Gregorian Reforms was reiterated and even supplemented by local episcopal

statutes and ordinances. Clergy in mainland Scotland faced similar penalties if they

were found to be maintaining a concubine either in their own house or elsewhere.19

Mirroring concerns expressed in Scottish Church statutes, surviving episcopal statutes

from the diocese of Sodor detailed prescriptions regarding clerical behaviour and the

prevention of scurrilous rumours about the clergy, Bishop Mark’s statutes of 1291

forbidding the employment of female servants lest unfavourable suspicions be

aroused.20

Transgressors would suffer confiscation of their benefice by the Bishop.

The concubine, too, might also be punished, although this seems to have occurred

mainly if the concubine moved to another parish. If she did so, the chaplain was

ordered to excommunicate her after three warnings.21

Clerical concubines would have

been refused communion and have been ostracised in the local community: both the

statutes of the diocese of Aberdeen and the constitutions of Bishop David of St

Andrews (c. 1242) give provision for them to be refused Christian burial.22

While the

Sodor statutes make no reference to clerical children, sanctions threatened against

clerics who kept concubines echo injunctions issued by synods across Western

Europe.23

For example, French synodal legislation calls for clerical children to be

removed from their father’s home since their presence was scandalous.24

French

statutes also forbade priests from allowing their sons to serve the altar much as the

Scottish statutes were to do in 1549.25

The 1549 General Statutes forbade clergy to

keep their offspring in their company or allow them to inherit their church.26

18

Schimmelpfennig, p. 11. 19

Statutes of the Scottish Church, ed. by David Patrick (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society,

1907), p. 14 and pp. 68–69. 20

Statutes of the Scottish Church, p. 55 and p. 59; ‘Synodal Ordinances of Bishop Mark 1291’, in

Monumenta de Insula Manniae, ed. by J.R. Oliver (Douglas: Manx Society, 1862), p. 185. 21

‘Synodal Ordinances’, p. 185. 22

Statutes of the Scottish Church, p. 44 and p. 60 23

Schimmelpfennig, p. 11. 24

Kathryn Ann Taglia, ‘ “On Account of Scandal...”: Priests, their Children, and the Ecclesiastical

Demand for Celibacy’, Florilegium, 14 (1995–1996), 57–70 (p. 61). 25

Taglia, p. 63. 26

Statutes of the Scottish Church, p. 92

Such stipulations strongly suggest that the smoke of allegations about the keeping

of concubines in Sodor was both rife and, as we will see below, certainly not without

fire, the material evidence being the resulting offspring. In the Norwegian church

province of Niðaróss, which included Sodor until 1472, the Church seems to have

struggled to implement and embed the new clerical celibacy rules since their

inception. Indeed, there seems to have been strong opposition to the enforcement of

clerical celibacy and the ban on clerical marriage; ‘marriage of priests had been

commonplace since the conversion and was accepted by native law’.27

When the papal

legate, Nicolaus Brekespear, visited Norway in 1153, he found that clerical marriage

was widespread and opposition to the Gregorian reforms was strong.28

Over a century

later, King Magnus Lagabøte’s Christian Laws of the 1270s likewise include

provisions forbidding marriage for monks, priests, deacons and sub-deacons (i.e. those

in major orders).29

Indeed, it was not until the fourteenth century that the Norwegian

Church acted against clerks, i.e. those in minor orders, who kept concubines in their

own houses.30

Sources

As we have seen above, the reformers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries sought to

exclude clerical children, those born of adulterous and incestuous relationships and

unmarried parents. However, although the defectus natalium effectively barred

priests’ sons and other illegitimates from serving in major orders in the Church, there

were ways of sidestepping the rules. The Church itself had created a process of

dispensation which would allow illegitimate men to enter both minor and major

orders. Bishops could grant men of illegitimate birth dispensation both to enter lower

orders and to hold benefices without cure, while the papacy reserved the right to allow

such individuals to take higher orders and hold benefices with cure.31

While these

provisions were originally intended as exception to the rule, by the late Middle Ages,

they had become the norm.32

With the growing centralisation of the Church – and, in

particular, the increasing power of the papacy – illegitimates wishing to enter the

Church, take major orders and serve a benefice with cure, could petition the papacy

27

Eljas Orrman, ‘Church and Society’, in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Volume 1

Prehistory to 1520, ed. by Knut Helle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 421–62

(p. 448). 28

Jarl Gallén, ‘Celibat’ in Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder, 2 (1957), p. 546. 29

Norges Gamle Love indtil 1387, ed. by R. Keyser and P.A. Munch, (Volume II: Christiania:

Christian Gröndahl, 1848) pp.300-301. 30

Gallén, p. 546. 31

Schimmelpfennig, p. 28. 32

Schimmelpfennig, pp. 20–21.

for dispensation for their defectus natalium. However, it was not an entirely simple or

streamlined process. As Wertheimer argues, illegitimate sons of priests ‘benefited less

frequently from the various ways in which popes could choose to lower the hurdles

confronting illegitimate men who sought ordination’ and, indeed, that there was a

particular symbolism in making priests’ sons not only petition the papacy for

dispensation but even make the physical journey to the curia.33

Moreover, the

administrative services undertaken by the Papal Penitentiary were by no means free.

The charges incurred for a single letter processed by the penitentiary were tabulated in

terms of a fixed scale of taxes with variations according to the services rendered.34

Each promotion or exchange of benefice required a separate dispensation, a

consideration that – as Bernard Schimmelpfennig argues – could entail substantial

costs and so have blocked the advancement of illegitimate clergy from less wealthy

backgrounds.35

However, costs associated with obtaining dispensations could be

reduced. For one, clerics did not necessarily have to make the long and expensive

journey to Rome or Avignon, they could send their petition with another party.36

Indeed, as is clear from the numbers of papal petitions from the diocese of Sodor for

the same date or month, the advantage of bundling of papal petitions seems to have

been well understood.37

Poor petitioners might even have been entitled to free

administrative services. For example, in 1453, Morrice, son of Gilbert, requested that

he might receive his letter for free on account of his poverty.38

Ludwig Schmugge

argues that, ‘more of a burden for the petitioners were the compository payments that

the curia imposed when issuing dispensations from illegitimate birth, when allowing

the revocation or modification of a vow, or when confirming the grant of a benefice

obtained through simony’.39

Of course, the recording of such dispensations in the

papal registers also incurred fees, though since recipients were not obliged to register

their dispensation, many are likely to have chosen to save money.

Although three sets of episcopal statutes survive from the diocese of Sodor, none

of the episcopal registers have been preserved. The main source for information about

the clergy of the diocese is papal correspondence preserved in the Vatican Archives.

This is an immensely rich source of information for Sodor, and all the more valuable

because of the missing episcopal registers. There are two main sources of papal

correspondence: the Registers of Supplications – the Avignon and Lateran registers –

33

Wertheimer, ‘Children of Disorder’, p. 406. 34

Ludwig Schmugge, ‘Cleansing on Consciences: Some Observations Regarding the Fifteenth-

Century Registers of the Papal Penitentiary’, Viator, 29 (1998), 345-361 (p. 353). 35

Schimmelpfennig, p. 46. 36

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 214. 37

For example, Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome V, ed. by James Kirk, Roland J.

Tanner and Annie I. Dunlop (Glasgow: Scottish Academic Press, 1997), pp. 166–68. 38

See Synder og Pavemakt: Botsbrev fra Den Norske Kirkeprovins og Suderøyene til Pavestolen

1438–1531, ed. by Torstein Jørgensen and Gastone Saletnich (Stavanger: Misjonshøgskolens, 2004),

p. 176 39

Schmugge, p. 353.

and the Registers of the Penitentiary.40

The Registers of Supplications recorded papal

provisions, dispensations and reservations issued by the Chancery and the Datary

whilst the Penitentiary Registers recorded grants of absolution and dispensations for

breaking canon law issued by the Papal Penitentiary.41

Illegitimate clergy had two

options when seeking dispensation for their illegitimacy; if they sought only to be

dispensed for illegitimacy so that they might be ordained to holy orders they could

petition the Penitentiary.42

However, petitioners often chose to approach the Chancery

and Datary given that these offices had more wide-ranging powers than the

Penitentiary and could offer dispensations for illegitimacy in addition to – for example

– collations to a specific benefice or dispensations to hold two benefices with or

without cure.43

Consequently, numerous petitions from Sodor clergy seeking

dispensation for defectus natalium from the Chancery and Datary survive, such

documents also requesting either an unspecified benefice (with or without cure) or,

more frequently, a specific one. Further evidence is provided by petitions to the

Chancery and Datary by illegitimate clerics for collation to a different benefice or to

hold more than one benefice, such petitioners noting that they have already obtained

dispensation for illegitimacy. The latter is also a potentially rich source for

accusations of clerical concubinage since rivals might attempt to remove an

incumbent on the basis of such an accusation. It is for these reasons that dispensations

for illegitimacy appear in both sources.

40

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters,

ed. by William Henry Bliss and others (London: H.M.S.O., 1893–), hereafter referred to as CPL;

Calendar of Papal Letters to Scotland to Benedict XIII of Avignon, 1394–1419, ed. by Francis

McGurk (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1976), hereafter CPL Benedict XIII; Calendar of Papal

Letters to Scotland of Clement VII of Avignon, 1378–1394, ed. by Charles Burns (Edinburgh: the

Scottish History Society, 1976), hereafter CPL Clement VII; Calendar of Entries in the Papal

Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland – Petitions to the Pope vol. 1 1342–1419, ed. by

William Henry Bliss (London: H.M.S.O., 1896), hereafter CPP; Calendar of Scottish Supplications to

Rome, ed. by Annie I. Dunlop and others, (vols I–III: Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1934–70);

(vols. IV–V: Glasgow: Scottish History Society, 1983 and 1997), hereafter CSSR; Synder og

Pavemakt). 41

Jennifer R. McDonald, ‘The Requests of Scottish Clergy in the Registers of the Sacra

Penitenzieria Apostolica, 1449–1542’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 37 (2007), 5–

53 (pp. 7–8). 42

McDonald, p. 11. 43

McDonald, p. 11.

18%

4%

1%

9%

1%67%

Priests' sons

Monks' sons

Clerks' sons

Unmarried parent/s

Legitimate

Unknown

Statistics

From these sources, it has been

possible to identify 211 clergy

from the diocese of Sodor from

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. From this total, sixty eight are recorded as being

of illegitimate birth; thirty nine were sons of priests, nine were sons of monks

(predominantly Benedictine), two were sons of clerks and the remainder offspring of

unmarried parents or, occasionally, one married and one unmarried parent (see figure

1). It should be noted that we do not have such personal details for the majority of

recorded priests: for example, twenty eight clerics are recorded simply as previous

holders of a specific benefice and, unless there was some dispute over whether the

benefice was vacant, personal details about these clerics (usually deceased) tend to

remain unrecorded.44

We should therefore avoid assuming the remaining 144 clerics

were of legitimate birth: for example, one petition makes no mention of the subject

having been dispensed for illegitimacy, yet it notes that Dominic’s father, Donald, was

the perpetual vicar of the same church where Dominic sought provision to the

rectory.45

The standard formula for a papal supplication where the subject had already

been dispensed for illegitimacy was to note for example ‘notwithstanding defect of

birth as the son of a priest and an unmarried woman’.46

Illegitimacy, even already

dispensed, was supposed to be mentioned in all subsequent petitions, although clearly

in the case of Dominic this was not done.47

Moreover, a cleric might seek dispensation

to be allowed not to mention his defect of birth in future petitions.48

While many of the clerics recorded as illegitimate appear in the Registers of

Supplications, one third made their petition to the Papal Penitentiary. In the period

1438 to 1472, there were forty four petitions from the diocese of Sodor to the Papal

44

For example, on 5 August 1441, Alexander MacLean sought to obtain the rectory of Kilchoman

of Islay on the basis that it was vacant as a result of the death of Migell, the late rector (CSSR, IV,

p. 194). No further details about the late Migell are recorded and nor does he appear in any other

source. 45

CSSR, V, p. 280. 46

CSSR, V, p. 422. 47

Andrew D. M. Barrell, The Papacy, Scotland and Northern England 1342–1378 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 239. 48

For example, a cleric in the diocese of Dunkeld sought that ‘he be not bound to mention his

defect of birth as the son of an unmarried man and an unmarried woman’ (CSSR, IV, p. 91).

Figure 1 - The status of 14th and 15th century

Sodor clergy

Penitentiary: twenty eight were for defects of birth, ten for marriage within the

forbidden degrees, three for an extension of a previous dispensation, two for

confirmation of benefices and one unclassified.49

Eighteen or 64.2% of the twenty

eight petitions for dispensation from illegitimacy were from priests’ sons and ten from

sons of unmarried lay couples.50

In contrast, there were only twenty one petitions for

defectus natalium from the five Norwegian dioceses whereas there were twenty eight

from Sodor alone.51

Thirteen of the twenty one Norwegian petitions were for

dispensation from illegitimacy as sons of priests, seven as sons of unmarried lay

couples and one was unspecified. Accordingly, the Sodor material shows

proportionally many more supplications for dispensation for defects of birth

emanating from within the diocese for the same period, Sodor accounting for 53% of

supplications classified as defects of birth from the archbishopric of Niðaróss.52

The

potential reasons for these stark differences in supplication patterns will be discussed

further below.

Evidence for Clerical Concubines and Clerical Children

Given these figures for clerical illegitimacy, it seems clear that Bishop Mark’s Statute

against priests keeping maidservants in their houses – and, by extension, concubines –

was not obeyed by all clergy. Yet, it is a curious fact that of all these illegitimate

clerics, only four faced accusations of concubinage. Two are specifically accused of

keeping a woman in their own house. In 1441, it was claimed that Dalochias Dalcuhe,

perpetual vicar of St Columba’s of Kirkapoll on Tiree, ‘was not ashamed to keep a

certain woman with him in his house as his concubine by whom he has had

offspring’.53

Similarly, in 1450, Finlay MacLeod, rector of St Columba’s of Eye on

Lewis, was accused of keeping ‘a woman, his housekeeper and kinswoman, as his

concubine’ and of committing incest with her.54

The third accusation from 1447

simply stated that the accused, Martin Michaelis, rector of Kilchrist of Strath on Skye,

had kept a concubine publicly in addition to having dilapidated the goods of his

benefice.55

The fourth accusation concerned the archdeacon of Sodor, Andrew

49

Torstein Jørgensen, ‘At the Edge of the World: The Supplications from the Norwegian Province

of Nidaros’, in The Long Arm of Papal Authority: Late Medieval Christian Peripheries and their

communication with the Holy See, ed. by Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen, and Kirsi Salonen

(Bergen: Central European University Press, 2004), 29–41, (p. 31). 50

Synder og Pavemakt, p. 43. 51

Jørgensen, p. 31. 52

Jørgensen, p. 31. 53

CSSR, IV, p. 201. 54

CSSR, V, p. 85. 55

CPL, X, p. 286.

Dunoon: in 1456, he was said to be ‘a concubinary, public fornicator and dilapidator

of goods of the said archdeaconry’.56

In an explicit reference to the statute of Bishop

Mark, the petition stated that Dunoon had failed to ‘to put [the concubine] away

contrary to the statutes and ordinances of the church of the Isles’.57

In spite of the

seriousness of the charges brought, the failure of the accuser (Angus son of John of

the Isles) to remove Andrew may be indicative of the difficulties involved in

removing a well-established cleric and gaining physical possession of a benefice even

with the support of the papacy.58

However, by April 1457 Dunoon had died in Rome –

presumably whilst there petitioning for possession of another benefice.59

Although accusations of clerical concubinage, particularly the two detailed

concerning housekeepers, show why Bishop Mark’s statute was necessary, at the same

time they also indicate that the statute failed to prevent priests from keeping

concubines. Of course, that there were only four allegations of clerical concubinage

may suggest that clerics with concubines generally managed to be discreet.

Alternatively, it may simply be the case that clerical concubinage was rarely

challenged, the four clerics we know of being holders of the sort of attractive

benefices for which potentially protracted and costly legal battles were worth

fighting.60

The behaviour of holders of less attractive benefices may have gone

unrecorded because these were not felt to be worth the expense of a legal challenge.

The final example, Andrew Dunoon, also presents an argument against the

interpretation that clerical concubinage was in some way unique or exclusive to Gaelic

clergy.61

Andrew was not native to the Hebrides: instead, he came from the diocese of

Ross and was probably a member of the Denoon family from the Tarbat peninsula in

Easter Ross.62

56

CSSR, V, p. 166. 57

CSSR, V, p. 166. 58

Angus Johannis made a concerted effort to remove Andrew Dunoon from the archdeaconry

with lurid accusations about his personal life, which may of course have been true, and in return

Andrew Dunoon sought to hold the rectory of Kilchoman held by Angus Johannis claiming that

Angus had died. 59

CSSR, V, p. 177. 60

From the three parish churches, only Kirkapoll was appropriated, to the bishop of Sodor, and

even it was still worth nine merks sterling in 1441, whilst Eye was worth 7.5 merks sterling in 1450

and Kilchrist was worth 4.5 merks sterling in 1447. The archdeaconry was said in 1456 to be worth 22

merks sterling. Kilchrist has the lowest value, but given the disputes over possession of the rectory in

1428 and 1450 it seems to have been desirable. 61

The notion that non-native clergy contradict the idea of the uniqueness of clerical concubinage

and illegitimacy is also discussed, in relation to clergy in the diocese of Argyll, in MacDonald, p. 145. 62

The Apostolic Camera and Scottish Benefices, 1418–88, ed. by Annie I. Cameron (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 130; CSSR, IV, p. 197; CPL, IX, p. 152; George F. Black, The

Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History (New York: New York Public Library,

1946), pp. 205–06. See also The Calendar of Fearn: Text and Additions, 1471–1667, ed. by Robin J.

Adam (Edinburgh: Pillans and Wilson, 1991), pp. 79–81. I am grateful to Iain MacDonald for

suggesting Ross and Fearn abbey as worthy of further research into Andrew’s origins.

The infringement of the clerical celibacy laws must have been clear to all given the

existence of at least thirty eight clerics who were the sons of priests. On certain

occasions, it is possible to identify the churches which father and son held: for

example, the late fourteenth-century clerics Andrew MacEachern and his father Ivar

who are commemorated on the Campbeltown cross were also recorded as having held

the rectories of Kilchoman of Islay and Kilkivan in Kintyre respectively.63

While

Andrew and his father held different benefices, examples of the son succeeding his

father as priest in the same benefice can be found in Sodor. In July 1433, Pope Eugene

IV ordered the removal of Martin, son of Duncan, from the church of St Columba of

Eye on Lewis and the collation of William, son of Muireach instead.64

Martin had held

the church with the ordinary authority of the bishop since the death of his father seven

years previously. The reason for his removal seems to have been not his relationship

to the previous priest but rather his failure to ensure his collation was handled

according to due canonical form. A similar example is Duncan MacNerlin, who

became rector of Kilchoman on Islay in 1463. However, there is one distinctive

feature about Duncan: his father was still alive and was, in fact, perpetual vicar of the

same church. The petition even noted this, but there was no expression of disapproval

at two closely-related members of the same family occupying this church.65

Duncan’s

existence in both fact and record is also clear evidence of the allegations made against

Donald MacNerlin in 1443, the latter described as a ‘notorious fornicator’ who had

been excommunicated many times.66

While these excommunications were presumably

the actions of the bishop trying to enforce the clerical celibacy rule, Donald’s survival

may have owed much to the patron of the parish church, the Lord of the Isles. Donald

is also an interesting example in terms of clerical concubinage, his fathering of

Duncan being one crime of which he was not accused. Yet, he had at least one

acknowledged child – the fact that the MacNerlins served the same church in 1460s

may say something about both their confidence in their ability to withstand rivals’

accusations and the power of their patron.

There are also a number of clerics for whom we are able to identify probable

father-son pairings holding ecclesiastical benefices, but not necessarily the same

benefice. For example, one pairing, Felan and Patrick, appeared on Mull in the

fifteenth century: in 1431, Felan, son of John, was perpetual vicar of the parish church

of St John the Evangelist in Ardnish, whilst the perpetual vicarage of Kilfinichen, also

on Mull, had been held by a certain Patrick, son of (not impossibly the

63

Kenneth A. Steer and John W.M. Bannerman, Late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the

West Highlands (Edinburgh: RCAHMS, 1977), p. 159. The elaborate decoration on this free-standing

cross, and indeed the cross’s size, is indicative of the resources available to these MacEacherns and

their status within the Lordship. The MacEacherns were a kindred based in south Kintyre who held

lands from the Lords of the Isles: Kilkivan may have been in the patronage of the Lords of the Isles

(see MacDonald, p. 215) whilst Kilchoman was certainly in Lordship patronage. 64

CPL, VIII, p. 469. 65

CSSR, V, p. 280. 66

CSSR, IV, p. 288.

aforementioned) Felan, until his death in 1467.67

Felan is not a name which was

commonly used, these being the only two clerics associated with that name. This

combined with the association with two parish churches on Mull – albeit located some

distance from each other – makes a reasonably convincing case for kinship between

the two clerics.68

Another father-son pair of clerics was Maurice Nenne a.k.a.

Muireach Nemeus and Aed, son of Muireach Nemeus. The first appears in 1394 as a

clerk from the diocese of Raphoe in Ireland petitioning for a benefice in Sodor.69

That

he was successful is indicated in a petition of July 1443 in which a clerk by the name

of Aed, son of Muireach Nemeus, sought to obtain the perpetual vicarage of Kildalton

in Islay which was ‘so long void by the death without the Roman court of Maurice

Nemee’.70

Aed had, already by this date, been dispensed for illegitimacy as the son of

a priest and an unmarried woman and it would appear the son was trying to obtain the

benefice his father had held before him.71

Aed was evidently ambitious since, in

addition to Kildalton, he sought to hold the perpetual vicarage of Kilchattan on

Gigha.72

Such cases point to the prevalence of both clerical children and the entry of

clerical sons into the Church. In an age where learning a trade from your father was

common practice, entry into the priesthood must have seemed a logical career choice

for many clerical sons.73

Hereditary Kindreds and Concubinage in Gaelic Society

In the context of Gaelic society with its hereditary kindreds and the prevalence of

concubinage within secular society, the behaviour of the clergy was perhaps less

startling. In the kin-based society of Gaelic Scotland, there were hereditary

professional kindreds or learned orders.74

These kindreds specialised in particular

areas of learning and passed the skills down through the generations: the main areas of

learning were law, medicine, poetry, history and music along with crafts such as

67

CSSR, III, p. 167; CSSR, IV, p. 421. 68

This name, Felan, is probably a version of Fáelán or Faolán which was later anglicised as

Fillan. See William J. Watson, The History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1926;

repr. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1993), p. 284. 69

CPL Benedict, XIII, p. 17. 70

CPL, IX, p. 395. 71

Barrell, ‘Church in the west Highlands’, p. 45. 72

CSSR, IV, p. 231. 73

Nicholas Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England (London:

Hambledon, 1989), p. 1. 74

The Gaelic term aes dána means literally ‘the folk of gifts’ (see Bannerman, p. 232). They are

often called ‘the Learned orders’ or ‘professional kindreds’. I have tended to use professional kindreds

because it seems better to include craftsmen such as carpenters and sculptors under professional

kindreds rather than learned orders.

stone-masonry and carpentry.75

Prime amongst these kindreds were the MacMhuirich

poetic kindred who served the Lords of the Isles as poets: a Lachlan MacMhuirich was

named as ‘archipoeta’ in a charter of John, Lord of the Isles, of 1485.76

Clerical

recruitment from the professional kindreds, particularly of younger sons, seems to

have been high. For example, in Sodor, we encounter clergy from the Ó Brolchán

stone-masonry kindred, the Beaton medical kindred and the MacMharcuis poetic

kindred.77

The development of ecclesiastical hereditary kindreds has been interpreted

by Martin MacGregor as a further extension of the kin principle.78

Such hereditary

ecclesiastical kindreds became closely associated with particular churches and

ecclesiastical institutions, prime examples including the MacPhilips of Kintyre and the

MacLachlans of Kilbride.79

Whilst these kindreds were based across the diocesan

boundary in Argyll, hereditary kindreds or what appear to be hereditary kindreds also

appear in Sodor. The MacNerlins on Islay seem to be very likely to have been a

hereditary kindred whose origins lay in monastic institutions, probably Iona, since the

surname MacNerlin means the son of the fer leginn or professor or teacher in a Celtic

monasteries.80

Other clergy may represent local ecclesiastical lineages, such as is the

case of Martin son of Duncan associated with the church of St Columba’s of Eye on

Lewis. Further evidence of ecclesiastical kindreds is supplied by the surname Mic

Maol Iosa which means ‘the tonsured one of Jesus’, a surname that may provide

evidence for the prevalence of ecclesiastical kindreds in Gaelic society.81

And indeed,

one cleric of that name – Donald, son of Duncan Mic Maol Iosa – tried and failed to

deprive Donald MacNerlin of the perpetual vicarage of Kilchoman.82

MacGregor contends that these lineages were ‘the inevitable consequences of the

clergy’s acceptance of Gaelic sexual and marital practice, including the maintenance

of concubines’.83

Concubinage seems to have been relatively common amongst the

elites in Gaelic society: numerous examples of cohabitation or irregular marriage can

be found in the traditional histories of the Lordship, for example in the Sleat history

75

Martin MacGregor, ‘The Genealogical Histories of Gaelic Scotland’, in The Spoken Word, Oral

Culture in Britain 1500–1850, ed. by Adam Fox and Daniel Woolf (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 2002), 196–239 (p. 197). 76

Bannerman, pp. 232–33; Acts of the Lords of the Isles, 1336–1493, ed. by Jean Munro and

R.W. Munro (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1986), p. 188. 77

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, ed. by Christian C.A. Lange, C.R. Unger and others, 20 vols

(Christiania: Riksarkivet, 1847–1995) [hereafter DN], VII, no.313 (Niall Ó Brolchán); Munimenta

Alme Universitatis Glasguensis (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), p. 61; CSSR, V, p. 351 (Duncan Ó

Brolchán); CPL Clement VII, p. 173 (Cristine Donaldi y leich); CPL, VIII, p. 14 (Cristinus

MacMarkys). 78

MacGregor, ‘Church and Culture’, p. 19. 79

MacGregor, ‘Church and Culture’, p. 19. 80

Steer and Bannerman, Sculpture, p. 123. 81

Translation kindly provided by Dr Martin MacGregor. 82

CSSR, iv, p.228. 83

MacGregor, ‘Church and Culture’, p. 19.

and the Black Book of Clanranald, as David Sellar has pointed out.84

Sellar highlights

the two half-brothers of John, fourth Lord of the Isles, Gillespic/Celestine MacDonald

of Lochalsh and Hugh MacDonald of Sleat. Each had a different mother; indeed,

Hugh’s mother, a daughter of Gillepatrick O’Beolan, was named as the concubine of

Alexander, third Lord of the Isles, by the Sleat history.85

Alexander’s son and heir,

John, was probably the product of his official marriage to Elizabeth Haliburton or

Seton. However, papal sources confirm Alexander’s involvement with other women:

in 1446, he was alleged to have abandoned Elizabeth and to be keeping a concubine

named as one Christina MacLeod.86

Sellar argued that these seemingly peculiar

marriage customs were based on ancient Irish law which recognised ‘many types of

sexual union, some lasting, some temporary and some merely transient’.87

If the

keeping of concubines was relatively common and accepted within lay society, then

clerical concubines may have been a natural extension, even if canon law forbade such

relationships.

A Unique Situation in the Hebrides?

The dominance of Sodor supplications to the Penitentiary for dispensation for defectus

natalium in the archdiocese of Niðaróss is striking. An initial conclusion might be that

the clerical celibacy laws were ignored far more frequently in the diocese of Sodor

than elsewhere in the Church province. This was certainly the conclusion drawn by

historians such as Annie Dunlop and Andrew Barrell.88

The Niðaróss church

province’s Penitentiary figures are notable, but they need to be placed within the

wider context. This section will firstly discuss Penitentiary petitions from Ireland and

Scotland and then it will consider the volume of petitions to the Penitentiary from

across Western Europe. We also need to look beyond the Penitentiary figures; it is

possible that what those figures represent are different petitioning strategies even

within the same archdiocese. The survival of episcopal records from dioceses in

Norway, England and Spain allow us to examine clerical illegitimacy and

concubinage from a different standpoint which is particularly significant because for

some of these dioceses, the Penitentiary figures imply widespread compliance with

clerical celibacy laws.

Whilst the Sodor Penitentiary figures are arresting, they need to be interpreted in

the wider context. The majority of illegitimate Sodor clerics were granted a

84

W. David H. Sellar, ‘Marriage, Divorce and Concubinage in Gaelic Scotland’, Transactions of

the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 51 (1978–80), 464–93 (pp.479-482). 85

Sellar, p. 479. 86

ALI, p. 242. 87

Sellar, p. 469. 88

Dunlop, ‘Notes on the Church in the Dioceses of Sodor and Argyll’, p. 184; Barrell, ‘The church in the

West Highlands’, p. 41.

dispensation for defectus natalium and it was this type of illegitimacy dispensation

which was most often granted by the Penitentiary.89

In Scotland as a whole, between

1449 and 1542, there were 1006 supplications for dispensations for defectus natalium

and within this Sodor’s contribution was only twenty one petitions.90

Whilst

McDonald’s figures do not provide a breakdown of the illegitimacy petitions

according to parentage, the numbers in the overall category make it probable that a

sizeable proportion of the petitions were from the sons of priests or monks.

Petitions to the Penitentiary came from across western Christendom; according to

Salonen, ‘most populated areas near the centre of the Church are the ones with the

most petitions. The further away from the Holy See one moves, the fewer petitions

occur’.91

During the pontificate of Pope Pius II, circa 1459 to circa 1464, there were

2698 petitions for dispensation for illegitimacy from the twelve Church territories.92

Requests for dispensation for illegitimacy were dominated by the German dioceses

with 992 cases followed by Spain with 488 and France with 423.93

Overall in the

fifteenth century, sons of priests from the German dioceses made up only 50% of

supplicants requesting dispensation for illegitimacy.94

A more comparable figure is

that from the diocese of Uppsala where between 1410 and 1516 there were forty two

supplications to the Penitentiary and of which 70% of the supplicants were the sons of

priests whilst the Swedish average was 60%.95

Irish dispensations for illegitimacy

from the Penitentiary are also similar to those from Sodor and Uppsala; there were

circa 1884 entries for the four Irish archdioceses in the Penitentiary registers.96

For the

Gaelic dioceses of west Ulster - Armagh, Clogher, Kilmore, Derry and Raphoe – there

were 323 petitions for dispensation for illegitimacy.97

Haren notes that well over half

of petitioners from Clogher were the sons of clerics whilst fifty six out of ninety of

Derry petitioners were the sons of clerics.98

62% of Derry petitioners were the sons of

clergy; however, according to Haren, this may be an underestimate because some

fathers who were listed as solutus, unmarried, may have become clerics after the birth

89

McDonald, p. 49 90

McDonald, p. 49. 91

Kirsi Salonen, ‘The Penitentiary under Pope Pius II: The Supplications and their Provenance’,

in The Long Arm of Papal Authority, ed. by Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen and Kirsi Salonen

(Bergen: Central European University Press, 2004), 19–28 (p. 25). 92

Salonen, ‘Penitentiary under Pope Pius II’, p. 24. 93

Salonen, ‘Penitentiary under Pope Pius II’, p. 24. 94

Schmugge, p. 359. 95

Kirsi Salonen, ‘The Supplications from the Province of Uppsala: Main Trends and

Developments’, in The Long Arm of Papal Authority: Late Medieval Christian Peripheries and Their

Communication with the Holy See, ed. by Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen and Kirsi Salonen

(Bergen: Central European University Press, 2004), 42–59 (p. 57). 96

Michael Haren, ‘Social Structures of the Irish Church, a New Source in Papal Penitentiary

Dispensations for Illegitimacy’, in Illegitimität im Spätmittelalter, ed. by Ludwig Schmugge (Munich:

Oldenbourg, 1994), 207–226 (p. 209). 97

Haren, p. 225 (Table 2). 98

Haren, p. 219; these are the only two dioceses for which Haren provides statistics.

of their son(s).99

Haren argues that the hereditary nature of the major professions in

Gaelic society meant that it was very difficult to enforce clerical celibacy.100

In this

respect, Haren is following the line of Dunlop and others interpreting the failure to

comply with the clerical celibacy rules as typical of Gaelic society.

We are also able to compare the fifteenth-century Penitentiary statistics with

evidence from dioceses in Norway, Spain and England. The documents recording

episcopal visitations by the early fourteenth-century bishop of Bergen provide a

fascinating insight into clerical concubinage in western Norway. This material

contains many examples of priests living with concubines in the early fourteenth

century diocese of Bergen. For instance, when Bishop Arne of Bergen visited the

northern part of his diocese in 1308, he discovered that nearly all of the priests in

Nordfjord had concubines.101

He gave the priests a certain amount of time to divorce

or separate themselves from the women with whom they were living.102

The vicar

priest, Bernard, at Ullensvang had had a concubine in 1307 and when the bishop

returned in 1309 she was still living with him. Bishop Arne gave Bernard just three

days to send her away and Bernard himself was suspended.103

The example of Bernard

suggests that the Bishop’s attempts to enforce clerical celibacy and forbid concubines

had failed. These Bergen examples do not give unambiguous evidence of clerical

children, but they certainly indicate that priests cohabiting with women were not

uncommon. Indeed, evidence for widespread clerical concubinage can be found across

Western Europe; for example, there is detailed evidence of clerical concubinage from

visitation records in the fourteenth-century Catalunya region of Spain.104

The reaction

of the ecclesiastical authorities in Barcelona to clerical concubinage was similar to

that of the bishop of Bergen: the cleric was ordered to abandon the concubine and

probably pay a fine or else face the confiscation of his benefice.105

The inability of the bishop of Bergen to separate priest and concubine was

mirrored in Catalunya where visitation records indicate that numerous clerics ‘were

unwilling to sever their ties to family and were fined repeatedly for their

contumacy’.106

Local views on clerical concubinage seem to have been mixed, but the

more negative aspects seem to have concerned cases where the priest had failed to

99

Haren, p. 219. 100

Haren, p. 213. 101

See Inger Holtan, Ekteskap, frillelevnad og hor i norsk høgmellomalder (Oslo:

Universitetsforlaget, 1996), p. 69; DN, IV, no. 79. 102

Holtan, p. 69; DN, IV, no. 79. 103

DN, III, no. 84. 104

See Marie A. Kelleher, ‘ “Like Man and Wife”: Clerics’ Concubines in the Diocese of

Barcelona’, Journal of Medieval History, 28 (2002), 349–60 and Michelle Armstrong-Partida,

‘Priestly Marriage: the Tradition of Clerical Concubinage in the Spanish Church’, Viator, 40 (2009),

221–53. 105

Kelleher, p. 350. 106

Armstrong-Partida, p. 243.

contribute towards the upkeep of his offspring.107

Given the numbers of illegitimate

clergy, clerical concubinage must have been relatively common in the Hebrides. We

do not know what the Hebridean laity’s reaction would have been, but we may

speculate that lay society was more forgiving than the Church and as in Spain,

negative reactions were more likely to be provoked if the priest failed to support both

the concubine, likely to be a member of the local community, and any offspring. The

threat of severe punishment laid out by general council and synod statutes across

Western Europe seems to have failed to act as a deterrent; as MacDonald highlights in

sixteenth-century Scotland even leading churchmen like Cardinal Beaton of St

Andrews kept concubines.108

However, whilst Norwegian supplications for dispensation for illegitimacy are

infrequent, there was another avenue for gaining a dispensation. The power to

dispense was, on occasion, granted to papal delegates or representatives and bishops.

Wertheimer argues that the papacy restricted these powers, particularly in respect of

the sons of priests or other religious celibates; thus, when the power to dispense was

granted, it was usually in respect of a set number of clerics and usually stated how

many with simple birth defects, i.e. the sons of secular unmarried parents, and how

many clerical sons.109

Thus, Bishop Helge of Oslo received full authority from Pope

Clement V to dispense sixty illegitimate priests in 1308, ten of these being sons of

priests.110

In 1311, Archbishop Eilif received permission to dispense forty priests’

sons for their illegitimacy.111

In 1371, Pope Gregory XI gave Archbishop Thrond

permission to dispense ten priests who were sons of priests from defect of birth.112

These examples indicate how the papacy specified and restricted the power to

dispense, but they also suggest that clerical sons were not unusual in the Norwegian

dioceses. Given the numbers of priests who lived with concubines recorded in the

diocese of Bergen in the early fourteenth century such figures are not surprising.

Bernard Schimmelpfennig estimates, based on these figures, that in the Norwegian

dioceses one-third of the illegitimately born clergymen were sons of priests in the

early fourteenth-century.113

However, there is less evidence in Norway for the

fifteenth century of the numbers of illegitimate clergy. Between 1438 and 1472, there

was only one petition from the diocese of Bergen, whereas just over hundred years

earlier the bishop had struggled to enforce clerical celibacy. The absence of more

petitions from the Norwegian dioceses either suggests that the bishop of Bergen’s

campaign for clerical celibacy was ultimately successful or that the dispensations were

not recorded in the papal registers or were granted by the bishop, archbishop or papal

107

Kelleher, p. 355. 108

MacDonald, p. 156. 109

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 214. 110

DN, VI, no. 70. 111

DN, VI, no. 77. 112

DN, V, no. 268. 113

Schimmelpfennig, p. 41.

notaries. Bishop John of Strengnes was given full authority in the 1380s to dispense

people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden for a variety of sins and defects; this

included the authority to dispense illegitimate clergy so that they might be promoted

to holy orders and obtained ecclesiastical benefices.114

Nonetheless, a caveat must be

added: the mandate did not specify whether the illegitimates were to include priests’

sons.

The Value of Quantitative Analysis?

There is an issue about how valuable quantitative analysis may be when it is likely

that a considerable amount of material may not have survived or has gone unrecorded.

The absence of any episcopal registers for Sodor, or indeed for any of the Scottish

dioceses, means that we are unable to assess the involvement of the bishops in

dispensing illegitimates. A further very important point, already noted above, is that

the recipients of papal dispensations were not obliged to record the dispensations in

the papal registers.115

Laura Wertheimer’s study of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-

century English Episcopal rolls and registers indicated that there were a vast number

of dispensations which were not recorded in the papal registers. In the fourteenth-

century papal records, 26% of dispensations for illegitimate birth were for sons of

priests and if the deacons and sub-deacons were included the figure rose to 30%.116

In

the English episcopal records of the fourteenth century, 80% of those men were the

sons of unmarried lay parents and only 11% were the sons of men in higher orders and

four percent the sons of priests.117

Wertheimer concludes:

If the vast under-representation of clerics born to simple fornication, revealed in the English records,

held true throughout Europe – which is not necessarily a safe assumption – previous estimates drawn

from curial records may greatly overestimate the prevalence of priests’ sons among the illegitimate

clergy and among the clergy as a whole.118

Given the restrictions on the power of bishops to dispense illegitimate clerics, it is

perhaps no surprise that priests’ sons are in the majority for petitions to the

Penitentiary. Wertheimer’s figures serve as a warning that if we focus solely on papal

records, we risk ignoring both the clerics who were the illegitimate offspring of

unmarried parents who received dispensation from their bishop and had no need to

seek dispensation from the papacy and those who were of legitimate birth. There is

only two clerics from 211 recorded who categorically stated that they were ‘of

114

DN, XVII, no. 160. 115

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 214. 116

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 221. 117

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p.221-222. 118

Wertheimer, ‘Illegitimate Birth’, p. 222.

legitimate birth’, but it seems unlikely that they were the only legitimate clerics in the

diocese of Sodor.119

We need to recall the 144 Sodor clerics whose parentage is

unrecorded: there is a case to be argued that we should not place too much emphasis

on the statistics from Penitentiary and Registers of Supplications. Given the place of

priests’ sons in canon law, such clerics were bound to be in the majority seeking

dispensation for illegitimacy from the papacy.

Conclusion

The failure to enforce clerical celibacy and prevent the keeping of concubines is a

defining feature of the late medieval Church not only in the Hebrides but across

Western Europe. From Norway to Spain via Ireland, clerical sons and clerical

concubines are recorded in the late medieval episcopal and papal records. General

Council and Synodal legislation might have illegitimised the clergy’s relationships

with women, but the failure of this legislation is evident in the numerous clerical sons

who sought to enter the Church. The Church itself created a process which would

permit clerical sons to take holy orders and serve benefices with cure. By the

fourteenth century, the process of dispensation had become part of ‘the daily routine

of curial business’.120

Once dispensed, illegitimacy, even of clerical parentage, was no

bar to an ecclesiastical career; illegitimate clergy, such as Angus, the fifteenth-century

bishop of Sodor, were promoted to the higher orders of the Church. While petitioners

often claimed that their rivals had canonical irregularities such as failure to be

ordained within a given period, failure to obtain dispensation from illegitimacy is not

an accusation commonly made in the late medieval Hebrides.121 What we see is that

the Hebridean clergy had learnt to use the system to their advantage and perhaps with

more reliance on the papacy for dispensations rather than the bishop and archbishop. It

could also be argued that the volume of petitions to the Penitentiary indicates that

Sodor clerics obeyed canon law in that those of them who suffered from defects of

birth sought dispensation from the pope before being promoted to holy orders.

Would the Papacy have regarded Sodor, with so many priests apparently

breaking canon law, as heretical to some extent? A very strict interpretation of what

constituted heresy might, at a stretch, include such men if we accept that it was

essentially the refusal to give up views or beliefs even when they were repeatedly

119

CSSR, V, p. 158 and p. 352. 120

Schimmelpfennig, p. 38. 121

There is one supplication from 16 August 1467 in which Donald, son of Donald, claims that

the church of Kirkapoll on Tiree has been occupied by a certain Donald, son of Dominic, who

suffered from defect of birth as the son of unmarried parents but had failed to be dispensed for this.

Donald had, however, been provided by ordinary authority to Kirkapoll and it may be that he had

been dispensed by the bishop, but not by the Pope (CSSR, V, p. 360).

shown to be wrong.122

However, there may have been some local variations, but to

call it heresy seems to be pushing it to extremes. The evidence seems to suggest that

Sodor priests were not vastly different from their counterparts elsewhere in Western

Europe. Indeed, we could turn the argument around and argue that clerical

illegitimacy and concubinage were so common, despite being officially condemned,

that they were an unofficial orthodoxy.

122

R.I. Moore, The War on Heresy, Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London: Profile Books, 2012),

p.9