Date of Award
8-1997
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Medieval Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Larry Simon
Second Advisor
Dr. E. Rozanne Elder
Third Advisor
Dr. Thomas L. Amos
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Campus Only
Abstract
The Visitas Pastorales series of episcopal registers for the diocese of Barcelona in 1303 indicate that clerical concubinage and other sexual relationships were common, despite the policies of the papacy and some thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Aragonese reformers. These and other records reveal that the episcopal authorities had only moderate expectations about the celibacy of the clergy in Barcelona, and they did not vigorously enforce those expectations. Indeed, only the most public of the concubinous clerics were ever penalized for their behavior.
These records also provide information about the social circumstances of the men and women who were involved in these relationships, and this helps explain how clerical concubinage and other sexual behaviors fit into the fabric of both lay and ecclesiastical society in the fourteenth century. In the end, the relaxed treatment by the various levels of church administration, as well as the social needs of the community, including the men and women involved in the relationships, combined to allow this entrenched practice to continue with little censure.
Recommended Citation
Bos, Colleen Marie, "Clerical Concubinage and Sexual Relationships in the Visitation Records of the Fourteenth-Century Diocese of Barcelona" (1997). Masters Theses. 3739.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3739