Clergy

You know well enough that a man who’s retired to the woods, committed to serving God to expiate his sins, has meagre comforts; but worthy hermits suffer such hardship to confound the Devil. Wauchier of Denain, Second Continuation of Perceval

(wip general form of this page - something like:

• Initial description of what the clergy are, conceptually.
• Initial explanation of mechanics - what does it mean to play a clerical character?
• Mechanical options: skills,
• Details on situations, plot hooks, specific roles (the stuff below))

Paths to the Clergy

It’s rare to be born into the clergy¹—it is an institution that must be joined.

Some children are set on this as a career path by their families. A common saying is:

An heir, a spare, and a prayer.

i.e. once you have one son to inherit your lands, and one backup/support, best to send the next into the clergy to avoid having to land him too, and to give the other sons a “man on the inside” and yourself a more pious spot in heaven.

Even if this isn’t intentionally dictated from above, many younger children will find fewer opportunities in the secular world and taking a clerical role might be attractive.

It’s also a place people can be pushed into when they can’t serve as a knight or lady any more. Old men and women will sometimes retire into the clergy, allowing themselves to put aside their professions² and focus on spiritual matters (or just relaxation, depending on the exact role and person). Younger men who are disabled from birth or injury³, and younger women who get pregnant before marriage⁴ are often pushed to this position.

Still others seek out the role. The clergy means giving up both the privileges and expectations of class and gender roles. For some this is attractive because the expectations burden them greatly. Many seek out the religious life to flee marriage and the demands of continuing their family lineage⁵, while others feel stifled by other restrictions of what they can and can’t do. Still others have a conviction to join despite still desiring the privileges of their old life—their zeal for what they can do as a clerk outweighs what they have to give up.

The Priesthood

Priests are assigned to minister to spiritual needs of a certain area, their parish, and to handle the administration of the church within. This includes teaching and administering religious sacraments⁶. In exchange, they are supported by tithes and from the glebe, a portion of the lands set aside for this purpose⁷.

For the typical “village church”, the “main” priest—the face of the church—is called the Rector. Their deputies or underlings are called Vicars⁸, and initiates may also serve as Deacons who assist in many logistical roles, including providing physical aid to the parishioners.

The priesthood is generally expected to be:

1. Male.
2. Celibate.
3. Independent of local rulers.
4. Actually serving the roles they are being paid for. In practice, all three points have wiggle room in the British church.

• “Sinecures” happen when the benefits of the role is inherited separately from the actual job requirements⁹.
• Local rulers also tend to make advowsons into an inheritable and sellable right; which are typically kept in the family to legitimize¹⁰ putting their relatives into lucrative positions¹¹.
• Presbytera are female priests or deacons, and/or companions¹² of a rector. Not formalized by the church in Rome, there’s some related threads that connect together.
  • Many priests… are just married, in a common-law manner. These aren’t necessarily hidden from locals.
  • Many single priests need a degree of housekeeping, legitimately. And religious celibate women¹³ often find that role very fitting for them.
  • Many are also short on priestly roles: short on deacons, vicars, etc.

Monastic Orders

Monks and Nuns serve in communities with set apart rules, withdrawn by their rules and/or actual physical separation, from the world. In Britain, these are divided into three “orders”, known by the colors of their habits (robes):

• The Black Monks/Nuns¹⁴ gather together into monasteries where they hold all things for the common good of the community. They work and pray together. They are often quite productive, both in producing art¹⁵ and thought, and in harvesting the land. Their critics say this often makes them the richest monastic communities, and that wealth sometimes grows quite concentrated. This has led to both of the other orders.
• The White Monks/Nuns¹⁶ are more likely to be eremitic, that is to live as solitary hermits. This may still be in communities, but often under stricter rules of silence and focus. To this end they also often find isolated places to put their communities.
• The Brown Friars¹⁷ are mendicants¹⁸ who are itinerant - moving through society. Some may still live as simple hermits, but typically with more focus on the traveler and an even stricter rule of poverty than their white-robed cousins.

Higher Powers

At higher levels of the hierarchy, Bishops and Archdeacons manage the priests and deacons within their wider dioceses—ecclesiastical regions. Player characters rarely play these roles¹⁹.

In a monastery, the highest leader is the Abbot or Abbess.

Footnotes

1. There’s a few edge cases where parents will vow to God to put some as-of-yet-unborn child to the priesthood, and then find some priory to put them in at a young age. Or sometimes there are children who have no parents and are raised in the cloister. Usually both of these have a choice to leave, though, and it’s not expected they’ll stay. ↩

2. And let their children inherit early, sometimes - clearing the way for the future generation to succeed. ↩

3. And thus can’t fight. This could be losing limbs or other serious injury, or something like epilepsy. Plenty of these may live as knights (even if people give them the kind of leeway a clerk might have), especially if they have ways around fighting, but the tonsure is seen as a gentler place for them, especially if they have an inclination for it. ↩

4. And thus will have a hard time finding a good marriage. ↩

5. While those who are fleeing a specific marriage, or their inability to marry specifically who they love may also find celibacy harsh, some don’t want the role of marriage and a biological family at all. ↩

6. Outside of necessity, these are only considered valid when managed by an ordained priest. This includes taking confession and applying unction (absolving sins confessed by Christians), performing the Eucharist (or Communion - the ritual of eating the body and blood of Christ), baptizing (bringing a newborn or a new convert into the church), and marrying couples (but many marry outside this sacrament). ↩

7. Notably this isolates the support of the clergy from the typical family based property inheritance in a way that’s rarely matched by any other force. ↩

8. Though this can refer to any “deputy” role in the church. ↩

9. So one person owns the right to get the money from the glebe and tithes, but someone else has to do the actual work (for much less support). ↩

10. They’d still do it without the advowsons, but once the advowson is created, it’s hard to disentangle. ↩

11. Especially into sinecures when they can be had, and when the kids are… unimpressive. ↩

12. Including “companions”. ↩

13. Who could become nuns, but don’t have the recourse of the priesthood where that kind of position would fit them. ↩

14. Modeled after the Benedictines, perhaps the most famous medieval monastic order, famous for their black habits. These technically only form at the end of the game period, so we can assume these are instead Augustinian orders or similar. ↩

15. And especially books and writings in their scriptoriums. ↩

16. The archetype we’re drawing on for these are the Cistercians, a reform movement from the Benedictines - and especially the Trappists who then branched off of them as the Cistercians began to seem as comfortable as the Benedictines had been (and the Black Monks might in a sense be modeled after those later Cistercians too - the benefits of being less remote, less austere, less silent is a wider degree of ability to learn and spread learnings) ↩

17. This is a conglomeration of different friar orders that came out of the later medieval period - but especially the Franciscans with their focus on austere poverty in their teachings. ↩

18. Beggars, dependent on the goodwill of others for their sustenance, earning no money for themselves and avoiding riches. ↩

19. One step above that are the Archbishops over the ecclesiastical provinces. There are three ecclesiastical provinces across the island of Britain, and players won’t be playing them either. ↩