On Apr 21, 2009, at 11:24 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> You're quite right that clerical office couldn't be inherited. That
> was the church's way out of the family and pseudo-family alliances
> that were the basis of feudal polity. But that didn't mean that
> clerical office necessarily went to the aristocracy.
I asked: "Who the hell spawned the episcopate--serfs?" The reply--a couple of Englishmen co-opted from the bourgeoisie were cited and also that in England the Episcopate ran many of its estates through monasteries. One might as well reject the idea of a capitalist ruling class by pointing to the humble origins of Andrew Carnegie! As for the "feudal" reformation--read Tawney, read Weber!
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos
> Quite the contrary -- it was the route for men (and even women) of
> talent to rise, throughout the Middle Ages. Thomas Becket (whose
> father was a cloth merchant) and Thomas Wolsey (whose father was a
> butcher) are well-known English examples. And in fact it was the
> monasteries, not the episcopate, that were the major landowners (as,
> e.g., Henry VIII's button-man, Thomas Cromwell, well understood)...
> ... in fact the Reformation was inter alia a feudal movement...
>
> Shane Mage wrote:
>> This couldn't be further from reality. Who the hell spawned the
>> episcopate
>> -- serfs? Clerical celibacy was the iron link binding the Church to
>> feudalism
>> -- because clerical office couldn't be inherited recruitment had to
>> come from
>> the aristocracy and no self-perpetuating clerical caste could ever
>> take
>> shape. Meanwhile the lower clergy, deprived of legal sanction for
>> their family lives, became itself an army of serfs for the
>> episcopate -- while the Church itself was becoming by far the
>> largest feudal landlord everywhere in Europe. Estabrook would
>> present the Reformation and the French Revolution, which both
>> *began* by abolishing celibacy, as "feudal" movements!
>>>