esitation, pronounced to be valid.[4] Another and
more serious confusion between concubinage and marriage was caused by
the gradual enforcement of clerical celibacy (see CELIBACY). During the
bitter conflict between laws which forbade sacerdotal marriages and long
custom which had permitted them, it was natural that the legislators and
the ascetic party generally should studiously speak of the priests'
wives as concubines, and do all in their power to reduce them to this
position. This very naturally resulted in a too frequent substitution of
clerical concubinage for marriage; and the resultant evils form one of
the commonest themes of complaint in church councils of the later middle
ages.[5] Concubinage in general was struck at by the concordat between
the Pope Leo X. and Francis I. of France in 1516; and the council of
Trent, while insisting on far more stringent conditions for lawful
marriage than those which had prevailed in the middle ages, imposed at
last heavy ecclesiastical penalties on concubinage and appealed to the
secular arm for help against contumacious offenders (Sessio xxiv. cap.
8).

AUTHORITIES.--Besides those quoted in the notes, the reader may
consult with advantage Du Cange's _Glossarium, s.v. Concubina_, the
article "Concubinat" in Wetzer and Welte's _Kirchenlexikon_ (2nd ed.,
Freiburg i/B., 1884), and Dr H. C. Lea's _History of Sacerdotal
Celibacy_ (3rd ed., London, 1907). (G. G. Co.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The difference between English and Scottish law, which once made
"Gretna Green marriages" so frequent, is due to the fact that Scotland
adopted the Roman law (which on this particular point was followed by
the whole medieval church).

[2] Gratian, in the 12th century, tried to explain this away by
assuming that concubinage here referred to meant a formless marriage;
but in 398 a church council can scarcely so have misused the technical
terms of the then current civil law (Gratian, _Decretum_, pars i.
dist. xxiv. c. 4).

[3] Bracton, _De Legibus_, lib. iii. tract. ii. c. 28, S I, and lib.
iv. tract. vi. c. 8, S 4.

[4] F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, _Hist. of English Law_, 2nd ed.
vol. ii. p. 370. In the case of Richard de Anesty, decided by papal
rescript in 1143, "a marriage solemnly celebrated in church, a
marriage of which a child had been born, was set aside as null in
favour of an earlier marriage constituted by a mer