a layman who had contracted two lawful marriages
and then proceeded to ordination on the death of his second wife,
could be absolved only by the pope; whereas the concubinary priest,
"as a man branded with simple fornication," might receive a valid
dispensation from his own bishop (Letter to archbishop of Lund in
1212. _Regest._ lib. xvi. ep. 118; Migne, _P.L._ ccxvi. col. 914). As
the great canonist Gratian remarked on a similar decretal of Pope
Pelagius, "Here is a case where lechery has more rights at law than
has chastity" (_Decret._ p. i. dist. xxxiv. c. vii. note a).

[11] The actual originator of this policy was Nicholas II., probably
at Hildebrand's suggestion; but the decree remained practically a
dead letter until Gregory's accession.

[12] Peter Lombard, _Sentent._ lib. iv. dist. 13; Aquinas, _Summa
Theol._ pars iii. Q. lxxxiii. art. 7, 9.

[13] Labbe-Mansi, _Concilia_, vol. xix. col. 796 and xx. col. 724. Dr
Lea is probably right in suggesting that it was a confused
recollection of these decrees which prompted one of Cranmer's judges
to assure him that "his children were bondmen to the see of
Canterbury." Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, bk iii. c. 28 (ed. 1812,
vol. i. p. 601).

[14] Bonaventura, _Libell. Apologet._ quaest. i.; cf. his parallel
treatise _Quare Fratres Minores praedicent_. The first visitation of
his friend Odo Rigaldi, archbishop of Rouen, shows that about 15% of
the parish clergy in that diocese were notoriously incontinent
(_Regestrum Visitationum_, ed. Bonnin, Rouen, 1852, pp. 17 ff.).
Vacandard (loc. cit. p. 2087) appeals rather misleadingly to this
record as proving the progress made during the half-century before
Odo's time. It is probable that there were many more offenders than
these 15% known to the archbishop.

[15] Alvarus Pelagius, _De Planctu Ecclesiae_, ed. 1517, f. 131a,
col. 2; cf. f. 102b, col. 2; Hermann von der Hardt, _Constantiensis
Concilii_, &c. vol. i. pars. viii. col. 428.

[16] This more or less regular sale of licences by bishops and
archdeacons flourished from the days of Gregory VII. to the 16th
century; see index to Lea, s.v. "Licences." Dr Lea has, however,
omitted the most striking authority of all. Gascoigne, the most
distinguished Oxford chancellor of his day, writing about 1450 of
John de la Bere, then bishop of St Dav