Spiritual heirs and families: episcopal relatives in early medieval Francia

This chapter explores celibacy and family strategies concerning episcopal office in the Carolingian empire. It shows a disconnection between the canonical theories that still allowed married priests and bishops and the rarity of such men in most of the empire. The chapter also explores possible reasons for this pattern, focusing on the interaction between changing forms of clerical education, the ideology of succession to office and noble strategies for family advancement. Some historians have linked reformers' campaigns against clerical marriage and simony to worries about church property. As Robert Moore puts it, "the problem of provision for the clerical family was acute", and he cites claims by Bishop Atto of Vercelli that churches in mid-tenth century Italy were "despoiled" by married clerics. The chapter finishes by returning to Moore, who comments: "the campaign for clerical celibacy in the eleventh century must be regarded in part as an attempt to subordinate local hierarchies to central authority".