The first millennium
The monastic rule of St.Benedict (+547) with its judicious balance of prayer and work proved remarkably effective, and the monasteries flourished. Indeed they became oases of civilisation in the Dark Ages. The major cities were reduced to shadows of their former selves – Rome was a decayed ‘urban village’.
This was not without its influence on the priesthood: the priest became more ‘separate’, the Divine Office prayer of the Church was increasingly monastic in form and content, unsuited to the busy pastoral life of the priest in the world. At the same time more and more members of monastic communities were ordained priests – although really only one, the abbot, was necessary, to celebrate the Eucharist.
As we reach the year 1000, we may take stock. The norm in the Church was now the priest, not the bishop. The bishop was seen as a higher ranking priest, with greater power of jurisdiction, and with the Pope as the highest-ranking priest of all. In the pastoral life of the Church, the ancient practice of adults undergoing a long catechumenate before Baptism had died out, and indeed the vast majority of the baptised were infants. Likewise the ancient idea that reconciliation for sin could only be given once after Baptism had given way to recurrent penances, initially severe, and based on a tariff system devised by monks, making priests “judges of souls”.
With the decline of cities at this time, bishops, who were town-based, began to lose influence. They ordained clergy, but it was now normally the feudal lord who would take responsibility for providing a church on his land and staffing it with a priest. This was the origin of the “benefice” system, which was to be abused when some clergy sought to hold more than one benefice – with its revenues – at any one time.
In the course of time, the Church was to react against this loss of influence to the State (which was also symbolised by the fact that kings were now crowned, and anointed at their coronation in the manner of a priest). This gave rise to the innumerable disputes over “investitures” – appointment to clerical office – which ran throughout the early Middle Ages, leading among other things to the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket (1170) and the exile of our own diocesan patron, St. Edmund of Abingdon.