It was Dunstan’s chief aim to subjugate the Anglo-Saxon church to the power of Rome, and to correct existing abuses by compelling the clergy and the monks to obey the rule of celibacy.  He was a fervent believer in the efficacy of the Benedictine vows, and in the value of clerical celibacy as a remedy for clerical licentiousness.  Naturally, Protestant writers, who hold that papal supremacy never was a blessing in any country or in any age, and who think that clerical celibacy has always been a fruitful source of crime and sin, condemn the reforms of Dunstan in the most unqualified terms.  A statement of a few of the many and perplexing facts may assist us to form a fairly just judgment of the man and his work.

The principle of sacerdotal celibacy appeared early in the history of Christianity, and for many centuries it was the subject of sharp contention.  Roman Catholics themselves have been divided upon it.  In every Christian country, from the Apostolic period onward, there were priests and teachers who opposed the imposition of this rule upon the clergy, and, on the other hand, there were those who practiced and advocated celibacy as the indispensable guarantee of spiritual power and purity.

What the rule of celibacy was at this period, in England, seems uncertain.  Lingard maintains that marriage was always permitted to the clergy in minor orders, who were employed in various subordinate positions, but that those in higher orders, whose office it was to minister at the altar and to offer the sacrifice, were expressly bound to a life of the strictest continence.  During the invasion of the Danes, when confusion reigned, many priests in the higher orders had not only forsaken their vows of chastity, but had plunged into frightful immoralities; and married clerks of inferior orders were raised to the priesthood to fill the ranks depleted by war.  These promoted clerks were previously required to separate from their wives, but apparently many of them did not do so.  Consequently, from several causes, the married priests became a numerous body, and since the common opinion seems to have been that a married priest was disgracing his office, this body was regarded as a menace to the welfare of the church and the state.

Lea, in his elaborate “History of Sacerdotal Celibacy,” holds that the rule of celibacy was only binding on the regulars, or monks, and that the secular priesthood was at liberty to marry.  But from several other passages in his work it seems that he also recognizes the fact that, while marriage was common, it was in defiance of an ancient canon.  “It is evident,” he says, “that the memory of the ancient canons was not forgotten, and that their observance was still urged by some ardent churchmen, but that the customs of the period had rendered them virtually obsolete, and that no sufficient means existed of enforcing obedience.  If open scandals and shameless bigamy and concubinage could be restrained, the ecclesiastical authorities were evidently content.  Celibacy could not be enjoined as a law, but was rendered attractive by surrounding it with privileges and immunities denied to him who yielded to the temptations of the flesh.”