Clergy

Members of the clergy played a large role in everyday life during the Renaissance. They performed certain religious activities and duties within Christian churches and provided leadership and guidance for laypeople*. During the Renaissance, Catholics and Protestants had very different ideas about the structure of the clergy, their duties, and their relationships with laypeople.

The Catholic Clergy. The Roman Catholic Church maintained a sharp distinction between clergy and laypeople. Catholic theology* taught that members of the clergy had been called by God to serve the church. They had the power to bless church members and to help them achieve salvation. Clergy members were easy to identify because they wore special clothing and hairstyles. When a man entered the service of the church, a bishop ceremonially removed some of his hair, marking him as a clergyman.

Clergy members were entitled to respect from laypeople, and they also enjoyed legal privileges. For example, they could not be tried in regular courts, but only in special church courts. They also did not have to pay taxes or perform military service. However, clergy members also had restrictions on their behavior. Most notably, they were not permitted to marry or have children.

Some clergy members belonged to RELIGIOUS ORDERS, such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans. These people, known as "regulars" (meaning "those who live according to a religious rule") often lived in communal houses, known as monasteries or convents. Within these houses, the regulars remained apart from everyday life. They also took vows of poverty, chastity*, and obedience. The secular* clergy, by contrast, lived in the community. This group included local priests and bishops.

At the lowest levels of the clergy were the men in minor orders, which served the church in lesser ways. For example, lectors read from the Bible during services. Minor orders were not permanent positions. Those who held them could give them up and reenter secular life.

Members of the minor orders could enter the major orders, becoming subdeacons, deacons, priests, or bishops. Subdeacons and deacons assisted bishops during services, but the positions served mainly as steppingstones to the priesthood. Priests had the authority to preach, lead services, and perform marriages and other rituals. Bishops oversaw the priests and directed and controlled religious activity in their dioceses*. The supreme authority in the church was the pope. Elected by the College of Cardinals—a select body of bishops, priests, and deacons who advised the pope—he had the final say over matters of church policy, appointments, beliefs, and morals.

The Protestant Clergy. The German religious reformer Martin LUTHER rejected the idea that the clergy should be separate from and have authority over laypeople. Luther believed that the church as a whole, not certain chosen individuals, had the power to forgive sin. He saw the congregation as a "priesthood of all believers." Although he saw the need for certain people to perform official religious functions, he believed that local congregations or their secular leaders should elect their own clergy members.

Luther did not support the idea of having ranks within the clergy. His follower Philipp MELANCHTHON, however, believed that God had established the ministry and that only those chosen for it had the authority to perform religious functions. In the late 1500s Lutherans took the first steps toward creating a church hierarchy*. They created the office of superintendent to supervise pastors and established a governing body, called the consistory, to oversee the clergy.

Different Protestant faiths had other views of the clergy. Swiss reformer Huldrych ZWINGLI (1484–1531) believed only those with a mission could teach or preach the word of God. John CALVIN of France, by contrast, established a rigid system of ranks within the clergy. Pastors counseled believers, while teachers explained the Bible. Above them were church elders, or presbyters, and deacons, who cared for the poor. In the late 1500s Calvin's system became standard practice in the churches of the Netherlands, Switzerland, and parts of the Holy Roman Empire*. England, meanwhile, maintained a church structure similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the monarch replaced the pope as the supreme head of the church.