Disabilities of Clergymen
Clergymen in England had significant legal disabilities as well as privileges. Blackstone’s Commentaries; 1-11 says:
But as they have their privileges, so also they have their disabilities, on account of their spiritual avocations. Clergymen, we have seen,7 are incapable of sitting in the house of commons; and by statute 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13. are not allowed to take any lands or tenements to farm, upon pain of 10£ per month, and total avoidance of the lease; nor shall engage in any manner of trade, nor sell any merchandise, under forfeiture of the treble value.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:38 am
They must have done something on the side, though, as that’s the origin of the phrase eke out a living (eke out = supplement; living = a fixed stipend).
August 29th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Actually, now I recall that there was often a plot of farmland reserved for the priest. Maybe he had to have someone else farm it.
Or maybe “eking out a living” meant scrimping and saving, making the most of a fixed income.
Good question. Oxford ought to be the place to answer it. Fellows of colleges used to be young men waiting around for someone to die so they be granted one of the livings in the college’s gift. Nuffield, my college, is too new to have had any, though.