
L’INVENZIONE DEL CLERO E DEL LAICATO NEL XII SECOLO
Lo storico statunitense Gary Macy aveva pubblicato un interessante studio, The “Invention” of Clergy and Laity in the Twelfth Century, in A pp. 118-135.
Si riproduce il testo, senza l’apparato di note (per cui si rimanda alla pubblicazione originale). È prevista una traduzione in italiano per questa pagina di Quarta Vigilia Noctis.
Dr. Bernard Cooke, in his masterful study The Distancing of God: The Ambiguity of Symbol in History and Theology, suggests that in three important ways Christians were “dis- tanced” from God in a manner never intended in the earliest years of Christianity. Liturgy gradually became a separate and sacred realm distanced from the everyday world of real life. Hellenistic thought further distanced people by replacing experience as the medium for understanding the divine and by substituting abstract thought as a more reliable way of accessing God. Finally, church structures artificially separated the Christian community into clergy and laity, a process that installed the former as the mediatore of the divine for the latter.
Basing itself on these important insights, this study hopes to help clarify one important moment in the third process identified by Dr. Cooke. The gradual separation of the clergy from the laity, indeed that might better be described as the invention of both classes, took pace, as Dr. Cooke demonstrates, over centuries. Three important moments in this development were the new legal standing of the clergy attained in the fourth century under Constantine and his successors, the Carolingian renaissance of the eighth century, and the Gregorian reform movement of the eleventh and twelfth century. At each stage of this process, the laity became more and more passive in the liturgy and the clergy came to be seen more and more as the indispensable and, indeed, the only mediatore of the divine.
Dr. Cooke followed the best scholarship of the time in identifying the Carolingian period as the point when the clergy were clearly understood as the mediators of the divine in the eucharistic action. The passage is worth quoting in full:
Logically, too, the understanding of the liturgical celebrant’s role changed: he was now thought of as the one who “administered” the sacrament, as the only essential agent of the eucharistic action. This attribution to the celebrant alone of the active role in liturgy was reinforced by the spreading practice of private masses. Such isolation of the laity from liturgical participation created a new need for sacramental catechesis. Now eucharistic liturgy became something apart from people’s immediate religious experience; it became a “word” addressed to their faith, a word that needed interpretation as it became more and more foreign.
Recent research has demonstrated that Dr. Cooke, once again, is more prophetic than his cautious scholarship here would indicate. First, it seems that the separation of clergy and laity was a more gradual process than earlier studies had indicated and that as late as the twelfth century, theologians would still define clerical roles as more inclusive than scholars had first thought. Secondly, there is evidence that as late as the twelfth century some theologians would still not ascribe to the priesthood alone the power to consecrate the eucharistic elements. This is important since it affirms and reinforces one of Dr. Cooke’s basic insights: the lay/clerical split in Christianity is not only not inevitable, but is in fact inimical to the original insights of Christianity. The evidence from contemporary sources would indicate that for over half of Christian history, the priesthood and diaconate were not understood to be a separate caste over and against the laity. Nor was the power to consecrate the bread and wine in the Eucharist universally understood to be reserved to the priesthood alone. The “invention” of a sacred priesthood metaphysically apart and above the laity was, then, a later invention than scholarly research would have indicated at the time that Dr. Cooke was writing The Distancing of God. The deep insights of that hook, and the “freedom from the tyranny of the present” that it offers, would make possible studies such as this. Dr. Cooke’s research challenges historians (especially this one) to question the history of the Church and the theology behind that history. If things were not always as they are now, then things in the future need not be as they presently are. We, the community of the Risen Lord, are free to embody the teachings of the Lord as best we can in our historical, economie, and social location, just as our predecessors did. This brief historical study is offered as small token of appreciation for the inspiration, encouragement, and challenge presented by Dr. Cooke in The Distancing of God, and indeed in all his works.
Studies on the understanding within the Christian community of what it meant to be ordained have been immensely helpful in tracking the history of the split between clergy and laity. Thanks particularly to the research of Cardinal Yves Congar, it is now clear that for the greater part of Christian history, to quote Congar, “instead of signifying, as happened from the beginning of the twelfth century, the ceremony in which an individual received a power henceforth possessed in such a way that it could never be lost, the words ordinare, ordinari, ordinatio signified the fact of being designated and consecrated to take up a certain place or better a certain function, ordo, in the community and at its Service”. In short, ordination (ordinatio) was the ceremony by which an individual moved into a new rank or profession (ordo) in both ecclesial and lay society. Within the church, anyone who moved into a new ministry or vocation in the community was “ordained” to that new ministry. Thus all the minor orders, abbots, abbesses, deacons, deaconesses, priests, nuns, monks, emperors, empresses, kings, and queens were all considered ordained up until the end of the twelfth century. Up until that time, there was no distinction made between the ordinations of priests, for instance, and abbesses. All were equally sacramentally ordained, even if their functions and roles were separate and distinct. This understanding of ordination minimizes to a large extent the difference between laity and clergy. There was no one ordained vocation or role in the Christian community that was less “ordained” than any other one was. Further, ls understanding of ordination appears not only in theological writing, but also in the letters of popes and bishops, as well as in surviving rituals for ordinations themselves. Even the word for clergy in Latin, clericus, would retain its original meaning of one who could read and write, well into the twelfth century. The twelfth-century Premonstratensian abbot, Philip of Harvengt, certainly includes nuns among the clerics in his institutione clericorum. Philip even wondered why the term “clerica” does not appear in the writings of the Fathers since they clearly knew of learned religious women. Extensive evidence exists, then, that would indicate that in the twelfth century, the older understanding of ordinatio as the ceremony marking any change in function or role within the community was still widely accepted. A momentous change in the understanding of ordination occurred in the middle of the twelfth century, as the above quote from Congar indicates. Again, recent scholarship has been able to track more precisely the timing of the change. Over twenty-five years ago, Dr. Ida Raming researched the canonical debate over the ordination of women in the twelfth century? Dr. Raming identified a definite shift in the understanding of ordination when the great collator of canon law, Gratian of Bologna, asserts in one of the very few places where he offers his own opinion, that “women cannot be admitted to the priesthood nor even to the diaconate.” The Decretum, as Gratian’s work is commonly known, quickly became the standard work of canon law for the Western church and would remain so until canon law was completely revised in 1917. Gratian’s comment was a real problem, since there was substantial evidence, even within the Decretum itself, that women had certainly been ordained deaconesses. Writing soon after Gratian had finished his work, the canon lawyer Rufinus of Bologna suggests a solution that would soon become the standard understanding of medieval scholars. The ordination of deaconesses is not a true sacramental ordination, Rufinus explains, but rather a simple blessing. True ordination is limited only to those who served at the altar, that is, priests, deacons, and subdeacons. Dr. Raming notes that Rufinus had based his position on an alleged teaching of St. Ambrose, which he found in the standard commentary on the bible (in Latin, Glossa ordinaria) that had been compiled in the early twelfth century at the School of Laon, The teaching, actually from the anonymous fourth century writer now known to scholars as the “Ambrosiaster,” asserts that only heretics ever held that women could be ordained deacons.
An investigation of theological sources from the twelfth century supports Dr. Raming’s conclusions. The teaching that ordination is limited to the priesthood and diaconate alone first appears in the Council of Benevento of 1091. The decree proclaims, “we say, however, that sacred orders are the diaconate and the presbyterate. It is read of the primitive church that it had these alone, concerning this only do we have a precept from the apostles.” The canon would later be included by Gratian in his Decretum. This law would also be copied into a sententia (short teaching) preserved from the same School of Laon that produced the Glossa ordinaria.
The teaching of the School of Laon was copied by several twelfth century writers, the most influential being Peter the Lombard, who himself wrote a commentary on the Letters of Paul that would become a standard source for later theologians. The Lombard, however, adds a new twist to the argument, adding that references to deaconesses must refer only to the wives of deacons. Using this assumption, then, historical references to the ordination of women could be conveniently explained away.
For the first time in Christian history, ordination was redefined to exclude all but the priesthood and the diaconate. As one can well imagine, this innovation was not at first widely accepted. Several theologians continued to use the older definition of ordination, and a few, most notably, Abelard of Paris, wrote movingly against the new teaching. Unfortunately, the popularity of the Glossa ordinaria, of Gratian’s Decretum, and of Peter the Lombard, as well as the support of the papacy carried the day. In time, the definition of ordination first put forward by the School of Laon and by Rufinus of Bologna would not only be the standard understanding of Western Christianity, but would be read back into all of Christian history. The more ancient understanding of ordination, an understanding that had shaped Christianity for over half its history would slowly fade from memory.
This important twelfth century debate, then, constitutes a crucial turning point in the relationship of clergy and laity. Only the priesthood and the diaconate were true sacramental orders (ordines) in the Church. All other vocations or ministries in the Church were henceforth merely jobs done by laity. Women were definitely excluded from that exclusive group and even the ancient order of deaconesses was relegated to lay status. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the theological argument could be made that women had, in fact, never been (truly) ordained, and, of course, neither had abbots or canons or kings or emperors. More than ever, the priesthood (and to a lesser extent the diaconate) became the only mediators between the merely baptized and the divine. It is important to note, however, that this change was relatively late in the history of Christianity. For over half of Christian history, ordinatio meant something quite different from ordination as understood by later theologians and councils, particularly the Council of Trent. One cannot assume, therefore, that the word ordinatio as used in these earlier centuries refers to that later understanding; indeed, the contrary is true, One cannot argue, then, that since the term ordinatio was used in the fourth, sixth, eighth, or eleventh century, there existed a continuous practice of ordination, as it would be understood in the sixteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries. The word had shifted meaning so radically as to create an entirely new caste among the Christian community.
The new exclusionary definition of “ordination” was dependent on the function of the priest (and to a lesser extent that of the deacon and subdeacon) to preside at the Eucharist. The role of the priest as special mediator of God’s grace, moreover, rested to a large extent on the power of the priest to lead the liturgy and, most importantly, to confect the presence of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist.
Just as important, therefore, as the redefinition of ordination in accomplishing a definitive split between clergy and laity, would be the theological assumption that only a properly “ordained” priest could make the Risen Lord present in the Eucharist. At the beginning of the twelfth century though, scholars were not at all in agreement that a priest alone could effect the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. At least three twelfth century scholars are known to have put forward the theory that the words of consecration themselves confect, regardless of who says the words.
Abelard, writing in his Theologia christiana, describes their position: “I know of two brothers who are numbered among the highest masters, the other of whom imputed such power to the divine words in the confecting of the sacrament that by whomever they are pronounced they have the same efficacy, so that even a woman or someone of whatever order or condition through the words of the Lord is able to confect the sacrament of the altar.” The great medieval scholar Marie Dominique Chenu has identified these two brothers as the famous brothers Bernard and Thierry of Chartres.
The Chartrians, however, were not the only theologians to teach that the words of consecration alone confect the sacrament. Teaching in Paris in the early 1160s, the liturgist John Beleth describes the secret of the Mass in the following terms:
The secret is so-called because it is recited secretly, although in the past it was said aloud so that it was known by lay people. It happened, therefore, that one day shepherds placed bread on a rock which, at the recitation of those words, was changed into flesh, perhaps the bread was transubstantiated into the body of Christ since vengeance was most rapidly taken against them by divine agency. For they were struck down by a divine judgment sent from heaven. Hence it was decreed that in the future it be said silently.
The story originally appears as a cautionary tale in the sixth century Pratum spirituale of John Moschius. The story is repeated by the anonymous Speculum ecclesiae, written ca. 1160-1175. In this version, there is no mention of transubstantiation, however the shepherds are punished by divine vengeance for their lack of reverence for such a great mystery. This version of the story was copied into the De missarum mysteriis of Cardinal Lother of Segni c. 1195. He was soon to be elevated to the papacy as Pope Innocent III. Although neither author speaks of the words of institution as consecrating of themselves, as did the brothers from Chartres and John Beleth, they ascribe to the words great power apart from their enunciation by an ordained priest.
The position of the brothers from Chartres and that of Beleth may have formed the basis of the teaching of some of the heretical Waldensians, who argued in the late twelfth century that if no worthy priest could be found, a lay person, even a woman, could lead the liturgy and consecrate the bread and wine. Their position is reflected in the creed written for those Waldensians returning to the church in 1208 by Innocent III: “Therefore we firmly believe and confess that however honest, pious, holy or prudent someone may be, he [the adjectives are masculine; only a male is intended here] is not able to nor ought to consecrate the Eucharist nor perform the ritual of the altar, unless he is a priest regularly ordained by a bishop in a visible and tangible way.” The words are quite similar to those used to describe the position of Bernard and Thierry, and so suggest that this was not just an isolated academic opinion, but one that found resonance with at least one Christian community.
Along with the discussion of the power of the words of consecration, a further discussion occurred in the twelfth century over which words could be used for consecration. Gregory the Great, writing in the sixth century, explains in a letter to John, the bishop of Syracuse, the liturgical customs of the Roman church: “We say the Lord’s Prayer immediately after the intercession (the Kyrie) for this reason because the custom of the apostles was that they consecrated the sacrifice of offering by this prayer alone. It seemed exceedingly unsuitable to me that we would say an intercession over the offering which a scholar had composed and that we would not say the very tradition that our Redeemer had composed over his body and blood.”
In the late eleventh century, Bernold of Constance produced a lengthy commentary on the papal liturgy. While explaining the history of the canon, he referred to the letter of Gregory, adding that Gregory inserted the Lord’s Prayer into the liturgy since this was the prayer that “the apostles themselves were believed to have used in the confection of these sacraments by the institution of the Lord.” By the twelfth century, Gregory’s teaching had been slightly changed. While scholars continucd to teach that the Lord’s Prayer was the original prayer over the gifts, they added that the blessings of Jesus over the bread and wine were also part of the original prayer of consecration. One of the most fascinating of these accounts comes from an anonymous work found in a thirteenth century manuscript in the British Library. The author gave a history of the prayers used in the Mass, which begins, “Saint Peter the first celebrated Mass in Antioch in which only the words of the Lord and the Lord’s Prayer were said.” Less colorful explanations of Gregory’s teaching appeared in the Gemma anima of Honorius Augustodunensis, written ca. 1102-1133: “The Lord Jesus, priest according to the order of Melchisedech, at first instituted the Mass when he made his body and blood from bread and wine, and ordered this to be celebrated in his memory. The apostles added to this when they said the words which the Lord said and the Lord’s Prayer over the bread and wine.”
Rupert of Deutz, writing in 1111 explains that the elaborated liturgy is not holier than earlier times “when it was consecrated by the words of the Lord alone and by the Lord’s Prayer alone.” Robert Paululus, writing ca. 1175-1180, copied this teaching of Honorius. John Beleth taught that the apostles originally simply recited the words of institution, but then added the Lord’s Prayer. Sicard of Cremona, writing ca. 1185-1195, taught that the words of institution transubstantiated the bread and wine, but added that the apostles added the Lord’s Prayer to the words said over the bread and wine. Once again, the Waldensians appear to have used this teaching in their liturgies. According to Alexander of Alexandria, the Dominican friar who recorded early practices of the Waldensians, the heart of their liturgy was a seven-fold repetition of the Lords Prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer is not the only element in the liturgy, however, that twelfth century theologians consider as candidates for the power to consecrate. The Speculum ecclesiae is quite explicit concerning the role of the sign of cross in the consecration: “And by this everything is given in those words of the Lord given in the supper which the priest adds. But this about to be said, thus first he begins, ‘Who on the day before he suffered.’ With these words, he raises the still common bread from the altar and having raised it, he blesses and imprints the sign of the cross, and before he sets it down he reproduces the words of the Lord when he says, ‘He blessed and broke,’ and that which follows. Then he takes up the chalice and signs it and reproduces the words of the Lords saying, ‘And he gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take and drink from this, all of yoy.’ Here that extraordinary miracle is done. With these words food for the flesh becomes food for the soul. Through these words and through the sign of the cross nature is renewed, and bread becomes flesh and wine blood.” Richard the Premonstratensian, writing ca. 1150-1175, made the power of the cross the central theme of his entire spiritual commentary on the liturgy According to Richard, “The power of the mass is the cross of Christ which consecrates and sanctifies the sacrament of the altar and all the sacraments of the church.” Further, it is “through the power of the cross that, first of all, those things placed [on the altar] are hlessed.” Once again, it is the Waldensians who seem to have put this teaching into practice in their liturgies, as they are reported by Alexander ol Alexandria to have consecrated the bread and wine by means of the sign of the cross.
During the twelfth century at least, it appears that there was as yet no agreement as to what would be referred to as the “form” of the Eucharist. Many, if not most, theologians, most notably Peter che Lombard, would have agreed that the words of institution consecrate the bread and wine, transforming them into the body and blood of the Risen Lord. As demonstrated above, however, there was not unanimous agreement on that question. Some theologians, based on a tradition stemming from Gregory the Great, would argue that the Lord’s Prayer was at least at one time part of the words of consecration. Other theologians would put forth the theory that the sign of the cross was still part of the formula of consecration.
At the great Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the first article adopted by Pope Innocent III and the others gathered together, was a creed directed against several heretical groups, including the Waldensians. In part, it reads:
There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transubstantiatis) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors.
This section of the creed and first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council held in 1215 arguably contains the most discussed and debated words from that Council. Scholars have particularly focused on the use of the term transubstantiatiatis, the first such use in an official church document.
Less noticed, but perhaps equally important, are the words which follow, “And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors.” Most scholars assume that this statement merely repeats the standard orthodox position of the time. In fact, this statement may have been intended to quell twelfth-century debates on two issues: who could properly confect the sacrament and how that sacrament was confected. The creed of the Fourth Lateran Council could be seen not as a simple repetition of long-held Christian beliefs, but as a magisterial intervention to settle theological and pastoral discussions of real importance. The decrees of Lateran IV spread with remarkable speed throughout Western Christianity and the implementation of those decrees created a very different church from that which preceded the Council (Logan 2002, 193-201).
Seen in this light, Lateran IV provides a convenient demarcation between an older understanding of ordination, which included most of the functions and roles within the church, and a new understanding of ordinatio, which excluded all but those who lead the liturgy from orders. Along with and closely connected with this change, was an understanding of the priesthood which greatly enhanced its power by insisting that only a properly ordained priest could consecrate the bread and wine at the altar. The change was dramatic and very successful.
Not that Innocent III would have understood himself as introducing anything new. He would have seen himself as restoring an older order, basing himself on the texts of the Ambrioster as mediated by the Glossa ordinaria, by Peter the Lombard, and particularly by the Decretum. The teachings of Bernard and Thierry of Chartres, of John Beleth, and of the commentators on the liturgy mentioned above, were soon forgotten or explained away by later writers. Interestingly enough, none of these writers were ever accused of heresy, nor were their positions ever condemned either during their lifetitnes or after. If the Waldensians were in fact carrying on what they may have felt were older traditions based on the above teachings, they were certainly condemned for holding them. The creed of Lateran IV was in part directed against them. What was a respectable, or at least acceptable, academic position before the end of the twelfth century, would become heretical in the thirteenth century. The church that emerged from Lateran IV was, despite the intentions of its creators, something new – a more clerical, more hierarchical, and more centralized church than that which preceded it.
Nor did the innovations of Gratian, the Glossa, and the Lombard come out of the blue. In many ways, they can be seen as the logical result, and in some sense the culmination, of reforms of earlier centuries, commonly known as the Gregorian Reform movement. Central to this reform was the insistence of the supremacy of the priesthood and of the papacy over the secular lords. Emphasizing the difference between laity and priesthood was essential to this claim. Throughout much of the twelfth century, the claims were at best tenuous, as claimants for the papal throne fought for control. Not until 1177 would there be one pope accepted by all of Europe. Only then could the Councils of Lateran III and Lateran IV begin to consolidate and enforce the claims of the Gregorian Reform movement. As in all human affairs, there are political factors that influence the choice of structures the Church uses to further its mission as the Body of Christ. In this case, the struggle for the control of the Church between lay lords and the papal office must be seen as the backdrop to the separation of clergy and laity effected in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
Of what practical importance can such an esoteric recitation of obscure and forgotten writers be to the present church? First and most importantly, it demonstrates that the present radical split between clergy and laity did not exist in its present form before the twelfth century. For most of Christian history, such a definitive split simply did not exist. Secondly, the Christianity of those early centuries was able to survive and thrive, and one assumes, mediate the life of the Risen Lord to all the faithful without the necessity of an exclusively ordained clergy. These conclusions are historical, for the most part. While not claiming to be the only possible interpretation of thes ources presented, at least the presentation is plausible and cannot be dismissed without seriously engaging the evidence offered here. How and even whether they have theological or pastoral implications are theological, not historical questions.
A whole other set of mainly theological conclusions can also be reached, of course, and these are far more controversial and controverted. One could argue, for instance, that there is a development in the understanding of the church by which the Spirit guides the leadership of the Church to gradually uncover what theSpirit intended all along. In this understanding, the evidence offered above merely affirms the assertion that Innocent III as pope was fulfilling his role as adjudicator of the tradition. His position was the position of the Church and of the Spirit, and would remain so for all time, unless modified by his successors. The positions of John Beleth, of the Chartrians, and of the commentatore were interestings peculation, but wrong: dead ends in the long history of the Church. The practices of the Waldensians were simply heretical and thus condemned as such.
A different theological approach, one long championed by Dr. Cooke, would argue that the Spirit speaks through each generation of the Church and each generation must respond to the Spirit in its own cultural, economic, and social setting. Central to that response is the understanding that all Christians are open to the Spirit. There is no theological necessity for a mediating body through which the Spirit must work. Such mediations are culturally conditioned and not divinely established ministries. Yet, to say this is not to deny the importance of structure in the Church. To be truly incarnated and working in the Church, the Spirit will certainly take a form that is human, and humans always structure themselves. No particular structure should be mistaken for the Spirit, yet to deny the inevitability of some structure would be to fall into the second of the distancings of God against which Dr. Cooke warns. We are not disembodied platonic entities immediately intuiting the divine will. We are saved with, through, and sometimes despite the communities in which we live and breath and have our being.
Here the theological conclusion might be that however necessary the separation of laity and clergy might have been to the independence (and hence prophetic role) of the Church in the twelfth and thirteenth century, such a separation might not be necessary or even desirable in the twenty-first century. The pastoral needs of the present are quite different from those of the thirteenth century, and may demand different models of leadership. The fact that such different models existed in the thought of John Beleth, of the Chartranians, and of the commentators, and in the pastoral practices of the Waldensians, suggests that there is more than one tradition from which the Church can draw in adjudicating the will of the Spirit. Different social, economic, and political settings require different responses from the Christian community, just as they have in the past.
The purpose of this article is not to settle these weighty and serious theological and pastoral problems. It is simply to offer an alternative way of lookingat Christian history; and thus, to offer an alternative way of understanding Christian tradition. As such, it is a footnote (literally “at the feet”) to the scholarly, challenging, and prophetic work of Dr. Cooke, who has never let us forget that the Spirit is free and available to all Christians in their everyday human experience, whether those Christians lived in the twelfth or the twenty-first centuries. For this great gift, many thanks.
References
Gabriel Audisio, The Waldensian Dissent: Persecution and Survival, c. 1170 – c.1570, transl. Claire Davison. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Euan Cameron, Waldenses: Rejection of Holy Church in Medieval Europe. Oxford, Blackwell, 2000.
BernardCooke, Ministry to Word and Sacrament: History and Theology. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1976.
Yves Congar, “My Path-findings in the Theology of Laity and Ministries,” in The Jurist 32 (1977).
F. Donald Logan, A History of the Church in the Middle Ages. London, Routledge, 2002.
Gary Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians, c. 1080-1220. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984.
Gary Macy, “The Ordination of Women in the Middle Ages”, in Theological Studies 61 (2000); reprinted with the Latin footnotes translated into English as the first chapter of Bernard Cooke and Gary Macy, eds. A History of Women and Ordination: Volume 1: The Ordination of Women in a Medieval Context. New York, Scarecrow Press, 2002.