ABSTRACT

This chapter places this study within a wider historiographical context of discussions on the marriage, celibacy, and continence of the clergy. It examines the advantages and complexities of using a comparative method for the study of the Middle Ages and provides an extensive discussion of the primary source material. It focuses in particular on twelfth-century legal sources available in England and Byzantium: conciliar canons; papal decretals; the canonical commentaries of Theodoros Balsamon, Ioannis Zonaras, and Alexios Aristenos; and Gratian’s Decretum and its commentaries by two Anglo-Norman decretists, Master Honorius and the author of the Summa Lipsiensis.