ABSTRACT
Clerical marriage contributed to the growth of ecclesiastical dynasties, by adding sons to the list of relatives, such as nephews or brothers, whose careers a cleric may have wished to advance. This chapter discusses attitudes towards such familial arrangements by showing how they were influenced by, and could in turn influence, contemporary views on clerical marriage, especially when combined with accusations of illegitimacy. In England, hostility towards married priests intensified the dislike of ecclesiastical dynasties and led to harsher denunciations of illegitimacy, and conversely the banning of hereditary succession to churches was used as a weapon against clerical marriage. In Byzantium, on the other hand, hereditary succession per se was not problematic. When it occurred, as in the case of the klerikoparoikoi, it did so with the support of the bishop. Nor was the issue of illegitimacy or the question of clerical marriage raised in this context. Only in the case of Byzantine bishops were rules put in place to regulate their succession, but these were addressed more widely to relatives and friends, rather than episcopal sons.
