ABSTRACT
The general term applied to the secular clergy in the middle ages was clerici, to distinguish them from monks or canons living according to a rule. The term was a loan word from the Greek κληρικος and was used to signify those who had the task of the ministry assigned to them.1 By the sixth century its application had been extended to include all members of the secular clergy, even the crowd of schoolboys (‘clericorum turba iuniorum’) who were taught in the episcopal schools, and shared the communal life of the Bishop’s familia in the domus ecclesie.2 In the eleventh century the Old English word clerec was used to distinguish those in minor orders (lector, exorcist, acolyte) from those in higher orders (diacon, massepreost and bisceop).3
