The title of Clericus, then, in earlier times as now, belonged not only to those in the holy ministry of the Church, and to whom more strictly applied the term Clergy, either regular or secular, but to those as well who by their function or course of life practised their pens in any court or otherwise, as Clerk of the King's Wardrobe, Clerks of the Exchequer, &c. Though in former times clerks of this description were frequently in holy orders and held benefices, it must be evident that they were not all so of necessity; and the instances are so numerous where persons having the title of "Clericus" appear nevertheless to have been in the married state, and to have discharged functions incompatible with the service of the Church, that the assertion will not be denied that the restrictions as to contracting matrimonial alliances did not extend to clerks not in holy orders or below the grade of _subdiaconus_. The _Registrum Brevium_ furnishes a precedent of a writ, "_De clerico infra sacros ordines constituto non eligendo in officium_." This distinction alone would prove that other clerks were not ineligible to office. The various decrees of the Church may be cited to show that the prohibition to marry did not include all clerks generally. Pope Gregory VII., in a synod held in 1074, "interdixit clericis, maxime divino ministerio consecratis uxores habere, vel cum mulicribus habitare, nisi quas Nicena Synodus vel alii canones exceperunt." The statutes made by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas, Archbishop elect of York, and all the other bishops of England, in 1108, in presence of King Henry I., and with the assent of his barons, confine the interdiction respecting marriages to _Presbyteri, Diaconi et Subdiaconi_, and a provision is made by them for those cases where marriages had been contracted since the interdict at the Council of London (that probably in 1103), viz. that such should be precluded thereafter from celebrating mass, if they persist in retaining their wives. "Illi vero presbyteri, diaconi, subdiaconi, qui post interdictum Londoniensis Concilii foeminas suas tenuerunt vel alins duxcrunt, si amplius missam celebrare voluerint, eas a se omnino sic facient alienas, ut nec illae in domos eorum, nec ipsi in domos earum intrent.... Illi autem presbyteri qui divini altaris et sacrorum ordinum contemptores praelegerint cum mulicribus habitare a divino officio remoti, omnique ecclesiastico beneficio privati, extra chorum ponantur, infames pronunciati. Qui vero rebellis et contemptor foeminam non reliquerit, et missam celebrare presumpserit, vocatus ad satisfactionem si neglexerit, viiij. die excommunicetur. Eadem sententia archidiaconos et cononicos omnes complectitur, et de mulieribus relinquendis et de vitanda carum conversatione, et de districtione censurae si statuta transgressi fuerint.... Presbyteri vero qui relictis mulieribus, Deo et sacris altaribus servire elegerint, xl. dies ab officio cessantes, pro se