“It is all the worse when they have it all, for they do not dispose of it as they ought, but decorate their wives with what they should the altars, and turn everything to their own worldly pomp.... Let those who before this had the evil custom of decorating their women as they should the altars refrain from this evil custom, and decorate their churches as they best can; then would they command for themselves both divine counsel and worldly worship. A priest’s wife is nothing but a snare of the devil, and he who is ensnared thereby on to his end will be seized fast by the devil.” In the tenth century, priests were found deserting their wives for other women. No doubt scandals of this kind, and other grave abuses, induced the Winchester Council in 1076 to make a declaration against the marriage of priests. All future marriages were forbidden, but parish priests who were already married were allowed to keep their wives. In the next century severe measures were taken. A Council was convened at London in 1102, when it was decreed that no married priest could celebrate. The controversy on clerical celibacy went on by fits and starts, until the Lateran Council in 1215 definitely pronounced against marriage. Meanwhile the clergy had followed their own instincts, and evaded the ordinances against marriage by taking concubines, like Bishop Nigel of Ely, in the twelfth century. That prelate’s partner was the valiant Maud of Ramsbury, who bravely defended the castle of Devizes against King Stephen, and only capitulated when the enemy, having stolen her son, threatened to hang him before her eyes. The document entitled, “Instructions for Parish Priests,” composed not later than the middle of the fifteenth century, shows that it was quite common for priests to be married, though the practice was reprobated, and “chastity,” meaning abstinence from wedlock, was enjoined. But those who were too weak to live honestly and uprightly as celibates are told to take a wife. Dr. Jessop states that by the eleventh century country parsons had almost ceased to be married men, though Benedicts were found among them here and there as late as the thirteenth century, when a veto was put upon priests’ marriages.[33] The decrees of provincial councils prove the existence of priestly concubinage down to the sixteenth century. The worst effects of the celibate system were seen in the sixteenth century. Debauchery was spread throughout the country. As many as one hundred thousand women were ruined by the priests, for whom houses of ill fame were kept.[34] From Carnarvonshire came complaints of the well-to-do laity, that their wives and daughters were not safe from outrage by the priests. Out of their own mouths the clergy are condemned. In 1536 the secular clergy in the diocese of Bangor wrote to Cromwell, that if their women were taken away they would be homeless outcasts.