Abstract

The review discusses the question of clerical celibacy in the West during the Middle Ages and the early modern period, as reconstructed in a recent book by Helen Parish. Despite the accuracy and seriousness of the research, the author's intent to demonstrate the apostolic origins of the marriage ban among the clergy shapes the entire book, which devotes relatively little attention to the other perspectives from which this problem can be studied. In particular, the frequent, even endemic violation of clerical celibacy is an aspect of the history of the West that is too well documented to be underestimated or dismissed as the product of human weakness.