How far the mischief had already gone is illustrated by two or three examples which we are able to quote.[263] In York, immediately after the Conquest, there was something very like a succession to the archbishopric. The provostship of Hexham descended from father to son, all of them being priests. The Deans of Whalley and Kettelwell, ecclesiastics of great jurisdiction and influence, were married, and their offices descended from father to son for generations. In the episcopal registers we find from time to time sons succeeding their fathers well on in the thirteenth century, notwithstanding the canons and synods which prohibited it.
The great act of defence against this danger which threatened was the canon which forbade the son of a parson to succeed to his father's benefice. The canon was re-enacted from time to time, but not without occasional instances of strenuous resistance. Thus, in 1235, Alexander, Bishop of Coventry, complained to Pope Gregory IX., that certain rectors, sons of priests, presumed to occupy their fathers' benefices by force of arms; and in some cases where fit incumbents had been placed, the priest's sons had threatened them with injury to members and life, so that they feared to dwell there; and he asks the pope's protection.[264] The pope tells him to deprive them of all their benefices.[265]
Some of the results of the state of things above described appear very frequently in the bishops' registers. Illegitimacy, we have seen, was one of the defects which stood in the way of a man's ordination, and the son of a priest was regarded by the canons as illegitimate; but the bishop could, if he pleased, give a dispensation which removed the barrier, and there are many records of such dispensations.[266] Sometimes the dispensation only admits the grantee to take minor orders, sometimes "to take all the sacred orders, and to hold ecclesiastical benefices even with cure of souls." In the Register of Bishop Quivil, of Exeter, 1282, is a record of a _Dispensatio super defectu natalium_ granted to J. de Axemuthe, the defect being that he was _de presbytero genitus et soluta_. So, in the Exeter Register of Bishop Stapledon, J. de Hurbestone, clerk, in 1308, had a dispensation, being _de presbytero genitus et soluta_. _Soluta_ means single woman, but in the eye of the canon law and of the bishop, the wife of a priest would be _soluta_, so that these may be cases not of immorality, but of married priests. In the Register of Montacute, Bishop of Ely, is a record of a dispensation (1338) to the son of Ada Bray, of Canterbury, _qui patre de presbytero genitus_, to be promoted to all minor orders.[267] In a great number of cases the nature of the illegitimacy is _soluto genitus et soluta_--born of a single man and single woman; it is very possible that a number of sons of the clergy may be included in this formal legal description also.