question: canon law, clerics, weapons (and D&D!!)
- From: "DylanBD" <dbryandolman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 04:17:41 GMT
Does anyone know exactly when and by whom clerics were forbidden to carry
weapons? And in practice how did the ban play out?
I ask because I'm reading Barry Unsworth's book Morality Play, and in it the
fourteenth-century narrator says that only edged and pointed weapons were
forbidden to priests, leaving them perfectly free to bash people's brains in
with a stout cudgel. I was amazed because this is exactly the same rule that
applied to a fantasy "cleric" in old-school Dungeons & Dragons, which I
found unrealistic even as a kid. Did Barry Unsworth do his historical
research by leafing through an old Dungeonmaster's Guide, or was Gary Gygax,
creator of D&D, more historically accurate than I ever gave him credit for?
So far all I have found in online Catholic encyclopedias is the vague
statement that, at least by the mid-twelfth century, clerics were forbidden
to carry weapons and so needed to have special protections added under the
law to balance the restriction. But it never says when or by whom the
original restriction was put in place, or whether their really was a formal
or informal exception made for Friar Tuck types with quarterstaffs.
Here's a thing about the Second Lateran Council, which mentions the original
ban in Canon 15: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran2.html
.
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