Women and Christianity (Volume 2)

Mary Malone

Mary Malone provides an excellent historical account of how mandatory priestly celibacy -and the emergent theology of priesthood, which put the priestly class above and over the laity- arose starting in the 10th  century, taking 200 years to complete until the 12th century. The excesses of the clergy following this development, led directly to the Reformation which historians say began in 1415 with the condemnation at the Council of Konstanz of Jan Huss of Prague, and his subsequent burning at the stake as a heretic.