Could Elizabethan priests marry

Answer 1

The Elizabethan era was a time associated with Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603).

Clerical celibacy is the practice in various religious traditions, in which clergy adopt a celibate life, refraining from marriage and sexual relationships, including masturbation and "impure thoughts" (such as sexual visualisation and fantasies).

Celibacy and for the priesthood has an established fact by the time of the Second Lateran Council (1139) and had won widespread support from lay and ecclesiastical leaders. So during the Elizabethan era priests were expected to remain celibite.

However, despite the Church's best intentions there were some notable exceptions. Against the long-standing tradition of the Church in the East as well as in the West, which excluded marriage after ordination, Zwingli married in 1522, Luther in 1525, and Calvin in 1539. And against what had also become, though seemingly at a later date, a tradition in both East and West, the married Thomas Cranmer was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533.

Answer 2

The church does not allow priests to marry, but that has not prevented the clergy from having mistresses, including some popes.