Un/Acceptable Disability? Defectus Corporis, Scandalum, and Pontifical Grace

In the Middle Ages, clerical disability (defectus corporis) was deemed to be a potential distraction from religious worship, even provoking ruinous “shock” (scandalum) amongst the congregation. As such, the Papal Chancery had the responsibility of judging whether a specific cleric’s disability was acceptable or unacceptable for his continued ecclesiastical service. This paper analyses several case studies from the Vatican Apostolic Archives and canon law decretals to shed light on the ways in which scandalum was conceptualized, alongside the underlying mechanics – intellectual, ideological, and practical – by which such “shock” was believed to be induced by clerical disability, and how it was used as a conceptual metric to evaluate the effects of an impairment. Letters offering papal grace demonstrate that Church authorities were not averse to the inclusion of disabled men in the clergy, on the proviso that such inclusion did not bring the Christian social order into question.