Bid to keep document on married clergy

An historic book currently at the heart of a battle to prevent its sale to a foreign buyer includes a document in which two bishops argue about married priests, writes Paul Wilkinson.

The sixteenth-century part-printed, part-manuscript volume includes an essay expounding one side of the fierce argument between two bishops over the issue. It was written in 1554 by the lawyer Thomas Martin and possibly Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England.

The book was owned by John Ponet, who replaced Gardiner as Bishop of Winchester in 1551, but had to flee on the accession to the throne of the devout Catholic, Mary Tudor.

After the book was sold recently to a buyer from abroad, Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Minister Ed Vaizey imposed a temporary export ban in the hope that a British buyer can be found.

The volume includes a tract that seeks to justify the reintroduction of clerical celibacy and refutes the argument of Bishop Ponet defending marriage for priests, published five years before. There are 22 other copies of the book in British collections, but Ponet’s copy is unique as it contains annotations of the text and a book-length manuscript that is part notes and part draft text for Ponet’s own reply.