History
Simony is an offence against the law of the church. In the canon law the word bears a more extended meaning than in English law. Simony according to the canonists, says John Ayliffe in his Parergon,
is defined to be a deliberate act or a premeditated will and desire of selling such things as are spiritual, or of anything annexed unto spirituals, by giving something of a temporal nature for the purchase thereof; or in other terms it is defined to be a commutation of a thing spiritual or annexed unto spirituals by giving something that is temporal.
In the Corpus Juris Canonici the Decretum and the Decretals deal with the subject. The offender whether simoniacus (one who had bought his orders) or simoniace promotus (one who had bought his promotion), was liable to deprivation of his benefice and deposition from orders if a secular priest - to confinement in a stricter monastery if a regular. No distinction seems to have been drawn between the sale of an immediate and of a reversionary interest. The innocent simoniace promotus was, apart from dispensation, liable to the same penalties as though he were guilty.
Certain matters were simoniacal by the canon law which would not be so regarded in English law. So grave was the crime of simony considered that even infamous persons could accuse of it. English provincial and legatine constitutions continually assailed simony.
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