Priests would be appointed as clerks to handle local government transactions.
Noblemen would hire priests as their personal secretaries.
Did the Church stop the practice? If not, what did?

OK, this is a total shot in the dark, but here goes... Assuming what you say is correct:

Perhaps it stopped when the literacy level of the general population grew to a point where there were more than just a few people who could do the job.

Or... it could have been that the Church forbade priests from doing this because it did not want the clergy beholden to the nobles, at least in this manner.

Or... perhaps clerical compensation grew to the point where they did not have to hire themselves out as secretaries.

I await someone with a definitive reply.

Why would the Church stop the practice? The idea of the separation of church and state did not occur until the American experiment began and did not in Europe until far later and then, only in parts of Europe. For example, unlike the USA, the UK is still an officially Christian state. Her bishops still sit in the House of Lords and are engaged in secular governmental affairs. We may find that odd, but that is do to our "Enlightenment" perspective.

The priests in the Middle Ages were exempted from paying taxes because their work was considered noble.

And they had a powerful lobbying organization.

The jobs described in this post are probably prohibited by Canon 285 (I am not a canon lawyer, so, I may be mistaken)



Can. 285 §1. Clerics are to refrain completely from all those things which are unbecoming to their state, according to the prescripts of particular law.

§2. Clerics are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.

§3. Clerics are forbidden to assume public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.

§4. Without the permission of their ordinary, they are not to take on the management of goods belonging to lay persons or secular offices which entail an obligation of rendering accounts. They are prohibited from giving surety even with their own goods without consultation with their proper ordinary. They also are to refrain from signing promissory notes, namely, those through which they assume an obligation to make payment on demand.

This code was promulgated in 1983.

Yes. This forced a few priests in the USA to not seek re-election, including Fr. Robert Drinan, SJ.

From Wikipedia:

I vaguely recall, and will not research it, that the Church provided more than scribes. It also provided a communications network where missives were taken from abbey to monastery to cathedral, and then transferred under the aegis of Holy Mother Church in the person of a cleric -- to the next node in the network -- until reaching their destination.

Yes, network. It was a primitive form of the internet. Nothing is new.

My guess is that, with the improvement of ships and the recovery of seaborne transport, the Church had a competitor which could transfer communications much faster than terrestrial methods.

I am reminded that according to Peter Brown's highly respected biography of St. Augustine of Hippo, the saint spent much of his day as a judge of civil cases.

I am reminded that according to Peter Brown's highly respected biography of St. Augustine of Hippo, the saint spent much of his day as a judge of civil cases.