Meanings of clerisy in English

The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars, are these points of relative rest.

But there is a certain ridicule, among superficial people, thrown on the scholars or clerisy, which is of no import, unless the scholars heed it.

The Popes always persecuted, with rancorous hatred, the national clerisies, the married clergy, and disliked the universities which grew out of the old monasteries.