priest-riddenadj.

1647 C. Culpeper Let. 21 Apr. in 17th-cent. Polit. & Financial Papers (1996) 296 Our presente..clergy..are like to rayse in mens hearts any other then the same kinde of linsy woolsy religion, which wee haue inioyed..euer since the Ciuill beaste hath been prieste-ridden.

1681 J. Dryden Spanish Fryar ii. iv. 25 Was ever man thus Priest-ridden?

?1706 E. Hickeringill Priest-craft: 2nd Pt. viii. 80 Nothing but the Redemption of the Priest-ridden Laiety from Priest-craft Slavery and Tyranny could have perswaded me to this ungrateful..Toil.

1736 Gentleman's Mag. Jan. 5/2 Princes themselves so Priest-ridden.

1765 J. Priestly Ess. on Liberal Educ. 166 Had our ancestors three centuries ago catched this spirit, we had been blind and priest-ridden Papists.

1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian x, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. I. 276 I have been abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden.

1864 J. H. Burton Scot Abroad I. v. 290 (note) The Scots are called a priest-ridden people, yet their most esteemed jests are against the clergy.

1901 M. Foster Lect. Hist. Physiol. 17 It was for a life in priest-ridden, ignorant, superstitious Madrid that Vasalius had forsaken the freedom of the Venetian Republic.

1946 Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 8 Jan. 10/4 Let me compare education in the priest-ridden Russia of Czardom with conditions obtaining in that country today.

1988 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 2 Oct. (Bk. Review section) 5 Maddox builds a narrative of a girl sent off to her grandma, because in ‘priest-ridden’ Ireland, there were always too many children.

1653 E. Waterhouse Humble Apol. Learning 82 That pusillanimity..which by many in our Age scornfully is called Priest-riddenness as I may so say, their term being Priest-ridden when they express a man addicted to the Clergie.