Group against clerical celibacy that appears during the second century. Although the name is later: it is taken from Pope Nicholas II who fought them in the eleventh century. As a result of the simony prevailing during previous papacy many lay people of the Holy Empire bought their investiture as bishop while married, and thus remained despite the Catholic precepts that prevented him; that is why he and then Gregory VII with his successors rejected them by beginning a struggle of political powers in Christian Europe.
