Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/1096 (page 4)
    bishops, although undiocesan (Baed., H. E., iii. 4, V. 24). And clerical abbats (episcopal indeed first, in Ireland, and afterwards presbyteral— see Todd’s St. Patnck, pp. 88, 89) seem to have been always the rule in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. In Ireland, indeed, abbats were so identified with not presbyters only but bishops, that the Pope is found designated as “Abbat ” of Rome” (Todd’s St. Patrick, 156). Most con- tinental abbats, however (and even, their Prae- positi and Decani) appear to have been pres- byters by A.D. 817. These officers may bestow ■ the b'enediction (“ quamvis presbyteri non sint”; -Cunc. Aquisgr., a.d. 817, c. 62). All were ordered •.to be so, but as yet ineffectually, A.D. 826 (Cone. Rom. c. 27). And the order was still needed, .but was being speedily enforced by custom, A.D. ]1078^(Conc. Pictav. c. 7: “ Ut abbates et decani f [aliter abbates diaconi] qui presbyteri non sunt, , presbyteri fiant, aut praelationes amittant ”). A bishop-abbat was forbidden in a particular ! rnstance by a Council of Toledo (xii., A.D. 681, . c. 4), but permitted subsequently as (at first) an . exceptional case at Lobes near Liege, about A.D. 700, (conjecturally) for missionary purposes among 'the still heathen Flemish (D’Achery, Spicil. ii. '730); a different thing, it should be noted, from 1 bishops resident in abbeys under the abbat’s jurisdiction (“ Episcopi monachi,” according to . a very questionable reading in Baed. H. E. iv. •5), as in Ireland and Albanian Scotland, and in sseveral continental (mostly exempt) abbeys (St. Denys, St. Martin of Tours, &c.), and both at this and at later periods in exempt abbeys generally (Du Cange, voc. Episcopi Vagantes: Todd’s St. Patrick, 51 sq.); although in some of these con- ’ tinental cases the two plans seem to have been I interchanged from time to time, according as the abbat happened to be either himself a bishop, or ' merely to have a monk-bishop under him ► (Martene and Durand, Thes. Nov. Anecd. i. Pref. giving a list of Benedictine Abbatial bishops ; Todd, ib.). In Wales, and in the Scottish sees in Anglo-Saxon England (e.g. Lindisfarne), and in a certain sen.se in the monastic sees of the Augustinian English Church, the bishop was also . an abbat; but the latter office was here ap- pended to the former, not (as in the other cases) the former to the lattci'. So, too, “ Antistes et abbas,” in Sidon. Apoll. (xvi. 114), speaking of two abbats . of Lerins, who were also Bishops of Riez. Pos- sibly there were undiocesan bi«hop-abbats in Welsh abbeys of Celtic date (Rees, Welsh SS. 182, 266). Abbats sometimes acted as chore- piscopi in the 9th century: v. Du Cange, voc. Chorepiscopus. The abbats also of Catania and of Monreale in Sicily at a later period were always bkhops (diocesan), and the latter shortly an archbishop, respectively by privilege of Ui'ban II., A.D. 1088-1099, and from a.d. 1176 (Du Cangel. So also at Fulda and Corbey in Germany. We have lastly an abbat who was also ex officio a cardinal, in the case of the Abbat of Clugny, by privilege of Pope Calixtus Ji., a.d. •1119 (Hug. Mon. ad Pentium Abb. Ciun., ap. . Du Cange). The natural rule, that the abbat should be chosen from the seniors, and from those of the . monastery itself (A'e/. S. Scrap. 4, in Moisten, p. 15), became in time a formal law {Decret. Bonif. VIII. in 6 de Elect.—Abbat to be an , already professed monk ; Capit. Car. M. et Lud. Pii, i. tit. 81, “ ex seipsis,” &c., as above quoted f Concil. Rotom., a.d. 1074, c. 10): although the limitation to one above twenty-five years old is no earlier than Pope Alexander III. (Cone. La- teran. A.D. 1179). In the West, however, the rule was, that “Fratres eligant sibi abbatem de ipsis si habent, sin autem, de extraneis” (Theodor., Capit. Dach. c. 72, in Wasserschl. p. 151; and so also St. Greg., Epist: ii. 41, viii. 15): while in the East it seems to be spoken of as a privilege, where an abbey, having no fit monk of its own, might choose a ^euoKovpirvs—one tonsured elsewhere (Leunclav. Jus Graeco-Rom. p. 222). Repeated enactments prove at once the rule of one abbat to one monastery, and (as time went on) its common violation (Hieron. ad Rustic. 95 ; Reg. S. Scrap. 4, and Regulae passim; Cone. Venetic., A.D. 465, c. 8; Agath., a.d. 506, cc. 38, 57 ; Epaon., a.d. 517, cc. 9, 10 ; and so, in the East, Justinian, L. I. tit. iii.; De Episc. 1. 39: and Balsamon ad Nomocan. tit. i. c. 20,—“ Si non per- mittitur alicui ut sit clericus in duabus ecclesiis, nec praefectus seu abbas duobus monasteriis praeerit ”). No doubt such a case as that of Wilfrid of York, at once founder and Abbat of Hexham and Ripon, or that of Aldhelm, Abbat at once (for a like reason) of Malmesbury, Frome, and Bradford, was not so singular as it was in their case both intelligible and excusable. The spirit of the rule obviously does not apply, either to the early clusters of monasteries under the Rule of St. Pachomius, or to the tens of thou- sands of monks subject to the government of e. g. St. Macarius or St. Serapion, or to the later semi-hierarchical quasi-jurisdiction, possessed as already mentioned by the Abbats of St. Dalma- tius, of Monte Cassino, or of Clugny, and by Benedict of Aniana. Generals of Orders, and more compact organization of the whole of an Order into a single body, belong to later times. The abbat’s power was in theory paternal, but absolute—“ Timeas ut dominum, diligas ut pa- trem ” (Reg. S. Macar. 7, in Holsten. p. 25; and Regulae passim). See also St. Jerome. Even to act without his order was culpable (Reg. S. Basil.). And to speak for another who hesitated to obey was itself disobedience (Reg. passim). The relation of monk to abbat is described as a libera servitus (Reg. S. Orsies. 19, in Holsten. p. 73); while no monk (not even if he was a bishop, Baed. H. E., iv. 5) could exchange mo- nasteries without the abbat’s leave (Reg. passim), not even (although in that case it was some- times allowed) if he sought to quit a laxer for a stricter rule (Reg. PP. 14, in Holsten. p. 23; Gild. ap. MS. S. Gall. 243, pp. 4, 155) : unless indeed he fled from an excommunicated abbat (Gild. ib. p. 155,. and in D’Ach., Sq/icil. i. 500). In later times, and less civilized regions, it was found necessary to prohibit an abbat from blind- ing or mutilating his monks (Cone. Erancof. A.D. 794, c. 18). The rule, however, and the canons of the Church, limited this absolute power. And each Benedictine abbat, while bound exactly to keep St. Benedict’s rule himself (e. g. Cone. Augustod. c. A.D. 670), was enjoined also to make his monks learn it word for word by heart (Cone. Aquisgr., A.D. 817, cc. 1, 2, 80). He was also limited practically in the exerci.se of his authority (1) by the system of Praepositi or Priures, elected usually by himself, but consilio et voluntate fror