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?]

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.

26/1096 (page 6)

$also Thom. Cantiprat., Be Apihus, i. 6 ; Chron. ' times. An abbat, however, might hunt in Eng- Casin. iv. 78). But a mitre is said to have been land (Bates of Cnvt, in Thorpe, i. 429). An abbat, granted to the Abbat of Bobbio by Pope Theodo- , or an abbess, presiding over a joint house of rus I. A.D. 643 (Bull. Casin. I. ii. 2), the next I monks and nuns, is noted by Theodore as k pecu- alleged case being to the Abbat of St. Savianus by Sylvester II. a.d. 1000. A staff, however, but of a particular form, and some kind of stockings (“ baculum et pedules ”), were the special insig- nia of an abbat in Anglo-Saxon England in the time of Theodore A.D. 668-690, being formally given to him by the bishop at his benediction (Poenit. II. iii. 5, in Wasserschl. p. 204). And the staff was so everywhere. He was also to shave his beard, and of course to be tonsured (Cone. Bitu- ric. A.D. 1031, c. 7). His place of precedence, if an ordinary abbat, appears to have been finally fixed as immediately after bishops, among 'prae-^ lati, and before archdeacons (see, however, Decret. Greg. IX., lib. ii. tit. 1, cap. Becernimus); but the list of our English convocations from Arch- bishop Kemp’s P.egister A.D. 1452 (Wilk. I. xi. 6q.), though following no invariable rule, appears usually to postpone the abbat and prior to the archdeacon. In Saxon England, he shared in like manner with the king (as did an abbess also) in the liar Anglo-Saxon -custom :—“ Apud Graecos non est consuetudo viris feminas habere monachas, neque feminis viros ; tamen consuetudinem istius provinciae ” (England) “ non destruamus ” (Poenit. II. vi. 8, in Wassersch]. p. 208). The well-known cases of the Abbesses Hilda and Aelbfled of Whitby and of Aebba of Coldingham are instances of the latter arrangement (Baed. H. E. iv. 23, 24, 25, 26) ; and the last of them also of its mischievous- ness (Td. ih. 25). Tynemouth and Wimbourne are other instances. But the practice was a Celtic one (e. g. St. Brigid; see Todd, St. Patrick, pp. 11, 12), not simply Anglo-Saxon; and with Celtic monastic missions, penetrated also into the Continent (e. g. at Remiremont and Poictiers), and even into Spain and into Rome itself (soMontalera- bert. Monks of West, vol. v. p. 297, Engl. Tr.). It is, however, remarkable, that while instances of abbesses ruling monks abounded, abbats ruling nuns rest for us upon the general assertion of Theodore. And the practice, while it died out on the Continent, wasjiot restored in England after wer ” of a murdered “ foreigner ” (Lau's of . Ine, 23; Thorpe, i. 117). The abbat also was , the Danish invasion. In the East there was a not named in the canon of the mass (Gavant. in j rigorous separation between monks and nuns. Pubr. 3Iiss. P. iii. tit. 8; Macr. F.F., Hierolex, in ■ And where two such communities were in any Can. Missae), except in the case of the abbat of way connected, a special enactment prohibited all Monte Cassino (Ang. a Nuce, in notis ad Leo. Ostiens. ii. 4). But an anniversary was allowed to be appointed for him on his death (e. g. Cone. Aquisgr. a.d. 817, c. 73). He was forbidden ((is were all monks, at least in France) to stand sponsor for a child (Cone. Autissiod. a.d. 578, c. 25; Greg. M., Epid. iv. 42), with a notable ex- ception, however, in England, in the case of Abbat Robert of Mont St. Michel, godfather to King Henry II.’s daughter Eleanor (Rob. de Monte ad an. 1161), or to go to a marriage (Cone. Autissiod., ih.); or indeed to go far from his monastery at all without the bishop’s leave (Cone. Arel.,\. A.D. 554); or to go about with a train of monks except to a general synod (Cone. Aquisgr. a.d. 817, c. 59). He of course could not hold pro- perty (although it was needful sometimes to pro- hibit his lending money on usury, Pseudo-Egbert. Poenit. iii. 7, in Thorpe, ii. 199); neither could he dispose of it by will, even if it accrued to him by gift or heirship after he became abbat (Reg. PP. 2, in Holsten. p. 22); but if the heirship but the two superiors from communication with one another, and placed all possible restrictions upon even their necessary interviews (Reg. S. Basil, in Holsten. p. 158). St. Pachomius esta- blished the double order, but put the Nile be- tween his monks and his nuns (Pallad., Hist. Bates., cc. 30-42). Interference by abbats with the ministrations of parochial clergy could scarcely exist until ab- bats were presbyters themselves, nor did it ever (as was naturally the case) reach the extent to which it was carried by the friars. We find, however, an enactment of Theodore (Poenit. II. vi. 16, in Wasserschl. p. 209), prohibiting a monas- tery from imposing penances on the laity, “ quia (haec libei'tas) proprie clericorum est.” And a much later and more detailed canon, of the 4th Lateran Council (a.d. 1123), forbids abbats to impose penance, visit the sick, or administer unction. They were authorized in the East, it presbyters, and with the bishop’s leave, to confer the tonsure and the order of reader on their own was within the 4th degree, he was exceptionally | monks (Cone. Nicaen. ii. A.D. 787, c. 14). And enabled to will the pi'operty to whom he pleased (Justinian, lib. i. Cod. tit. de Episc. Cler. c. 33). Further, we find bishops and archdeacons prohibited from seizing the goods of deceased abbats (Cone. Paris. A.D. 615 ; Cahillon. i. a.d. 650). And later wills of abbats in the West are sometimes mentioned and confirmed, but prin- cipally in order to secure to their abbeys pro- perty bequeathed to those abbeys (see Thomassin). Privileges of coining money, of markets and tolls, of secular jurisdiction, began certainly as early as Ludov. Pius, or even Pipin (Gieseler, ii. p. 255, notes 5, 6, Eng. Tr.). Others, such as of the title of prince, of the four Ahbates Imperii in Germany (viz., of Fulda—also ex officio the empress’s chancellor—of Weissenberg, Kempten, Murbach), of the English mitred baronial abbats, and the like, and sumptuary laws limiting the number of their horses and attendants, &c., belong to later they could everywhere admit their own monks (“ordinatio monachi”—Theodor., Poenit. II. iii. 3, in Wasserschl. p. 204). But encroachments upon the episcopal office, as well as upon episcopal in- signia, gradually arose. Even in a.d. 448 abbats were forbidden to give aTroaroKia (Cone. Constan- tin.,—corrected by Du Cange into iiri(TT6\ia = commendatory letters for poor, and see Cone. Au- relian. ii. c. 13, and Turon. ii. c. 6). But by a.d. 1123 it had become necessary to prohibit gene- rally their thrusting themselves into episcopal offices (Cone. Bateran. iv. c. 17). And we find it actually asserted by Sever. Binius (in Canon. Apostol. ap. Babb. Cone. i. 54e, on the authority of Bellarmine, Be Eccles. iv. 8), that two or more “ abbates infulati ” might by Papal dispensation be substituted for bishops in consecrating a bishop, provided one bishop were there ; while Innocent IV. in 1489 empowered an abbat by$