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.

27/1096 (page 7)

$himself to confer not only the subdiaconate, but the diaconate. The spiritual abbat was supplanted in Wales (Girald. Cambr., Itin. Camb., and repeatedly) and in Scotland (Robertson, Early Scotl. i. 329, 339), by the end of the 8th and so on to the 12tli cen- tury, by the Advocatus Ecclesiae (confused sometimes with the Oeconomus, who in Welsh and Irish monasteries was a different officer, and managed the internal secular affairs, as the other did the external), called in Scotland Herenach, in Ireland Airchinneach, who was originally the lay, and gradually became also the hereditary, lessee of the Termon (or abbey) lands, being commonly the founder or his descendant, or one of the neighbour- ing lords; and who held those lands, receiving a third part of their value in the first instance, but who is found as an hereditary married lay abbat during the period named ; e. g. Crinan, the Abbat of Dunkeld, who was grandfather of Shakspeare’s Duncan, and one Dunchad, also Abbat of Dunkeld, who died in battle a.d. 961. The case was the same at Abernethy and at Applecross. The spi- ritual duties devolved upon the bishop and a prior. See also Du Cange (voc. Advocatus), for a similar process although to a less degree on the Continent. In Ireland, the Comarb, or similar hereditary abbat (or bishop), retained his spiidtual character (Todd, St. Patrick, pp. 155 sq.). The lay abbats in Northumbria, denounced by Baeda (Epist, ad Egbert.), were simply fraudulent imi- tations of abbats in the proper sense of the word. An entirely like result, however, and to as wide an extent during Carlovingian times as in Scot- land, ensued abroad from a different cause, viz., from the system of commendation [COM- MENDa]; which began in the time of Charles Martel (a.d. 717-741, being approved by Cone. Leptin. A.D. 743 ; Cone. Suession., a.d. 744; and see Baron, in an. 889, n. 31), with the plausible object of temporarily employing monastic re- venues for the pressing needs of warfare with Saracens, Saxons, or other heathens, care being taken to reserve enough to keep up the monas- tery proper. The nobleman, or the king himself, who led the troops thus raised, became titular abbat. And in Carlovingian times, accordingly, most of the great Frank and Burgundian nobles and kings, and sometimes even bishops (e. g. ' Hatto of Mainz, a.d. 891-912, who enjoyed the reputation of holding twelve abbeys at once), were titular abbats of some great monastery, as of St. Denys or St. Martin, held for life or even by inheritance ; the revenues of which were soon diverted to purposes less patriotic than that of supplying the king with soldiers (see a short list by way of specimen in Gieseler, ii. p. 411, note 1, Eng. Tr.). In the East a like system ap- pears to have grown up, although hardly from the same origin, some centuries later ; John, Pa- triarch of Antioch, at the beginning of the 12th century, informing us that most monasteries in his time were handed over to laymen (xo-piara- Kapioi — beneficiarii), for life or for two or three descents, by gift of the emperors; while Balsamon (ad Cone. Nicaen. c. 13) actually condemns him for condemning the practice. Later abuses of the kind in the West, as in the time of Francis I. of France or of Louis XIV., need here be only alluded to. (Bingham; Bulteau, Hist. Mon. d’Orient; Du Cange; Ant. Dadini, Ascetic, sen Origg. Rei Monas- tic. ; Ferraris; Helyot, Hist, des Or dr. Mon.; Her- zog ; Hospinian, Ee Monach.; Macri FF., Hiero- lexic. ; Martene, Ee Antiq. Mortach. Ritihus; Mar- tigny; Montalembert, Monks of the West; Tho- massin, Ee Benefic.; Van Espen.) [A. W. H.] ABBATI^SA. [Abbess.] ABBESS. {Abhatissa found in inscript, of a.d. 569, in Murator. 429. 3, also called Anti- stita and Majorissa, the female superior of a body of nuns; among the Greeks,'H7oujLieVT7,’Apx‘“ /uai'SptTts, Archimandritissa, Justinian, Novell., ’A/ijuay or mother, Pallad., Hist. Lavs., c. 42, in the time of Pachomius, Mater monasterii or moni- alium, see St. Greg. M., Eial. IV. 13 [where “ Mater ” stands simply for a nun] ; Cone. Mogunt. a.d. 813; Aquisgr., a.d. 816, lib. ii.). In most points subject to the same laws as ab- bats, mutatis mutandis;—elective, and for life (triennial abbesses belonging to years so late as A.D. 1565, 1583) ; and solemnly admitted by the bishop—Benedictio Abbatissae (ihsit for an abbess jnonasticam regulam profitentem, capit. ex Canone Theodori Anghrum Episcopi, is in the Ordo Ro- manus, p. 164, Hittorp.); and in France re- stricted to one monastery apiece (Cone. Vern. a.d. 755); and with PmejDOsdae, and like subordinates, to assist them {Cone. Aquisgr., a.d. 816, lib. ii. cc. 24-26); and bound to obey the bishop in all things, whether abbesses of Monachae or of Cano- nicae {Cone. Cahillon. ii. a.d. 813, c. 65); and sub- ject to be deprived for misconduct, but in this case upon report of the bishop to the king {Cone. Franco/, a.d. 794); bound also to give account of monastic property to both king and bishop (Cone. Vern., A.D. 755); entitled to absolute obedience and possessed of ample powers of discipline, even to expulsion, subject however to the bishop (Cone. Aquisgr. a.d. 816, lib. ii.) ; and save only that while an abbat could, an abbess could not, excom- municate (Honorius III., cap. Eilecta, tit. de Ma- jor. et Ohedientia) ; neither could she give the veil or (as some in France appear to have tried to do) ordain {Capital. Car. M. an. 789, c. 74, Anseg. 71); present even at Councils in England (see Abbat, and compare Lingard, Antiq. i. 139 ; Kemble, Antiq. ii. 198 ; quoted by Mont- alembert, Monks of West, v. 230, Engl. Tr.). While, however, a bishop was necessary to ' admit and bless an abbat, Theodore ruled ! in England, although the rule did not become ! permanent, that a presbyter was sufficient in like I case for an abbess {Poenit. II. iii. 4, in Wasserschl., ' p.’ 203). The limitation to forty years old at elec- I tion is as late as the Council of Trent; Gregory the Great speaks of sixty {Egrist, iv. 11). An abbess also was not to leave her monastery, in France, save once a year if summoned by the king with the bishop’s consent to the king’s presence upon monastic business {Cone. Vern. A.D. 755; Cabillon. ii. a.d. 813, c. 57). Neither was she even to speak to any man save upon necessary business, and then before witnesses and between the first hour of the day and evening {Cone. Cabillon. ii. a.d. 813, cc. 55, 56). For the exceptional cases of Anglo-Saxon, Irish, or Continental Irish, abbesses ruling over mixed houses of monks and nuns, see Abbat. It was noted also as a specially Western custom, that widows as well as virgins were made abbesses (Theod., Poenit. II. iii. 7, in Wasserschl. p. 204). [A. W. H.]$