Commendatory abbot
Encyclopedia
A commendatory abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

is an ecclesiastic, or sometimes a layman
Layman
A layperson or layman is a person who is not an expert in a given field of knowledge. The term originally meant a member of the laity, i.e. a non-clergymen, but over the centuries shifted in definition....

, who holds an abbey
Abbey
An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...

 in commendam
In Commendam
In canon law, commendam was a form of transferring an ecclesiastical benefice in trust to the custody of a patron...

, drawing its revenues but not exercising any authority over its inner monastic discipline. If a commendatory abbot is an ecclesiastic, however, he may have limited jurisdiction.

Originally only vacant abbeys, or those that were temporarily without an actual superior, were given in commendam, in the latter case only until an actual superior was elected or appointed. An abbey is held in commendam, i.e. provisorily, in distinction to one held in titulum, which is a permanent benefice
Benefice
A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

.

History

As early as the time of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) vacant abbeys were given in commendam to bishops who had been driven from their episcopal sees by invading barbarians. The practice began to be seriously abused in the eighth century when the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish kings assumed the right to set commendatory abbots over monasteries that were occupied by religious communities. Often these commendatory abbots were laymen, vassals of the kings, or others who were authorized to draw the revenues and manage the temporal affairs of the monasteries in reward for military services. These secular appointments often gave the position of commendatory abbot to unqualified people who mismanaged their monasteries. The practice was especially widespread in the early tenth century, when Marozia
Marozia
Marozia, born Maria and also known as Mariuccia or Mariozza , was a Roman noblewoman who was the alleged mistress of Pope Sergius III and was given the unprecedented titles senatrix and patricia of Rome by Pope John X.Edward Gibbon wrote of her that the "influence of two sister prostitutes,...

 was influential in Rome and Italy, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the reigns of Henry IV of Germany, Philip I of France
Philip I of France
Philip I , called the Amorous, was King of France from 1060 to his death. His reign, like that of most of the early Direct Capetians, was extraordinarily long for the time...

, William the Conqueror, William Rufus, Henry I
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

 and Henry II of England
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

.

After the eighth century various attempts were made by popes and councils to regulate the appointment of commendatory abbots. At the Concordat of Worms
Concordat of Worms
The Concordat of Worms, sometimes called the Pactum Calixtinum by papal historians, was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V on September 23, 1122 near the city of Worms...

 in 1122, when the Investiture Controversy
Investiture Controversy
The Investiture Controversy or Investiture Contest was the most significant conflict between Church and state in medieval Europe. In the 11th and 12th centuries, a series of Popes challenged the authority of European monarchies over control of appointments, or investitures, of church officials such...

 was settled in favour of the church, the appointment of laymen as commendatory abbots was abolished. The practice again increased during the Avignon Papacy
Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven Popes resided in Avignon, in modern-day France. This arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown....

 (1309–1377) and especially during the Papal Schism (1378–1417), when the papal claimants gave numerous abbeys in commendam in order to increase the number of their adherents. Boniface VIII (1294–1303) decreed that a benefice with the cure of souls
Cure of souls
In some denominations of Christianity, the cure of souls , an archaic translation which is better rendered today as "care of souls," is the exercise by a priest of his office. This typically embraces instruction, by sermons and admonitions, and administration of sacraments, to the congregation...

 attached should be granted in commendam only in great necessity or when evident advantage would accrue to the Church, but never for more than six months (c. 15, VI, De elect., 1, 6). Clement V (1305–1314) revoked benefices which had been granted by him in commendam at an earlier date (Extr. comm., c. 2, De praeb., 3, 2). The Council of Trent
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...

 (Sess. XXV, cap. xxi, de Regularibus) determined that vacant monasteries should be bestowed only on pious and virtuous regulars, and that the motherhouse
Motherhouse
The term motherhouse is used by religious Orders and religious congregations to designate the principal house or community for that group. It can be either for the entire institute or for a region....

 of an order, and the abbeys and priories founded immediately from it, should no longer be granted in commendam. The succeeding bull "Superna" of Gregory XIII and the constitution "Pastoralis" of Innocent X greatly checked in commendam appointments but did not abolish them entirely. Especially in France, they continued to flourish to the detriment of the monasteries. Finally the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and the general secularization of monasteries in the beginning of the eighteenth century reduced the significance of commendatory abbots along with the significance of monasteries in general. Since that time commendatory abbots have become very rare, and the former abuses have been abolished by careful regulations. There are still a few commendatory abbots among the cardinals; Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X
Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...

 himself was Commendatory Abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco
Subiaco, Italy
Subiaco is a town and comune in the Province of Rome, in Lazio, Italy, from Tivoli alongside the river Aniene. It is mainly renowned as a tourist and religious resort for its sacred grotto , in the St. Benedict's Abbey, and the other Abbey of St. Scholastica...

 near Rome.

Authority

If the monastery is occupied by a religious community where there is a separate mensa abbatialis, i.e. where the abbot and the convent have each a separate income, the commendatory abbot, who must then be an ecclesiastic, has jurisdiction in foro externo over the members of the community and enjoys all the rights and privileges of an actual abbot. If, as is generally the case, the monastery has a special superior, he is subject to the commendatory abbot as a claustral prior is subject to his actual abbot. If there is no separate mensa abbatialis, the power of the commendatory abbot extends only over the temporal affairs of the monastery. In case of vacant monasteries the commendatory abbot generally has all the rights and privileges of an actual abbot.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK