[_Cardinal._--The title of cardinal (_cardinalis_) in early times was
frequently applied to any bishop, priest, or deacon holding an official
post. In France there were many cardinal priests: thus, the curate of
the parish of St. John de Vignes is called, in old charters, the
cardinal priest of that parish. There were also cardinal deacons, who
had the charge of hospitals for the poor, and who ranked above the
other deacons. Thus, two of the minor canons of St. Paul's are called
_cardinals of the choir_, whose duties are to preserve order in Divine
service, administer the Eucharist, and officiate at funerals. In former
times, they heard confessions and enjoined penances. (Newcourt's
_Repertorium_, vol. i. p. 233.) It was not till the twelfth century
that the Sacred College of Cardinals was organised; nor was it till
1567 that clergymen were forbidden by Pius V. to assume the title of
cardinal unless appointed by the Pope.
_Lay Abbots._--In early times we frequently find secular persons
denominated "field abbots" and "abbot counts," upon whom the sovereign
had bestowed certain abbeys, for which they were obliged to render
military service, as for common fiefs. In the time of Charles the Bald
many of the nobility in France were abbots, having a dean to officiate
for them. Thus, too, in Scotland, James Stuart, the natural son of
James V., was, at the time of the Reformation, Prior of St. Andrew's,
although a secular person. The Earl of Kilmorey, who is impropriator of
the tithes of St. Mary, Newry, is a lay abbot, or representative of the
preceding abbots of a Cistertian Abbey which formerly existed in that
town. His abbatial functions, however, are confined to convening
ecclesiastical courts, and granting probates of wills, and licenses for
marriages, subject only to the metropolitan jurisdiction of the
Archbishop of Armagh. A remnant of the secularisation of ecclesiastical
dignities has already been noticed in our pages (Vol. ii., pp. 447.
500.), in the case of the late Duke of York, who was at the same time
Commander-in-chief and Bishop of Osnaburg.]
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