BEN 



217 



BEN 



in full pontificals, attended by the cardinals and prelates, 

 giving his benediction ' Urbi et Orbi' on Easter Sunday 

 after mass, from the great gallery in the front of St. Peter's 

 church, while the vast area beneath is filled with kneeling 

 spectators. 



The benediction forms an essential part of many cere- 

 monies of the Catholic church, such as the coronation of 

 kings and queens, the confirmation of abbots and abbesses, 

 the consecration of churches, altars, and sacramental vases. 

 These are all performed by the bishop, and are accompa- 

 nied by different ceremonies, such as anointing, imposing 

 of hands upon the head of the person consecrated, &c. 

 The benediction of church utensils, of bells, of sacerdotal 

 garments, of churchyards, &c. may be performed by priests. 

 The nuptial benediction, which is an essential part of the 

 marriage ceremony, is given by the parish clergyman. The 

 priests also in some instances give benediction to houses, 

 fields, horses, cattle, &c., by sprinkling them with holy 

 water. This custom of blessing those things which are for 

 the use or support of men is of great antiquity. It is 

 found in St. Gregory's ' Sacramentale,' and, before him, in 

 that of Pope Gelasius I., who lived in the fifth century. 

 The 'benedictio mensaj et ciborum,' was a general practice 

 among all Christians before sitting down to dinner: the 

 English custom of saying grace is a continuation of it. 



There is also in Catholic churches a service which is 

 commonly called, in Italy at least, ' the Benediction,' and is 

 performed on particular days, and generally in the evening : 

 after certain prayers being said or sung, the consecrated 

 nost is raised up by the officiating priest, who describes 

 with it the sign of the cross towards the congregation. 



The benedictorium is the vase containing the holy water, 

 which is placed at the entrance of Catholic churches for the 

 use of the people, who dip their fingers into it and cross 

 themselves as they go in and out. The water is blessed by 

 the priest, and is mixed with salt. 



The pope begins his bulls and other communications ad- 

 dressed to Catholic individuals with the greeting ' Salutem 

 et opostolicam benedictionem.' (See the Dictionary of 

 Jurisprudence, art. Benediction, in the Encyclnpi'die Me- 

 th'alique, and also the Dictionary of Theology in the same 

 collection.) 



BKNEER. A subdivision of the district of Sewad in 

 the province or kingdom of Caubul, in Afghanistan. Be- 

 neer is separated from Sewad by steep hills, and is thinly 

 inhabited by a tribe of Afghans. The district of Beneer, 

 the modern boundaries of which are ill-defined, occupies a 

 portion about the 3-lth degree of north latitude, and the 

 70th degree of east longitude. It is described in the Aytn- 

 i-Akbari, under the name of Bcmbher, in the following 

 manner. 'The length of Bembher is sixteen, and the 

 breadth twelve coss,' (the coss varies considerably in differ- 

 ent parts of India, being sometimes as little as one English 

 mile, and in others places double that measure.) ' On the 

 east lies Puckely, on the north Kinore and Cashghur, on the 

 south Attock Benaris, and Sewad is the western extremity. 

 There are two roads to it from Hindustan, one by the 

 hi.-iirhts of Surkhaby, and the other by the Molondery 

 hills.' 



The river Burindroo, which traverses the centre of Be- 

 neer, enters the Indus about twenty miles above Torbela. 

 A strip of land about one mile broad on each side of this 

 river is of fertile quality, and being favourably circumstanced 

 for irrigation, produces rice. The remainder of the country 

 is rugged, yielding generally only a species of millet, but 

 there are many small valleys, in which superior kinds of corn 

 are produced. The slopes of hills are formed for the purpose 

 of cultivation into terraces one over another. In these si- 

 tuations the plough cannot be introduced, neither is irriga- 

 tion practicable. The principal agricultural implement 

 used in these situations is the hoe, and as rain is the sole 

 dependance of the cultivator for watering his fields, the har- 

 vests are precarious. (Ayin-i-Akbari, by Abul Fazl ; El- 

 plnr.stone's Kml/assy to Cauhul.f 



BENEFICE, from the Latin Beneficium, a term applied 

 both by tho canon law and the law of England to a provi- 

 sion for an ecclesiastical person. In its most comprehensive 

 sense it include.* the temporalities as we!! of archbishops, 

 bishops, deans and chapters, abbots and priors, as of par- 

 sons, vicars, monks, and other inferior spiritual persons. 

 But a distinction is mail.: \> 'tween l>enelices attached to 

 communities under the monastic rule (sub regula), which 

 are called rfgutar benefices, and those the possessors of 



which live in the world (in saeculo), which are thence called 

 secular benefices. The writers on the canon law distin- 

 guish, moreover, between simple or sinecure benefices, 

 which do not require residence, and to which no spiritual 

 duty is attached but that of reading prayers and singing 

 (as chaplainries, canonries, and chantries), and sacerdotal 

 benefices, which are attended with cure of souls. 



Lord Coke says, ' Beneficium is a large word, and is taken 

 for any ecclesiastical promotion whatsoever." (2 Inst. 29.) 

 But in modern English law treatises the term is generally 

 confined to the temporalities of parsons, vicars, and perpe- 

 tual curates, which in popular language are called livings. 

 The legal possessor of a benefice attended with cure of 

 souls is called the incumbent. The history of the ongin 

 of benefices is involved in great obscurity. The property of 

 the Christian church appears, for some centuries after the 

 apostolic ages, to have been strictly enjoyed in common. 

 It was the duty of the officers called deacons (whose first 

 appointment is mentioned in Acts, cap. vi.) to receive the 

 rents of the real estates, or patrimonies as they were called, 

 of every church. Of these, as well as of the voluntary gifts 

 in the shape of alms and oblations, a sufficient portion was 

 set apart, under the superintendence of the bishop, for the 

 maintenance of the bishop and clergy of the diocese ; an- 

 other portion was appropriated to the expenses of public 

 worship (in which were included the charge for the repairs 

 of the church), and the remainder was bestowed upon the 

 poor. This division was expressly inculcated by a canon of 

 Gelasius, pope or rather bishop of Rome, A.D. 470. (Sen 

 Father Paul's Treatise on Ecclesiastic^! Benefices, cap. 7.) 

 After the payment of tithes had become universal in the 

 west of Europe, as a means of support to the clergy, it 

 was enacted by one of the capitularies of Charlemagne, that 

 they should be distributed according to this division. When 

 the bishopricks began to be endowed with lands and other 

 firm possessions, the bishops, to encourage the foundation of 

 churches, and to establish a provision forrhe resident clergy, 

 gave up their portion of the tithes, and were afterwards 

 by the canons forbidden to demand it, if they could live 

 without it. Although the revenues of the church were 

 thus divided, the fund from which they were derived re- 

 mained for a long time entirely under the same administration 

 as before. But by degrees every minister, instead of carrying 

 the offerings made in his own church to the bishop, for the 

 purpose of division, began to retain them for his own use. 

 The lands also were apportioned in severally among the re- 

 sident clergy of each diocese. But these changes were not 

 made in all places or all at one time, or by any public 

 edict, but by insensible degrees, as all other customs are 

 introduced. (See Father Paul's Treatise un Benefices, cap. 

 9 and 1 0.) ' Some writers have attributed the origin of 

 parochial divisions to a period as early as the fourth century ; 

 and it is not improbable that this change took place in some 

 parts of the Eastern Empire, either in that or the succeeding 

 age. Some of the constitutions of Justinian seem to imply 

 that in his time (the beginning of the sixth century) the 

 system of ecclesiastical property, as it existed in the East, 

 was very similar to that which has prevailed in Catholic 

 countries in modern times." The churches, monasteries, and 

 other pious foundations, possessed landed and other property 

 (slaves among the rest), which, by the constitutions of Jus- 

 tinian, they were restrained from alienating, as they had 

 been in the habit of doing to the detriment of their succes- 

 sors. (See Aulhenticorum Collatio, ii. 'on not alienating 

 ecclesiastical lands.') 



The general obscurity that hangs over the history of the 

 Middle Ages prevents us from ascertaining, with precision, 

 at what period the changes we have alluded to were intro- 

 duced into the west of Europe. This, however, seems clear, 

 that after the feudal system had acquired a firm footing in 

 the west of Europe, during the ninth and tenth centuries, its 

 principles were soon applied to ecclesiastical as well as lay 

 property. Hence, as the estates distributed in fief by the 

 sovereigns of France and Germany among their favoured 

 nobles, were originally termed benefina [see BKNEFICIUM], 

 t::is name was conferred, by a kind of doubtful analogy, 

 upon the temporal possessions of the church. Thus, the 

 bishopricks were supposed to be held by the bounty of the 

 sovereigns (who had by degrees usurped the right origi- 

 nally vested in the clergy and people of filling them up 

 when vacant), while the temporalities of the inferior eccle- 

 siastical offices were held of the bishops, in whose patronage 

 and disposal they for the most part then were. The man- 



NO. 232. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPEDIA.] 



VOL. IV.-2 F 



