BEN 



225 



BEN 



tained the right of collation to all benefices that fell vacant 

 luring six alternate months of the year. By the Prag- 

 matic Sanction of Charles VII. of France, published in 

 1438, all mandates and reservations with respect to bene- 

 fices in that country were abolished for the future. This 

 ordinance was followed, in the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, by the concordat of -Francis I. and Leo X., which 

 remained till the time of the French revolution a funda- 

 mental law of the Gallican church. By this treaty the pope 

 gave up his indefinite claims to the patronage of benefices, 

 and received a small stipulated patronage in return ; and 

 the substantial part of the patronage of bishoprics was 

 vested in the crown. The modern concordat of Pius VII. 

 with Napoleon, though destructive of the liberties of the 

 Gallican church, does not appear, so far as respects the right 

 of the pope to interfere with the patronage of benefices, 

 to be a material innovation upon the concordat of Francis 1. 

 [See CONCORDAT.] 



For the numerous abuses with respect to the patronage, 

 acquisition, and transmission of benefices that prevailed in 

 tlie Roman Catholic Church, especially in Italy, during the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Father Paul's Trea- 

 tise on Benefices, cap. 44-46. 



The Council of Trent in 1547 attempted to reform some 

 of these evils, as that of pluralities and coramendams, here- 

 ditary succession to benefices, and non-residence ; but left 

 the great abuse of papal reservations untouched. The con- 

 sequence of this, according to Father Paul (cap. 50), was 

 that in his time (at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury) the reservations were multiplied to such a degree, that 

 the pope had five-sixths of the benefices in Italy at his dis- 

 posal, with very reasonable hopes that the remaining sixth 

 would go the same way. In confirmation of this state- 

 ment, the same author gives a list of the benefices which at 

 that time came under the pope's patronage by reservations ; 

 and concludes with saying, ' Whoever shall put these reserva- 

 tions together will be found to have done the pope no 

 wrong in the calculation, and that he hath at least five 

 times as many collations as all the other collators put 

 together.' 



The fallowing Table is abstracted p-trtly from a Parlia- 

 mentary Return presented to the House nf Commons in 

 1834, and partly frrjm the Rejiort of the Commissioners 

 appointed to inquire into the Ecclesiastical Revenues of 

 England and Wales, published June, 1835 : 



NO. 233. 



[THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA.] 



VOL. IV.- 2 O 



