COMMENDATION. - From the letters of Gregory the Great it appears that sometimes, for the needs of the Church, the pope entrusted to a bishop also the government of a second diocese bereft of its pastor through extraordinary events, or the temporary government of a vacant diocese; but sometimes vacant abbeys were also entrusted by the pope to a bishop, and it likewise happened that, upon the death of an abbot, the abbey, with the consent of the monks, was taken over to be governed by the territorial bishop, himself a former monk. Finally, it also occurred that a secular church was entrusted to an abbot. Outside Italy, bishops sometimes gave to canons of their cathedral the government of convents, on condition that they relinquish the revenues of their own benefice. This entrusting of churches to one who was not their regular superior was called commendare, giving in c., or custody, or care, or guardianship.
In the Carolingian period and in the Frankish kingdom there were vast usurpations of ecclesiastical property on the part of sovereigns, glossed over with the burdens these had to bear in order to subdue unbelieving peoples, and thus tolerated or in the end ratified by the Church; and it then happened that princes gave abbeys or convents to their favorites, imposing the customary feudal obligations; these were called spurious c.
The first reform movement of the Church took a stand against the c., and in general against the plurality of benefices, and aimed to eliminate c., in particular those held by laymen; the privilege of the abbey of Cluny confirmed by Agapitus II in 948 carries the exclusion of any commendatory holder. Nevertheless, even Gregory VII and Paschal II granted, albeit rarely, abbeys and also dioceses in c.
The abuse spread particularly in the Avignon period, although Clement V in 1307 revoked (can. 2, Extr. comm., de praeb. et dignit., III, 2) all provisions made by title of c. of patriarchal, archiepiscopal and episcopal churches and of monasteries at the request of kings or magnates (and this recalling the harm that came from such conferrals to the care of souls and to the preservation of property); and although John XXII in 1317 issued severe provisions against the plurality of benefices (cap. un., Extr. Ioann. XXII, de prae. et dignit., III).
The Council of Constance formulated wishes against the institution, but this was favored by sovereigns, and the Council of Basel adopted no measure.
The Council of Trent at sess. XXI de ref., can. 8, decreed that bishops, also as delegates of the Holy See, should visit each year the commended monasteries, in which regular observance did not prevail, and the benefices, with and without care of souls, secular or regular, however commended, even exempt; and should take the necessary measures for the preservation of the buildings and property and for the care of souls. At sess. XXV, de regul. et monial., can. 21, it recalled the evils that came, in the spiritual and in the temporal sphere, to monasteries given in c.; however, given the difficulties of the times, it held that it was not possible to adopt an immediate and general remedy; but it trusted that the pope would take care, as far as circumstances allowed, that over the monasteries then in c. there be placed regulars of the same Order capable of worthily governing the community; that over the monasteries that would become vacant in the future no one be placed but regulars of unblemished virtue; as for the monasteries that were heads of an Order or of a Congregation, the commendatory holders would have to make the solemn profession of the Order within six months, on pain of forfeiture.
The abuse of c., in particular for the profit of cardinals, nevertheless dragged on for a long time still, and only in recent decades has it entirely disappeared. There are no longer secular prelates as commendatory holders of monasteries, and for the abbeys or secular prelatures that it has been deemed necessary to keep united to a bishopric, provision has been made in the form of perpetual union.
The CIC limits itself to recalling at can. 1412 the «c. temporaria, i. e. concessio reditum alicuius ecclesiae aut monasterii alicui facta ita ut, eo deficiente, reditus ipsi ad ecclesiam vel monasterium revertantur», and at can. 1435 it decrees that there are reserved to the pontiff the benefices to which the pope «manus apposuit» in certain ways, among them this one: «si beneficium in commendam dederit».
THE COMMENDATION OF CHIVALRIC ORDERS
Some chivalric Orders that have maintained their original characteristics have connected foundations, which may have been established by the Order or by particular families, and whose purpose is to ensure the means of subsistence for a knight of the Order. Those erected by a family are almost always of family patronage, and in fact destined for a member of the family who is a professed member of the Order (at one time this was a means of providing for younger sons). If the foundation consists of movable goods, one speaks of a pension; if of immovable goods, of a c., and the knight invested is called a commendatore.
In Italy the c. still exist in the Order of Jerusalem; whereas the c. of the patronage of the Order of Sts. Maurice and Lazarus were suppressed by the Piedmontese law of 18 Jan. 1851 abolishing fideicommissa, which provided for the release of the relevant goods.
Bibliography2 works
Arturo Carlo Jemolo