RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Exile of the Israelites Extreme Unction
ferred succeeds when the vacancy occurs. Such rights first come into notice in the twelfth century. For the purpose of rewarding deserving clergy and scholars, but also, especially later, in order to provide an income or a higher income for officials and favorites of the curia, or to please secular rulers, the popes began in the period named to give letters of commendation to bishops and chapters regarding the bestowal of benefices, whether vacant or not. These soon assumed a mandatory character, and compliance with them was enforced by special officials and by the employment of ecclesiastical censures, the right to issue them having been held since Innocent III. as a part of the papal powers. The resistance of the persons regularly entitled to nominate to such offices brought about the formal reservation of whole classes of benefices to the pope (see Reservations, Papal). To the expectancies described above was added in the fifteenth century ihe custom of papal nomination of perpetual coadjutors with right of succession, either to avoid long vacancies or contested episcopal elections, or to issure a see to a member of a particular princely louse, or, especially in the Reformation period, ;o a person of assured loyalty to the papal system. Besides expectancies conferred by the popes, an- )ther class came up in the thirteenth century, in ;athedral and collegiate foundations, varying acjording to their constitution (see Chapter), giving i right to the first vacancy in a limited chapter, )r (where the number of canons was not limited jut that of prebends was) conferring the title of xmonicus swpernumerarius with a right to the first racant prebend, or promising both title and prebend it once. Again, expectancies developed from the ;xercise of the jus primariarum precum, according ;o which from the thirteenth century the emperors, ;he kings of France and England, and later a number of petty German princes and even empresses md queens of England, claimed the right on their iccession or coronation to request from each enlowed foundation or monastery in their territory ;he assignment of a benefice or position, vacant or io be vacated, to their nominees. This claim, oased at first on custom, was confirmed by papal adults, and fell into disuse only at the beginning jf the nineteenth century. Many of these developments were in direct contravention of the ancient :anonical principle which forbade appointments to scclesiastical offices before they were vacant, and sven required evasion of the ruling of the Third Lateran Council of 1179 to the same effect. The process, however, went on until bishops, founders, and monasteries were obliged to protect themselves by special papal indults against the misuse of the practise. The Council of Trent again forbade all lands of expectancies, only allowing the pope to nominate a coadjutor with right of succession to a bishop or head of a convent in case of necessity. This prohibition has, indeed, been interpreted as referring not to the pope but to other ecclesiastical dignitaries; but practically, in the altered modern circumstances, the matter is no longer of importance. The same thing applies to the Protestant churches of Germany, which at one time allowed expectancies to exist in the bishoprics and chapters
that became Protestant at the Reformation or the Peace of Westphalia.
Bibliography: P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, ii. 65, 69, 84 255, 474, 639, 652, iii. 113, 6 vols., Berlin, 1869-97; J. H. Bohmer, Jus ecclesiasticum protestantiurn, iii. 8, §§ 9 sqq., 4 vols., Halle, 1756-63; H. C. de Senckenberg, De jure primarum precum, Frankfort, 1784 ; A. Mayer, Thesaurus novus juris ecclesiastici, i. 249, Regensburg, 1791.
EXSUPERITJS (EXUPERITJS), SAINT: Bishop of Toulouse; d. Sept. 28 (?), year not known. His early life is unknown, but from allusions in Jerome's letters (liv. 11, cxix., cxxiii. 16, cxxv. 20) it has been conjectured that in 394 he was a presbyter at Rome; he was bishop of Toulouse in 404, and in 411 was still living. In 406 Jerome dedicated his commentary on Zechariah to him. Jerome pays a glowing tribute to his self-sacrificing charity during the disturbances in that part of France in 411. From the letters of Pope Innocent I. {Epist., vi.) it appears that in Feb., 405, Exsuperius applied to the pope for advice respecting Biblical and episcopal matters. He completed the basilica of St. Saturninus, begun by his predecessor, Silvius.
Bibliography: ASB, Sept., vii. 623-630; Tillemont, Memoires, vol. x.