THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
private church right into various species, one of which was the right of presentation, called also jus patronatus; or where the benefice and the exenium (" gift ") to the lord were in view, ecclesiastical investiture. The former comprehensive proprietorship became extinct.
But the Church profited for its own liberation with this differentiation process, by applying it to a distinction of " church " and " altar." The lord hereby invested the ecclesiastic with
3. Reform the church-building and the appurand Secular tenances, while the bishop invested
Encroach- him with his spiritual office and aument. thority. Gregory VII. (1078) declared not only lay investiture, but also the traditional lay property right and lordship, sinful usurpation. Alexander III. interpreted hitherto legal jurisdiction as spiritual and rejected unconditionally private church right and restricted the lord's appointing power to mere nomination, which he and canon law after him based upon the gratitude of the Church for the endowment. To this he appropriated the term jus patronatus, that was coming ever more definitely to the front on both sides of the Alps. In principle and law at least private ownership in the Church was extinct. Practically, matters were far otherwise. The church lords, it is true, had everywhere to consent to be called patrons, but it was not possible for the Church even to maintain its jurisdiction in disputes as to patronage. Such disputes were soon increasingly referred to the temporal courts. The patrons used their right of nomination with the bishop so as frequently to procure benefices for as many as half a dozen members of their families, or to have as many conferred on the same person. In northern Germany the field of patronage was widened by extending itself over the archdeaconal districts with their individual parishes. Canon law was not only stretched and modified but in many respects ignored. The right of patronage, in fact, remained, especially in Germany, a practical right all through the Middle Ages. The patrons did not relinquish the right of free alienation; in effect they long maintained the old right of appointment and paid little attention to the bishop. In later times the patronage was divided, as it had been in France in the twelfth century, between church and altar. In Germany from the thirteenth and elsewhere from the fourteenth century this church principle fixed itself more and more upon the landed nobility. The developing principle of " land dominion " appropriated to itself also the right of appointment and administration, and church proprietorship was transplanted from the soil of private to that of public right. The patronage of a church built on a lord's territory belonged to him as a matter of course, unless he had expressly granted the right to the individual or congregation that built it.
The Reformation took over patronage along with the parish. Calvinism rejected it with lay control over the Church as a whole. The Evangelical church ordinances in so far as they dealt with patronage fell in more or less with the canon law. Conservatism with reference to patronage made itself evident in that, after the Peace of Westphalia, Roman
Catholics were permitted to exercise the right of patronage over Protestant churches, and vice versa. The absorption of cloistral estates led frequently to an increase of patronage; the princes 4. The Ref- not only securing the patronage of ormation. monasteries, but all inherent rights over churches incorporated with them. The decline of episcopal jurisdiction not being always immediately succeeded by a strict consistorial government also favored an increase of patronage. The right of the patron was now regarded as covering that of appointment, involving right of dismissal as well. Similar tendencies arose in the Roman Catholic Church. After the sixteenth century the patron came to be called collator, and privileges of appointment accumulated especially where numerous rights of presentation to minor benefices as well as nominations to bishoprics were conferred as a reward for services in the Counter-Reformation. Patronage disputes came to be settled in the seventeenth century before temporal authorities, and Leopold I. of Austria in 1679 issued for the first time a decree for a comprehensive temporal regulation, which followed canonical precedent and remains, in its main points, in force to-day. On the other hand, a long series of edicts by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. increased the building-burdens of the patron and curtailed his right of nomination. The first comprehensive regulation on the part of the State for both confessions resulted in Prussia, where the general land law has since 1794 regulated patronage by a supplementing, denning, and amending of the common law, and has subjected patronage to the jurisdiction of the temporal courts. Successive efforts during the nineteenth century for the abolition of patronage, especially those springing from the revolution of 1848, have not resulted in legislation to that effect. In Austria the abolition of monasteries increased the mass of patronage and the attempt has been made to divide the right with reference to all state churches from the sovereignty. In Bavaria, by the Concordat of 1817, it was asserted by the crown, and Prussia has effected a compromise with the bishops. In the Evangelical churches the contradiction between church selfgovernment and patronage was felt most sharply. The Eisenach Conference (q.v.), in 1859 and 1861, and a number of synods committed themselves to the abrogation of the right. This has, however, failed in that no one will assume the patron's burdens, especially that of the buildingobligation; and even where these obligations do not exist, people are indisposed to assail rights properly obtained.
In the Roman Catholic Church " patronage denotes the powers and duties that accrue to a person with respect to a church or a churchly 5. Status: office, on the ground of some special Roman right independent of the position of the Catholic, church or office in the hierarchy." In Prussia patronage is subject to the common land law; in Baden and Austria to state enactment. Primarily patronage is subject to canon law and is regulated thereby in many German states. At the same time it is recognized as state law, belonging in the highest measure to the public