The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognised by the Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen, free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence, clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs, re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church and abolish the claim of the Holy Roman Emperor to influence papal elections.
Simony is the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things. It is named after Simon Magus, who is described in the Acts of the Apostles as having offered two disciples of Jesus payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone on whom he would place his hands. The term extends to other forms of trafficking for money in "spiritual things".
William de Corbeil or William of Corbeil was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury. Very little is known of William's early life or his family, except that he was born at Corbeil, south of Paris, and that he had two brothers. Educated as a theologian, he taught briefly before serving the bishops of Durham and London as a clerk and subsequently becoming an Augustinian canon. William was elected to the See of Canterbury as a compromise candidate in 1123, the first canon to become an English archbishop. He succeeded Ralph d'Escures who had employed him as a chaplain.
A benefice or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term beneficium as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by the Western Church in the Carolingian Era as a benefit bestowed by the crown or church officials. A benefice specifically from a church is called a precaria, such as a stipend, and one from a monarch or nobleman is usually called a fief. A benefice is distinct from an allod, in that an allod is property owned outright, not bestowed by a higher authority.
Annates were a payment from the recipient of an ecclesiastical benefice to the collating authorities. Eventually, they consisted of half or the whole of the first year's profits of a benefice; after the appropriation of the right of collation by the Roman see, they were paid to the papal treasury, ostensibly as a proffered contribution to the church. They were also known as the "first fruits", a religious offering which dates back to earlier Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions.
In canon law, commendam was a form of transferring an ecclesiastical benefice in trust to the custody of a patron. The phrase in commendam was originally applied to the provisional occupation of an ecclesiastical benefice, which was temporarily without an actual occupant, in contrast to the conferral of a title, in titulum, which was applied to the regular and unconditional occupation of a benefice.
Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is jurisdiction by church leaders over other church leaders and over the laity.
The Apostolic Camera, formerly known as the Papal Treasury, was an office in the Roman Curia. It was the central board of finance in the papal administrative system and at one time was of great importance in the government of the States of the Church and in the administration of justice, led by the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, originally known as camerarius (chamberlain).
The right of patronage in Roman Catholic canon law is a set of rights and obligations of someone, known as the patron in connection with a gift of land (benefice). It is a grant made by the church out of gratitude towards a benefactor.
In the Catholic Church, fabrica ecclesiæ is a term meaning, etymologically, the construction of a church, but in a broader sense the funds necessary for such construction.
Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland. The term is found in common use mainly during the first half of the 19th century. The legal status of perpetual curate originated as an administrative anomaly in the 16th century. Unlike ancient rectories and vicarages, perpetual curacies were supported by a cash stipend, usually maintained by an endowment fund, and had no ancient right to income from tithe or glebe.
Jura regalia is a medieval legal term which denoted rights that belonged exclusively to the king, either as essential to his sovereignty, such as royal authority; or accidental, such as hunting, fishing and mining rights. Many sovereigns in the Middle Ages and in later times claimed the right to seize the revenues of vacant episcopal sees or abbeys, claiming a regalian right. In some countries, especially in France where it was known as droit de régale, jura regalia came to be applied almost exclusively to that assumed right. A liberty was an area in which the regalian right did not apply.
Trusteeism and the trustee system are practices and institutions within certain parishes of the Catholic Church in the United States, under which laypersons participate in the administration of Ecclesiastical Property. When laypersons are among the trustees, the Church seeks agreement with the civil authorities to have the property administered under principles of canon law.
"Appeal as from an abuse" is a legal term applied in the canon law of the Catholic Church, meaning originally a legal appeal as recourse to the civil forum (court) against the usurpation by the ecclesiastical forum of the rights of civil jurisdiction. It could also mean a recourse to the ecclesiastical forum against the usurpation by the civil forum of the rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, canonical provision is the regular induction into a benefice.
Hincmar, called the Younger, was the Bishop of Laon in the West Frankish Kingdom of Charles the Bald from 858 to 871. His career is remembered by a succession of quarrels with his monarch and his uncle, archbishop Hincmar of Rheims. After initial loyalty to Charles trouble occurred from 868 due to the allocation of benefices on the see's estates. The conflict grew dangerous as it became embroiled in the larger dispute of Lotharingian succession following Lothair II’s attempted divorce from his wife. Hincmar’s struggle against his king provides a Carolingian example of early Medieval clerical exemption.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, excommunication is a form of censure. In the formal sense of the term, excommunication includes being barred not only from the sacraments but also from the fellowship of Christian baptism. The principal and severest censure, excommunication presupposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can inflict, it supposes a grave offense. The excommunicated person is considered by Catholic ecclesiastical authority as an exile from the Church, for a time at least.
A rector is, in an ecclesiastical sense, a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations. In contrast, a vicar is also a cleric but functions as an assistant and representative of an administrative leader.
Charles Reynolds was an Irish Catholic cleric, canonist, and diocesan administrator. Born in County Leitrim, son of Marcus MacRaghnaill, Reynolds entered a religious order and was appointed to influential posts as archdeacon and chaplain to the Earl of Kildare. His name in native Irish is Cathal Mac Raghnaill, but he anglicized his name to Charles Reynolds in order secure ecclesiastical benefices under English laws. He was educated at the University of Oxford and fluent in English, Irish, and Latin. Reynolds opposed Henry VIII of England's separation from the Catholic Church, declining to acknowledge him as Supreme Head of the Church of England and refusing to acknowledge the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Benedict was a Hungarian Dominican friar and prelate at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, who served as Bishop of Transylvania from 1309 until his death.