virgin.) So despotic did the tyranny become in the West, that in the time of Charlemagne it was necessary to restrain abbots by legal enactments from mutilating their monks, and putting out their eyes; while the rule of St Columba ordained 100 lashes as the punishment for very slight offences. An abbot also had the power of excommunicating refractory nuns, which he might use if desired by their abbess.

The abbot was treated with the utmost submission and reverence by the brethren of his house. When he appeared either in church or chapter all present rose and bowed. His letters were received kneeling, like those of the Pope and the king. If he gave a command, the monk receiving it was also to kneel. No monk might sit in his presence, or leave it without his permission. The highest place was naturally assigned to him, both in church and at table. In the East he was commanded to eat with the other monks. In the West the rule of St Benedict appointed him a separate table, at which he might entertain guests and strangers. This permission opening the door to luxurious living, the Council of Aix, A.D. 817, decreed that the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a guest. These ordinances proved, however, generally ineffectual to secure strictness of diet, and contemporaneous literature abounds with satirical remarks and complaints concerning the inordinate extravagance of the tables of the abbots. When the abbot condescended to dine in the refectory, his chaplains waited upon him with the dishes, a servant, if necessary, assisting them. At St Alban's the abbot took the lord's seat, in the centre of the high table, and was served on silver plate, and sumptuously entertained noblemen, ambassadors, and strangers of quality. When abbots dined in their own private hall, the rule of St Benedict charged them to invite their monks to their table, provided there was room, on which occasions the guests were to abstain from quarrels, slanderous talk, and idle gossipping. The complaint, however, was sometimes made (as by Matt. Paris of Wulsig, the third abbot of St Alban's), that they invited ladies of rank to dine with them instead of their monks. The ordinary attire of the abbot was according to rule to be the same as that of the monks. But by the 10th century the rule was commonly set aside, and we find frequent complaints of abbots dressing in silk, and adopting great sumptuousness of attire. Nay, they sometimes laid aside the monastic habit altogether, and assumed a secular dress.1 This was a necessary consequence of their following the chase, which was quite usual, and indeed at that time only natural. With the increase of wealth and power, abbots had lost much of their special religious character, and become great lords, chiefly distinguished from lay lords by celibacy. Thus we hear of abbots going out to sport, with their men carrying bows and arrows; keeping horses, dogs, and huntsmen; and special mention is made of an abbot of Leicester, cir. 1360, who was the most skilled of all the nobility in hare-hunting. In magnificence of equipage and retinue the abbots vied with the first nobles of the realm. They rode on mules with gilded bridles, rich saddles and housings, carrying hawks on their wrist, attended by an immense train of attendants. The bells of the churches were rung as they passed. They associated on equal terms with laymen of the highest distinction, and shared all their pleasures and pursuits. This rank and power was, how ever, often used most beneficially. For instance, we read of Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, judicially murdered by Henry VIII., that his house was a kind of wellordered court, where as many as 300 sons of noblemen and

1 Walworth, the fourth abbot of St Alban's, circa 930, is charged by Matthew Paris with adopting the attire of a sportsman.

gentlemen, who had been sent to him for virtuous educa tion, had been brought up, besides others of a meaner rank, whom he fitted for the universities. His table, attendance, and officers were an honour to the nation. He would entertain as many as 500 persons of rank at one time, besides relieving the poor of the vicinity twice a-week. He had his country houses and fisheries, and when ho travelled to attend Parliament his retinue amounted to upwards of 100 persons. The abbots of Clugny and Vendome were, by virtue of their office, cardinals of the Romish Church.

In process of time the title abbot was improperly transferred to clerics who had no connection with the monastic system, as to the principal of a body of parochial clergy; and under the Carlovingians to the chief chaplain of the king, Abbas Curiæ, or military chaplain of the emperor, Abbas Castrensis. It even came to be adopted by purely secular officials. Thus the chief magistrate of the republic at Genoa was called Abbas Populi. Ducange, in his Glossary, also gives us Abbas Campanilis, Clocherii, Palatii, Scholaris, &c.

Lay abbots, so called, had their origin in the system of commendation, in the 8th century. By this, to meet any great necessity of the state, such as an inroad of the Saracens, the revenues of monasteries were temporarily commended, i.e., handed over to some layman, a noble, or even the king himself, who for the time became titular abbot. Enough was reserved to maintain the monastic brotherhood, and when the occasion passed away the revenues were to be restored to their rightful owners. The estates, however, had a habit of lingering in lay hands, so that in the 9th and 10th centuries most of the sovereigns and nobles among the Franks and Burgundians were titular abbots of some great monastery, the revenues of which they applied to their own purposes. These lay-abbots were styled Abbacomites or Abbates Milites. Hugh Capet, before his elevation to the throne, as an Abbacomes held the abbeys of St Denis and St Germain in commendam. Bishop Hatto, of Mentz, A.D. 891-912, is said to have held 12 abbeys in commendam at once. In England, as we see from the Acts of the Council of Cloveshoc, in the 8th century, monasterics were often invaded and occupied by laymen. This occurred sometimes from the monastery having voluntarily placed itself under the protection of a powerful layman, who, from its protector, became its oppressor. Sometimes there were two lines of abbots, one of laymen enjoying the lion's share of the revenues, another of clerics fulfilling the proper duties of an abbot on a small fraction of the income. The gross abuse of lay commendation which had sprung up during the corruption of the monastic system passed away with its reformation in the 10th century, either voluntarily or by compulsion. The like abuse prevailed in the East at a later period. John, Patriarch of Antioch, at the beginning of the 12th century, informs us that in his time most monasteries had been handed over to laymen, beneficiarii, for life, or for part of their lives, by the emperors.

In conventual cathedrals, where the bishop occupied the place of the abbot, the functions usually devolving on the superior of the monastery were performed by a prior. In other convents the prior was the second officer next to the abbot, representing him in his absence, and fulfilling his duties. The superiors of the cells, or small monastic establishments dependent on the larger monasteries, were also called priors. They were appointed by the abbots, and held office at their pleasure.

Authorities:-Bingham, Origines; Ducange, Glossary; Herzog, Realwörterbuch; Robertson, Ch. Hist.; Martene, De Antiq. Monast. Ritibus, Montalembert, Monks of the West (E. V.)

ABBOT, CHARLES, speaker of the House of Commons from 1802 to 1817, afterwards created Lord Colchester. See COLCHESTER.

ABBOT, GEORGE, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born October 19, 1562, at Guildford in Surrey, where his father was a cloth-worker. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and was chosen Master of University College in 1597. He was three times appointed to the office of Vice-Chancellor of the University. When in 1604 the version of the Bible now in use was ordered to be prepared, Dr Abbot's name stood second on the list of the eight Oxford divines to whom was intrusted the translation of the New Testament, excepting the Epistles. In 1608 he went to Scotland with the Earl of Dunbar to arrange for a union between the Churches of England and Scotland, and his conduct in that negotiation laid the foundation of his preferment, by attracting to him the notice and favour of the king. With out having held any parochial charge, he was appointed Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1609, was translated to the see of London a month afterwards, and in less than a year was made Archbishop of Canterbury. This rapid preferment was due as much perhaps to his flattering his royal master as to his legitimate merits. After his elevation he showed on several occasions firmness and courage in resisting the king. In the scandalous divorce suit of the Lady Frances Howard against the Earl of Essex, the archbishop persistently opposed the dissolution of the marriage, though the influence of the king and court was strongly and successfully exerted in the opposite direction. In 1618, when a declaration was published by the king, and ordered to be read in all the churches, permitting sports and pastimes on the Sabbath, Abbot had the courage to forbid its being read at Croydon, where he happened to be at the time. As may be inferred from the incident just mentioned, Abbot was of the Protestant or Puritan party in the Church. He was naturally, therefore, a promoter of the match between the Elector Palatine and the Princess Elizabeth, and a firm opponent of the projected marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta of Spain. This policy brought upon him the hatred of Laud and the court. The king, indeed, never forsook him; but Buckingham was his avowed enemy, and he was regarded with dislike by the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I. In 1622 a sad misfortune befell the archbishop while hunting in Lord Zouch's park at Bramzill. A bolt from his cross-brow aimed at a deer happened to strike one of the keepers, who died within an hour, and Abbot was so greatly distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled melancholy. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of this accident disqualified him for his office, and argued that, though the homicide was involuntary, the sport of hunting which had led to it was one in which no clerical person could lawfully indulge. The king had to refer the matter to a commission of ten, though he said that 66 an angel might have miscarried after this sort." A decision was given in the archbishop's favour; but to prevent disputes, it was recommended that the king should formally absolve him, and confer his office upon him anew. After this the archbishop seldom appeared at the council, chiefly on account of his infirmities. He attended the king constantly, however, in his last illness, and performed the ceremony of the coronation of Charles I. A pretext was soon found by his enemies for depriving him of all his functions as primate, which were put in commission by the king. This high-handed procedure was the result of Abbot's refusal to license a sermon preached by Dr Sibthorp, in which the king's prerogative was stretched beyond constitutional limits. The archbishop had his powers restored to him shortly afterwards, however, when the king found it absolutely necessary to summon a Parliament. His pre

sence being unwelcome at court, he lived from that time in retirement, leaving Laud and his party in undisputed ascendency. He died at Croydon on the 5th August 1633, and was buried at Guildford, his native place, where he had endowed an hospital with lands to the value of £300 a year. Abbot wrote a large number of works; but, with the exception of his Exposition on the Prophet Jonah (1600), which was reprinted in 1845, they are now little known. Geography, or a Brief Description of the Whole World, passed through numerous editions.

His

ABBOT, GEORGE, known as "The Puritan," has been oddly and persistently mistaken for others. He has been described as a clergyman, which he never was, and as son of Sir Morris Abbot, and his writings accordingly entered in the bibliographical authorities as by the nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the sons of Sir Morris Abbot was, indeed, named George, and he was a man of mark, but the more famous George Abbot was of a different family altogether. He was son or grandson (it is not clear which) of Sir Thomas Abbot, knight of Easington, East Yorkshire, having been born. there in 1603-4, his mother (or grandmother) being of the ancient house of Pickering. He married a daughter of Colonel Purefoy of Caldecote, Warwickshire, and as his monument, which may still be seen in the church there, tells, he bravely held it against Prince Rupert and Maurice during the civil war. He was a member of the Long Parliament for Tamworth. As a layman, and nevertheless a theologian and scholar of rare ripeness and critical ability, he holds an almost unique place in the literature of the period. His Whole Booke of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand (1640, 4to), is in striking contrast, in its concinnity and terseness, with the prolixity of too many of the Puritan expositors and commentators. His Vindicia Sabbathi (1641, 8vo) had a profound and lasting influence in the long Sabbatic controversy. His Brief Notes upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1651, 4to), as its date shows, was posthumous. He died February 2, 1648. (MS. collections at Abbeyville for history of all of the name of Abbot, by J. T. Abbot, Esq., F.S.A., Darlington; Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1656, p. 791; Wood's Athena (Bliss), s. v.; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath; Dr James Gilfillan on The Sabbath; Lowndes, Bodleian, B. Museum Catal. s. v.) (A. B. G.)

ABBOT, ROBERT. Noted as this Puritan divine was in his own time, and representative in various ways, he has hitherto been confounded with others, as Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, and his personality distributed over a Robert Abbot of Cranbrook; another of Southwick, Hants; a third of St Austin's, London; while these successive places were only the successive livings of the one Robert Abbot. He is also described as of the Archbishop's or Guildford Abbots, whereas he was in no way related, albeit he acknowledges very gratefully, in the first of his epistles-dedicatory of A Hand of Fellowship to Helpe Keepe out Sinne and Antichrist (1623, 4to), that it was from the archbishop he had "received all" his "worldly maintenance," as well as "best earthly countenance" and "fatherly incouragements." The worldly maintenance was the presentation to the vicarage of Cranbrook in Kent, of which the archbishop was patron. This was in 1616. He had received his education at Cambridge, where he proceeded M.A., and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. 1639, in the epistle to the reader of his most noticeable book historically, his Triall of our Church-Forsakers, he tells us, "I have lived now, by God's gratious dispensation, above fifty years, and in the place of my allotment two and twenty full." The former date carries us back to 1588-89, or perhaps 1587-88—the

In