EXPECTANCY (Exspedarttia, exsPedativd, gratis
exspedatiroa): In canon law, the right of
succession to an ecclesiasical office not
yet vacant, by virtue of which the person on whom it is con-
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
pro vide 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
the custom of papal nomination of perpetual coadju
tors with right
of succession, either to avoid long
vacancies or contested episcopal elections, or to
assure a see to a member of a particular princely
house, or, especially in tile Reformation period,
to a person of assured loyalty to the papal system.
Besides expectancies conferred by the popes, an
other class came up in the thirteenth century, in
cathedral and collegiate foundations, varying
according to their constitution (see
Chapter),
giving a right to the first vacancy in a limited chapter,
or (where the number of canons was not limited
but that of prebends was) conferring the title
of
canonicus supernumeraries with a right to the first
vacant prebend, or promising both title and prebend
at once. Again, expectancies developed from the
exercise of the jus
primariarum precum, according
to which from the thirteenth century the emperors,
the kings of France and England, and later a num
ber of petty German princes and even empresses
and queens of England, claimed the right on their
accession or coronation to request from each en
dowed foundation or monastery in their territory
the assignment of a benefice or position, vacant or
to be vacated, to their nominees. This claim,
based at first on custom, was confirmed by papal
indults, and fell into disuse only at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. Many of these developments
were in direct contravention of the ancient
canonical principle which forbade appointments to
ecclesiastical offices before they were vacant, and
even 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
kinds 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 impor
tance. 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, 65'3, iii. 113, 6 vols., Berlin, 1869-97; J. H.
Böhmer, Jus
ecclesiasticum
protestantium, iii. 8, §§ 9 sqq.,
4 vols., Halle, 1756-63; H. C. de Senekenberg, De jure
primarum precum, Frankfort, 1784; A. Mayer,
Thesaurus noaus juris ecclesiastiei, i. 249, Regensburg, 1791.
