Reservation, Papal

RESERVATION, PAPAL: The act of the pope in reserving to himself the right to nominate to certain benefices. From the close of the twelfth century instances occur in which, when clericals from elsewhere died at Rome, the vacancies were disposed of by the pope. Thus Innocent III. (11981216) in the first year of his pontificate gave the prebend in Poitiers of Aimericus de Portigny, who died at Rome, to his nephew who was serving in the papal chancellery, and repeatedly thereafter disposed of vacant places in like manner. The bishops thus interfered with tried to meet the encroachment upon their powers by means of procurators at Rome. The popes, however, were loath to forego the privilege they had gained, and Clement IV. in 1265 made a formal "reservation of churches, dignities, patronages, and benefices which happen to become vacant in the presence of the Apostolic seat," to which Honorius IV. added, in 1286, the case of one who had resigned his benefice into the pope's hands. Gregory X. ordered that appointment must take place within a month, in default of which the right would return to the bishops or their vicars general. Boniface VIII. reaffirmed this ordinance; construed "in the presence of the apostolic seat" to be a radius within two days' journey of the residence of the Curia, for the respective cases; and ordered that parochial churches that had become vacant during the disoccupation of the papal chair or that the pope had not filled before his death, were excepted. Another papal reservation related to the cathedral churches and exempt prelacies. The right to approve their suffragan bishops was gradually, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, taken away from the metropolitans by the popes, and constructed into a formal reservation by Clement V., John XXII., and their successors. After the removal of the popes to Avignon the reservations increased in scope and were exercised in such ways as to arouse bitter complaints. The Council of Basel (q.v.) ordered a general limitation of reservations, which was in the main accepted in France, but again modified in favor of the pope by the Concordat of 1516.between Leo X. and Francis I. (see Concordats and Delimiting Bulls, III., 2). In Germany the older regulations were resumed in the Vienna Concordat of 1448, between Nicholas V. and Friedrich III. (see Concordats, etc., III., 1, § 2). Papal reservations were henceforth to be: (1) benefices becoming vacant in curia, in the original sense; (2) places in cathedral churches and immediate cloisters and foundations in which canonical election prevailed, in case the pope could not approve an election or accept a postulation; (3) likewise in case of deposition, withdrawal, transference, or renunciation, in which the pope took part; (4) a place left vacant by the holder because of the acceptance of another offered by the pope; (5) the benefices of cardinals, papal emissaries, and various Roman palace officials; and (6) benefices vacated in the odd months (see Menses Papales). Fresh extensions and interpretations of these reservations led to renewed complaints, which found expression at the Diet of Nuremberg in 1522 in the proposed abolition of the Gravamina (q.v.). The Council of Trent effected some reforms in favor of chapters and bishops relating to incompatibles as well as to the "mental reservations" introduced by Alexander VI., according to which a canonical election is anticipated by reserving in mind another aspirant as an intendant for the benefice (expectancy). The attempts of the popes from Pius V. to claim anew various reservations were dismissed, in Germany at least, by reference to the Concordat of 1448. Especially was the privilege denied, in the case of a resignation, where there existed a right of patronage. The above-mentioned reservations, however, remained in force generally, until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Since the restoration of ecclesiastical institutions in modern times and as a result of specific conventions between the German governments and the papal see, the papal reservations have been greatly modified, reserving to the pope mainly the highest appointments, and here and there vaguely admitting the reservations in curia and of incompatibles. Outside of Germany, also, there continues here and there a 494 restricted papal reservation, while in France and the Netherlands it has ceased.

(E. Friedberg.)