[67] See above, p. 86, note 2.
[68] cf. Luther to Spalatin, June 25, 1520 (Enders, II, 424; Smith, No. 271).
[69] i. e., The benefices are treated as though they were vacant.
[70] In the case of certain endowed benefices the right to nominate the incumbent was vested in individuals, usually of the nobility, and was hereditary in their family, This is the so-called jus patronum, or "right of patronage." The complaint that this right is disregarded is frequent in the Gravamina of 1521.
[71] Commendation was one of the practices by which the pope evaded the provision of the canon law which prescribed that the same man should not hold two livings with the cure of souls. The man who received an office in commendam was not required to fulfil the duties attached to the position and when a living or an abbacy was granted in this way during the incumbency of another, the recipient received its entire income during a subsequent vacancy. The practice was most common in the case of abbacies. At the Diet of Worms (1521), Duke George of Saxony, an outspoken opponent of Luther, was as emphatic in his protest against this practice as Luther himself (Wrede, op. cit., II, 665); his protest was incorporated in the Gravamina (ibid., 672), and reappears in the Appendix (ibid., 708).
[72] A monk who deserted his monastery was known as an "apostate."
[73] i. e., Offices which cannot be united in the hands of one man. See e. g., note 3, p. 91.
[74] A gloss is a note explanatory of a word or passage of doubtful meaning. The glosses are the earliest form of commentary on the Bible. The glosses of the canon law are the more or less authoritative comments of the teachers, and date from the time when the study of the canon law became a part of the theological curriculum. Their aim is chiefly to show how the law applies to practical cases which may arise. The so-called glossa ordinaria had in Luther's time an authority almost equal to that of the corpus juris itself. Cf. Cath. Encyc., VI, pp. 588 f.
[75] The thing which was bought was, of course, the dispensation, or permission to avail oneself of the gloss.
[76] Dataria is the name for that department of the curia which had to deal with the granting of dispensations and the disposal of benefices. Datarius is the title of the official who presided over this department.