A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

FELLOWSHIP. An establishment in one of the colleges of an university, or in one of the few colleges not belonging to universities, with a share of its revenues.

FEUILLANS. A congregation of monks, settled towards the end of the 15th century, by John de la Barriere; he was a Cistercian, and the plan of his new congregation was a kind of a reformation of that order. His method of refining upon the old constitution was approved of by Pope Sixtus V.; the Feuillantines are nuns, who followed the same reformation.

FIFTH MONARCHY MEN were a set of enthusiasts in the time of Cromwell, who expected the sudden appearance of Christ to establish on earth a new monarchy or kingdom.

FILIATION OF THE SON OF GOD. (See Generation, Eternal.)

FINIAL, (in church architecture,) more anciently Crop. The termination of a pinnacle, spire, pediment, or ogeed hood-mould. Originally the term was applied to the whole pinnacle.

FIRST FRUITS were an act of simony, invented by the pope, who, during the period of his usurpation over our Church, bestowed benefices of the Church of England upon foreigners, upon condition that the first year’s produce was given to him, for the regaining of the Holy Land, or for some similar pretence: next, he prevailed on spiritual patrons to oblige their clergy to pay them; and at last he claimed and extorted them from those who were presented by the king or his temporal subjects. The first Protestant king, Henry VIII., took the first fruits from the pope, but instead of restoring them to the Church, vested them in the Crown. Queen Anne restored them to the Church, not by remitting them entirely, but by applying these superfluities of the larger benefices to make up the deficiencies of the smaller. To this end she granted her royal charter, whereby all the revenue of first fruits and tenths is vested in trustees for ever, to form a perpetual fund for the augmentation of small livings. This is usually called Queen Anne’s Bounty. (See Annates.)

FIVE POINTS (see Arminians and Calvinism) are the five doctrines controverted between the Arminians and Calvinists; relating to, 1. Particular Election; 2. Particular Redemption; 3. Moral Inability in a Fallen State; 4. Irresistible Grace; and 5. Final Perseverance of the Saints.

FLAGELLANTS. A name given, in the 13th century, to a sect of people among the Christians, who made a profession of disciplining themselves: it was begun in 1260, at Perugia, by Rainerus, a hermit, who exhorted people to do penance for their sins, and had a great number of followers. In 1349, they spread themselves over all Poland, Germany, France, Italy, and England, carrying a cross in their hands, a cowl upon their heads, and going naked to the waist; they lashed themselves twice a day, and once in the night, with knotted cords stuck with points of pins, and then lay grovelling upon the ground, crying out mercy: from this extravagance they fell into a gross heresy, affirming that their blood united in such a manner with Christ’s that it had the same virtue; that after thirty days’ whipping they were acquitted from the guilt and punishment of sin, so that they cared not for the sacraments. They persuaded the common people that the gospel had ceased, and allowed all sorts of perjuries. The frenzy lasted a long time, notwithstanding the censures of the Church, and the edicts of princes, for their suppression.

FLAGON. A vessel used to contain the wine, before and at the consecration, in the holy eucharist. In the marginal rubric in the prayer of consecration, the priest is ordered “to lay his hand upon every vessel (be it chalice or flagon) in which there is any wine to be consecrated,” but in the same prayer he is told to take the cup only in his hand; and the rubric before the form of administering the cup stands thus, “the minister that delivereth the cup.” The distinction then between the flagon and the cup or chalice will be, that the latter is the vessel in which the consecrated wine is administered; the flagon, that in which some of the wine is placed for consecration, if there be more than one vessel used.

FLORID STYLE OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. The later division of the Perpendicular style, which prevailed chiefly during the Tudor era, and is often called the Tudor style.