A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Before the licence is granted, the same subscriptions, declarations, and oaths are to be made and taken, as in the case of a licence to a stipendiary curacy, and the lecturer is to read the Thirty-nine Articles.

Within three months after he is licensed, he is to read, in the church where he is appointed lecturer, the declaration appointed by the Act of Uniformity, and also the certificate of his having subscribed it before.

LECTURES. (See Bampton, Boyle, Donnellan, Hulsean, Moyer, and Warburton.)

LECTURN, or LECTERN. The reading desk in the choir of ancient churches and chapels. The earliest examples remaining are of wood, many of them beautifully carved. At a later period it was commonly of brass, often formed of the figure of an eagle with out-spread wings. (See Reading Desk and Eagle.)

The lectern in English cathedrals generally stands in the midst of the choir facing westwards. They were formerly more common in collegiate churches and chapels than now, as ancient ground-plans and engravings show. In many places the fine old eagles or carved desks are thrown into a corner and neglected.

When the capitular members read the lessons, they usually do so from the stalls. The regularity of this custom may be doubted; its impropriety is evident. It appears from Dugd. Mon. viii. 1257, ed. 1830, that in Lichfield cathedral, all, whether canons or vicars, anciently read the collects and lessons, not from their own stalls, but from the proper place: the dean alone being permitted to read from his stall. At Canterbury the canons now use the lectern.

LEGATE. A person sent or deputed by another to act in his stead, but now confined to those who are deputed by the pope. Of these there are three kinds.

1. Legati a latere, cardinals sent from the side or immediate presence, and invested with most of the functions of the Roman pontiff himself. They can absolve the excommunicated, call synods, grant dispensations in cases reserved to the pope, fill up vacant dignities or benefices, and hear ordinary appeals. Otho and Othobon, sent into England by Gregory IX. and Clement IV. in the reign of Henry III., were of this order. The legatine constitutions, or ecclesiastical laws enacted in national synods convened by these cardinals, may be seen in Johnson’s collections. Cardinal Wolsey was also a legate a latere, and the bulls of Leo X. and Adrian VI., investing him with that high function, are printed by Rymer, from which we learn that he was empowered to visit the monasteries and the whole clergy of England, as well as to dispense with the laws of the Church for a year. Cardinal Pole was also legatus a latere.

2. Legati nati are such as hold the legatine commission ex officio, by virtue of office, and till the latter part of the tenth century they were the legates usually employed by the papal power. Before the Reformation, the archbishop of Canterbury was the legatus natus of England. It is a relic of the legatine authority which enables the primate of all England to confer degrees independently of the universities.

3. Legati dati, legates given, or special legates, hold authority from the pope by special commission, and are, pro tempore, superior to the other two orders. They began to be employed after the tenth century, and displayed unbounded arrogance. They held councils, promulgated canons, deposed bishops, and issued interdicts at their discretion. Simple deacons are frequently invested with this office, which at once places them above bishops.