A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

2. Of the Annunciation, popularly styled Lady Day, March 25th, an early festival, styled by St. Bernhard, radix omnium festorum.

3. Of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, instituted by Urban VI. 1389.

4. Of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, Aug. 15th, early instituted. Mary was the tutelary divinity of France; and for this reason this day was observed with peculiar care. It was also the birthday of Napoleon, and accordingly was observed under his dynasty as the great festival of the nation.

5. Of the Nativity of Mary, Sept. 8th, instituted in the Eastern Church in the seventh century; in the Western, in the eleventh or twelfth.

6. Of the Naming of Mary, A. D. 1513.

7. Of Conception. This feast, according to Bellarmine, was not necessarily dependent upon the question so fiercely discussed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respecting the immaculate conception.

VISITATION. This is that office which is performed by the bishop usually once in three years, or by his archdeacon every year, by visiting the churches throughout the diocese. It is the duty of a commissary to summon the churchwardens and sidesmen to a visitation, but he has no authority to summon any other persons; but if he does summon those persons, and they, refusing to appear, should be excommunicated for this contempt, a prohibition would be granted. (Noy, 122.) Two things are requisite in these visitations: 1st, The charge. 2nd, The inquiry. The charge consists of such things as the visitor thinks proper to impart to the clergy; but usually it is to put them in mind of their duty, and to persuade them to perform it. The inquiry formerly consisted of several articles taken out of the canons; and the bishop’s visitation being accounted an episcopal synod, there were at that time certain persons who attended it, and who were called Testes Synodales, or Juratores Synodi, and they were to present those who were negligent in performing religious offices, or any irregularities amongst the clergy, both in respect to their morals and behaviour, and likewise all dilapidations, and generally what they found to be amiss in the diocese. The bishop at first exercised this jurisdiction alone; it was what was implied in his very office; and this he was to do in every parish throughout his diocese once a year, there to examine the minister and the people, which he might do with more ease at that time, because parish churches were not so numerous then as afterwards. When this was disused, then ecclesiastical persons were to be assembled in a certain place, and inquiry was made, upon oath, concerning the state of the clergy, and at this place they were all bound to appear.

Afterwards, when bishops came to be ministers of state, and to attend the courts of kings, which began in the Norman reigns, then archdeacons were vested with this jurisdiction under the bishops, and visited in those years wherein the bishops did not. But still the bishops were to visit once in three years, and being then the king’s barons and statesmen, they came with very great equipage, insomuch that, by the Council of Lateran, their number was limited according to their qualities, viz. if the visitor was an archbishop, he was not to have above fifty horses in his retinue; if a bishop, he was not to exceed thirty; if a cardinal, then twenty-five; if an archdeacon, he was to have no more than seven, and a dean but two; and if they respectively exceeded those numbers, then no procuration was due for the maintenance of the supernumeraries. But even this was very chargeable to the parochial clergy, for the visitor was to be maintained at their expense a day and night in every parish; and, therefore, it was thought fit to turn that charge into a certain sum, which is now called procurations, and this is paid to archdeacons in that very year wherein bishops visit, for it is by some affirmed to be due to them ratione officii; and some say it is due to them by virtue of the statute of 33 Henry VIII. c. 5, by which these duties are made pensions. The first of these opinions is contrary to several canons, which not only enjoin personal visitations, but expressly forbid any procurations to be paid where the archdeacon himself did not visit in person. But notwithstanding those canons, custom has so far prevailed, that the archdeacons receive these fees in the bishop’s triennials, when they do not visit in person; but instead of that they hold two chapters about Easter and Michaelmas, and there, by themselves or their officials, they formally inquire into the state and condition of the Church, which inquiry is now called a visitation, and for which they are entitled to these fees.

Visitation, as commonly understood, denotes the act of the bishop, or other ordinary, going his circuit through his diocese or district, with a full power of inquiry into such matters as relate to church government and discipline. By the canon law visitations were to be once a year, but that was intended of parochial visitations, or a personal repairing to every church, as appears not only from the assignment of procurations, but also by the indulgence, where every church cannot be conveniently repaired to, of calling together the clergy and laity from several parts into one convenient place, that the visitation of them may not be postponed. From this indulgence and the great extent of the dioceses grew the custom of citing the clergy and people to attend visitations at particular places. But as to parochial visitation, or the inspection into the fabrics, mansions, utensils, and ornaments of the church, that care has long devolved upon the archdeacons, who, at their first institutions in the ancient church, were only to attend the bishops at their ordination and other public services in the cathedral, but being afterwards occasionally employed by them in the exercise of jurisdiction, not only the work of parochial visitation, but also the holding of general synods or visitations, when the bishop did not visit, came by degrees to be known and established branches of the archdiaconal office as such, which by this means attained to the dignity of ordinary, instead of delegated jurisdiction; and by these degrees came on the present practice of triennial visitations by bishops; so as the bishop is not only not obliged by law to visit annually, but is actually restrained from it.

“By the 137th canon it is enjoined, that forasmuch as a chief and principal cause and use of visitation is, that the bishop, archdeacon, or other assigned to visit, may get some knowledge of the state, sufficiency, and ability of the clergy and other persons whom they are to visit, we think it convenient that every parson, vicar, curate, schoolmaster, or other person licensed whatsoever, do at the bishop’s first visitation, or at the next visitation after his admission, show and exhibit unto him his letters of orders, institution, and induction, and all other his dispensations, licenses, of faculties whatsoever, to be by the said bishop either allowed or (if there be just cause) disallowed and rejected, and, being by him approved, to be (as the custom is) signed by the registrar, and that the whole fees accustomed to be paid in the visitations in respect of the premises, be paid only once in the whole time of every bishop, and afterwards but half of the said accustomed fees in every other visitation during the said bishop’s continuance.”