Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/770

Rh ARCHITECTURE 696 ARCHIVES of that name; d. 1.55S, At the age of twenty he obtained the doctorate in law, at the University of Padua, and revealed such talents for diplomacy that Paul HI named him successively Governor of the City of Rome, Vice-Chamberlain Apostolic, Bishop of the Holy Sepulchre, and of Saluzzo. He also sent him to preside in his name at the Council of Trent, then transferred to Bologna. St. Ignatius Loyola found in him a powerful protector, in the early years of the Society of Jesus, and only his death prevented his installation in the archiepiscopal chair of Milan to which Paul IV had nominated him. His theological works are "De fide et sacramentis" (Cracow, 1545; Ingolstadt, 1546; Turin, 1549); "Oratio de nova christian! orbis pace habita" (Rome, 1544). Pai.lavicini, Histoire du concile de Trente (edit. Migne) III, 1122. Thomas Walsh. Architecture, Christian. See Christl Archi- tecture. Archives, Ecclesiastical, may be described as a collection of documents, records, muniments, and memorials, pertaining to the origin, foundation, growth, history, rights, privileges, and constitutions of a diocese, parish, monastery, or religious com- munity under the jurisdiction of the Church; the term is also applied to the place or depository where such records and documents are kept. The word archive is derived from the Latin archium, archirum, post-classical terms. Cicero uses tabuta- rivm, and Pliny tablinum. Pomponius Mela (a. d. 37- 54) seems among the first to adopt archium in the sense of archives (De orbis situ, hb. III). Archivum appears twice in Tertullian (a. d. 150-2.30). Archium (archivum) is a transliteration of the Greek 'kpxf^ov, used among the Greeks to express the senate-house, the council-house; the college of magistrates con- vened therein; the place reserved for state papers; the documents themselves; and, finally, apphed to many sanctuaries, which became the depositories of documents important enough to hand down to posterity. Not only Greece, but also the ancient civiUzations of Israel, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Rome appreciated the value of preserving important records and usually reserved for the archives a part of the temple, the sacredness of the holy place guarantee- ing, as far as possible, immunity from violation. Christian Rome, impressed with the reverence and importance attached by Jew and Gentile to such depositories, and recognizing the need of proper and safe custody of the sacred vessels and the Holy Scriptures, sought out for this purpose, in the be- ginning, the home of some worthy Christian family, and later, during the persecutions, some secret chamber in the catacombs. In these primitive ar- chives the early Church placed the Acts of the martyrs. St. Clement (a. d. 93), the fourth of the Roman Pontiffs, appointed for Rome seven notaries to record for future ages the sayings and sufferings of the saints who went to martyrdom. Pope An- terus (235-236) displayed such zeal for the keeping of these records of the martyrs as to ^vin for himself a martyr's crown after but one month in the Chair of Peter; and tradition tells of the existence, even in his day, of archives in the Lateran Basilica. In the development of the polity of the Church, as the first councils determined the relation of clergy to bi,shop, and of bishop to bishop, it became neces- sary to a.s.sign to a special oflicial, in a place separate from the depository lor the sacred vessels, the duty of registering ordinations, the i.ssuing of dimissory letters, the recording of synodal and conciliar decrees, and the safe keeping of documents pertaining to the administration and temporalities of the Churcli. This oflicial keeper of the archives, who became the registrar of the medieval cathedral, was called in Rome tabularius, and in Constantinople chartophylax (xapTo0i/XoJ). The Council of Nica;a (325), judging from its sixteenth canon, felt the need of such a church official. The Council of Mileve (402), in Africa, prescribed a matricula, or archives, for records of ordination, to prevent disputes about seniority among the bishops. The famous canonist, Van Espen, commenting on the ninth canon of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), writes that in the palace of the patriarch of Constantinople were kept the archives, called the chartophytacium, in which the episcopal laws and documents containing the privileges and rights of the church were laid up. Frequently, important State papers and valuable manuscripts of profane Uterature were preserved in the archives of the church; the Code of Justinian was therein deposited by order of the Emperor. The monasteries were quick to follow the example of the episcopal cities in the keeping of archives. Monastic archives owe much to the introduction of the scriptorium (manuscript room) with its armaria (book-chests) into Monte Cassino by St. Benedict (529), and into the monastery of Viviers by its famous abbot, Cassiodorus (531). The preservation of the fragments of Greek and Roman classics now extant is largely due to the monasteries, which for twelve centuries from the fall of the Western Em- Eire were the custodians, not only of sacred codices ut also of manuscripts of the ancient Greek philoso- phers and the Latin rhetoricians. A medieval monastery was often rich in archives, containing rare manuscripts, beautiful chirographs, paintings, precious metal-ware, and documents pertaining to the rights of a people, the privileges of kings, and treaties between nations. The universities of the thirteenth century, as Bologna and Paris, products of the episcopal schools, maintained valuable ar- chives. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V conceived the idea of erecting in Rome a general ecclesiastical depository to serve for arcliives for all Italy; the plan, however, was not found practicable, and the Pontiff then decreed that each diocese and religious community should establish and maintain its own local arcliives. The most detailed legislation with regard to the erection, the arrangement, and the safe custody of archives is embodied in the Constitution "Maxima Vigilantia" of Benedict XIII (1727), the norm for the present discipline in this matter. As a result of mandatory decrees of provincial and synodal coun- cils, archives are now found in every well organized centre. Besides the Vatican archives and those of the various Roman Congregations, there are: (1), the archiepiscopal, or metropolitan, archives, wherein are preserved the acts of provincial councils; docu- ments concerning suffragan sees; records of conse- crations of bishops; minutes of ecclesiastical trials, of appeals, and of matrimonial processes before the metropolitan curia, or court; (2), the episcopal, or diocesan archives, containing acts of synods, ilocu- nients from the Holy See, the minutes of the episco- pal curia, records of ordinations and matrimonial dispensations, deeds of diocesan property, and re- ports of the spiritual and financial condition of every parish in the diocese; (3), the parochial archives, maintained in each parish for safely and securely keeping all documents pertaining to the origin and history of the parish, mandates and pastorals of the bishop, registers for an accurate record of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and deaths, antl of the spiritual condition of souls visited in the parish; also the books pertaining to the administration of the finances of the parish, with detailed inventory of all clnirch property. The civil law usually con- siders parish registers as authentic public recorils. DuCANGK. Clossarium Mfdi(r et Injlmtr iMtiniOitis; FoR- ri:i.LiNi, Lexu:on Totiu* LatiniUttis; Pomponius Mela, De