Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/570

 TENNEY

512

TENURE

IX. Charities. — \. Associations. — Any association of individuals for the support of public worship, to build churches, and for the maintenance of all mission- ary undertakings may be incorporated. All property belonging to any religious, charitable, scientific, liter- ary, or educational institution is exempt from taxa- tion, except such part thereof as is used in secular busi- ness to compete with a like business which pays taxes to the State. Where rents and profits are used exclu- sively for rehgious or charitable purposes, including church parsonages not exceeding $5000 in value, and in cases where buildings are used partially for the pur- poses named and other portions rented out or other- wise used, the assessor shall, in making assessment, apportion the same and assess that portion for taxa- tion which is under this section taxable. All property belonging to any of the above-named institutions and not used for any purpose is not exempt. All clergy- men are exempt from jury service.

B. Trusts. — The general rule is that a trust for a charitable purpose must be of such a tangible nature that a court of eciuity can deal with it. It must be to some person, body, or association of persons having a legal existence and with capacity to take and admin- ister the trust for some definite and lawful purpose. A devise or bequest' made directly to a voluntary or unincorporated association must fail for want of ca- pacity in the devisee to take it as a gift for itself; but if the gift be sufficiently definite and made to compe- tent trustees for the benefit of the unincorporated in- stitution or association it will be good, that is, if the will defines how such bequest is to be applied. The distinction taken in England between superstitious and charitable uses, being inconsistent with the prin- ciples of religious freedom that obtain in this state, is not recognized. Gifts for the good of the soul, or for prayers for the soul of the testator, or for the dead whether in or out of the chapel or church, or for the maintenance of Catholic priests are valid. A chari- table use, where neither law nor public policy forbids, may be applied to almo.st anything that tends to pro- mote the well-being and well-doing of social man and in favour of all religions of whatever form and creed.

C. Institutions. — There are three hospitals for the insane, one in each of the civil divisions of the state: at Bolivar, Nashville, and KnoxviUe. A Confeder- ate Soldiers' Home and a home for blind girls is main- tained at Nashville; also a school for blind boj-S and girls and an industrial school for boys and girls, both white and coloured at the same place. A school for the deaf and dumb is maintained at Knoxville.

Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee (Knoxville, 1823); Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee (Philadelphia, 1860); Phe- LAN, HistoTy of Tennessee (Boaton and New York, 1880); Gar- BETT and Goodpasture, History of Tennessee (Nashville, 1903) ; KiLLEBREW, Resources of Tennessee (Nashville, 1874); Paine, Hand Book of Tennessee (Nashville, 1903).

Thos. J. Tyne.

Tenney, William Jewett, author, editor, b. at

Newport, Rhode Island, 1S14; d. at Newark, New Jer- sey, 20 Sept., 1SS:J. Criuluating from Yale in 1S32 he studied medicine, l)ut abandoned it for the law :uul, on being admitted to the bar, oi)ened an office in New York. He then tried journalism ontheedit(>rial,st:i.fT of the "Journal of Commerce," and contributed etlitori- allytothe "Evening Post", during 1S41-43 and 1S47- 48. In 185.3 lie entered the service of D. Apjileton and Co., publishers, as editor, and, in addition to a large amount of literary and critical work, began for them, in 1861, the compilation of the "Annual Cyclopa-dia" which he continued till his death. He indexed T. II. Benton's "Abridgment of the Debates of Congress" and added a sixteenth volume to the series (New York 1<S57-G0). He edited the "Queens of England" (1852); and wrote a "Militarv and Naval History of theUebellion in tlieU. S." (lS(i5), and a "Or:initn:iti- cal Analysis" (ISOO). During a long resilience at Elizabeth, N. J., he held several local pubhc offices in-

cluding that of collector of the port dm-ing President Buchanan's administration. He became a convert to the Catholic Faith and marrietl, as his second wife, Sarah, daughter of Orestes H. Brownson (q. v.).

Appleton's Cyctopadia of American Biog. (.New York. 1900). s. v.; Lamb, Biog. Diet, of U. S. (Boston, 1903); Freeman's Jour- nal (New York), files.

Thomas F. Meehan.

Tentyris (Tentyra), seat of a titular suffragan see of Ptolemais in Thebaid Secunda. The city was the capital of the nome of that name, according to Ame- Uneau, the real name being Nikentori or Nitentori, which signifies willow wood or willow earth. Others give the derivation from the goddess Hathor,or Aph- rocUte, who was specially w-orshiped there. The croc- odile is recognized as the deity of the city and was also venerated as such in the other Egj'ptian cities, which caused many quarrels, notably with Ombos. Little is known of Christianity in that place, as only the names of two ancient bishops are given: Pachymius, com- panion of Melece at the beginning of the fourth cen- turj'; and Serapion, or Aprion, contemporary and friend of the monk St. Pachomius, who had in his dio- cese his celebrated convent of Tabennisi. It is to-day Donderah, a town of 6000 inhabitants in the district of Qeneh. The temple of Hathor is still to be seen, built on the foundation of another, yet more ancient, which was in existence during the reign of Cheops un- der the fourth dynasty, and in which was found the celebrated zodiac now in Paris; there are also the temples of Mammisi and of Isis, of the Roman or Ptolemaic epoch.

Le Quien, Oriens Christ., II, 607; Smith, Did. ofGr. and Rom. Geog.,3.v.; A^'^i^N^iA.TJ, La geographiede I'Egypte dVSpoque copte (Paris, 1S93), 140-2,

S. Vailh6.

Tenure, Ecclesiastical. — I. In the feudal sys- tem an ecclesiastical fief followed all the laws laid down for temporal fiefs. The .suzerain, e. g. bishop, abbot, or other possessor, granted an estate in per- petuity to a person, who thereby became his vassal. As such, the grantee at his enfeoffment did homage to his overlord, took an oath of feahy, and made offering of the prescribed money or other object, by reason of which he held his fief. These requirements had to be repeated as often as there was a change in the person of the suzerain or vassal. These fiefs were granted by churchmen to princes, barons, knights, and others, who thereupon assumed the obligation of protecting the church and domains of the overlord. This .system of feudal teniu-e was not always restricted to lands, as church revenues and tithes were often farmed out to secular persons as a species of ecclesiastical fief. Strictly speaking, how- ever, a fief was usually defined as immovable prop- erty whose usufruct perpetually conceded to another under the obligation of fealty and personal homage. A fief was not ecclesiastical simply because its overlord was a churchman; it was requisite also that the domain granted should be church property. Lands, which belonged to the patrimony of an ec- clesiastic, became a secular fief if he bestowed them on a vassal.

All fiefs were personal and hereditary, and many of the latter could be inherited by female descent. Fiefs bestowed by the Church on vassals were called active fiefs; when churchmen themselves undertook obligations to a suzerain, the fiefs were called passive. In the latter case, temporal princes gave certain hinds to the Church by enfeoffing ;t bishop or abI)ot, and the latter had then to do homage as pro-vass;il and undertake all the implied obligations. When these included military service, the ecclesiastic was einjiow- ered to fulfil tliis duty !>>■ a substitute. It was as passive fiefs that many bishoi)rics, iibbacies, and prel- acies, .as to their temporalities, were held of kings in the medieval periotl, and the power thereby acquired