Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/114

 INUIT

84

INVESTITURES

nance dm philomphie!) de V Intuition (Paris, 190S); Farues, Thcorie fondamentale de facte ct dc la puissance (7th cd., Paris. 1909).

George M. Sauvage. Inuit. See Eskiiio.

Inventory of Church Property. — By inventory (Lat. itircntarium) is meant a descriptive list in which are enumerated systematically, item by item, the personal and real property, rights, titles, and papers or documents of a person, an estate, or any institution. Inventories are prescribed by law to control effectively the management of any trust, inheritance, guardian- ship, etc.. by an executor or administrator. Thus, an inventory is to be made at the beginning of a given administration; when the period of management has expired, the out-going official must produce all the things which appear in this inventory or were added later, excepting those which have been consumed or rendered useless. Then the inventory is to be verified. This formality is discharged, as the case may demand, by an authorized official, a notary, or merely in the presence of witnesses. A measure so useful for the proper administration of property of all kinds could not fail to find a place among the regulations for the management of church property, seeing that this was not administered by its owners, and that those in charge of it were all bound to render an annual ac- count to the bishop (Council of Trent, Sess., XXII, c. vii). It must be admitted, however, that the old writers on canon law prior to the Council of Trent, though they implicitly suppose an inventory of church property, make no formal mention of it. The only texts that refer to it clearly are those ordering bishops to separate carefully their own property from that of the Church, so that their heirs may not seize the goods of the Church, or the Church lay claim to their proper belongings (Can. Apost., xl; Council of Antioch, 341, can. xxiv and xxv; Cod. Eccl. Afric, can. Ixxxi, etc.). The most important document re- lating to the inventories of church property is the Motu Proprio, " Provida", of Sixtus V, 29 April, 1587. The pope had decreed the establishment of a general ecclesiastical record office at Rome, where inventories of all the church property in Italy should be kept; he abandoned this project on being informed that such inventories existed in the archives of many bishoprics and that the bishops verified them when making their pastoral visitations. However, he commanded all ordinaries who did not follow this practice to have an inventory of the property of all the churches and ecclesiastical establishments within their territories made within the space of one year; all administrators were obliged to draw up, within twelve months after entering into office, an inventory of the property con- fided to them and to send it to the ordinary.

The Roman Council of 1725 under Benedict XIII (tit. xii, c. i) renewed the order of Sixtus V, and gave as an appendix a model of a suitable inventory in twenty-eight paragraphs (the text of Sixtus V and the specimen inventory are contained in the "Acta Cone. Recent. Collect. Lacensis", I, col. 416). As a model of an inventory we might also refer to the in- structions gi\cn for the general visitation of Rome ordered by Pius X in his Bull of 11 February, 1904 (.sec Analect!'. Eccles., 1904). Since the Council of Rome almost every assembly of bishops has ])re- scribed the making of inventories of church propert}-; suffice it to mention, among the more important re- cent councils, the Second Council of \V<'stniinst('r in 185.5, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1SS4 (art. cclxviii sq.), and the Plenary Council of Latin America, held at Rome in 1899 (art. cclxv, dcccxli, dcccli). To these must be added the ecclesiastico- civil laws of various countries. Every administrator of church property and every beneficiary nnist tlien'- fore, on assuming office, draw up an exact inventory of the personal and real property confided to his care.

Of this inventory two copies are usually to be made — one to be kept in the archives, the other to be sent to the bishop (in some countries a third copy has to be sent to the civil authorities). When his term of office expires, the administrator or beneficiary must hand over to his successor all the articles entered in the inventory; this verification is done in a document which discharges the retiring official, and places the responsibility on his successor; as in the case of the inventory, two or three copies of this document are to be made. During the period of management the administrator must keep his inventory up to date, that is to say, he must make a record, with due legal formalities, of any property acquired, alienated, changed, or reinvested. Finally, during his episcopal visitations, the bishop, who has the right of approving the inventories, must have them produced and see that they are accurate.

For bibliography, see Property, Ecclesiastical.

A. BOUDINHON.

Investiture, Canonical (Lat. ini-estitura, from invcstirc, to clothe), the act by which a suzerain granted a fief to his vassal, and the ceremonies which accompanied that grant. From the middle of the eleventh century, and perhaps during the first half of that century, the term was used to designate the act and the ceremonies by which princes granted to bishops and abbots, besides their titles, the possessions which constituted their benefices, and the political rights which they were to exercise (see Investitures, Conflict of). The putting in possession was done after the investiture by enthronization (q. v.). The decretals use the word Invcstitura to signify the con- cession of an ecclesiastical benefice; only since the thirteenth century has it signified the act of putting one in possession of such a benefice. This is the sense in which it is now used; it is synonymous with In- stiiutio corporalis. (See Institution, Canonical; Install.^tion.)

HiNSCHlus. S)/slem des katholischen Kirchenrechis (Berlin, 1S78). II, 654; Kaulen in Kirchenlex,, s. v. Jnveatitur, VI (Freiburg im Br., 1889), 843-44.

A. Van Hove.

Investitures, Conflict op (Ger. InveMiturstreit), the terminus tcchnicus for the great struggle between the popes and the German kings Henry IV and Henry V, during the period 1075-1122. The prohibition of investiture was in trut h only the occasion of this con- flict; the real issue, at least at the height of the con- test, was whether the imperial or the papal power was to be supreme in Christendom. The powerful and ardent pope, (iregory VII, sought in all earnestness to realize the Kingdom of Ciod on earth imder the guidance of the papacy. As successor of the .Apostles of Christ, he claimed supreme authority in both spiritual and secular affairs. It seemed to this noble idealism that the successor of Peter could never act otherwise than according to the dictates of justice, goodness, and truth. In this spirit he claimed for the papacy supremacy over emperor, kings, and princes. But during the Middle Ages a rivalry had always existed between the popes and the emperors, twin representatives, so to speak, of authority. Henry III, the father of the young king, had even reduced the papacy to complete submission, a situation which Gregory now strove to reverse by crushing the imperial power and setting in its place the papacy. A long and bitter struggle was therefore unavoidable.

It first arose through the prohibition of investitures, ^ propos of the ecclesiastical reforms set afoot by Gregory. In 107 1 he had renewed mider heavier pen- alties the prohiliitiiin of sinioiiy and marriage of the clergy, Imt encouiitereil at imce great opposition from the German l)ishops ami priests. To secure the neces- sary influence in the appointment of bishops, to set aside lay pretensions to the administration of the