Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/108

96 only to the splendid daring and unquestioning obedience to orders, and others seeing only a foolhardy and unjustifi able throwing away of valuable lives. At the close of the war the earl was created K.C.B., and was appointed inspector- general of cavalry, and this post he held till 1860. In 1859 he was promoted colonel of the 5th Dragoon Guards, but was transferred in the following year to the command of his former regiment, the llth Hussars. He attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1861. He was twice married, in 1826 and in 1858, but had no children. On his death, which took place at Deene Park, Northamptonshire, on the 28th of March 1868, the titles passed to his relative, the marquis of Ailes- bury.  CARDINAL, the name of the highest dignity in the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Very varying statements are found in the ecclesiastical historians respecting the origin of the name, the period at which it was first used, and the persons to whom it was applied in the earliest time of its use. This uncertainty is easily explained by the fact that both the thing and the name were at no time appointed and created, but grew up by successive and mainly abusive encroachments legitimatized by usance, and from time to time more formally by Papal briefs and bulls. There can be little doubt that the word was originally applied to priests in the same sense in which it was and is applied to other things, as synonymous with &quot; principal,&quot; that on which a thing hinges (cardo, a hinge). The other ideas which have been put forward, as that the priests so termed attended the pontiff when celebrating mass, standing at the corners (cardines) of the altar, that cardinal priests were those refugees from persecution who were received and &quot; incardinated &quot; into the clerical body of churches more happily circumstanced, and some others maybe deemed the fanciful inventions of later writers in search of originality. What priests those were, who in fact or by privilege used this title in the earliest ages of the church, is a much larger and more debatable question, on which scores of volumes have been written. If, however, a guide is to be chosen, no safer can be found than Bingham, who says, when pointing out that archpresbyters were by no means the same thing as cardinal presbyter*, that the use of the term cardinal cannot be found in any genuine writer before the time of Gregory the Great (t 604). For, says he, the Roman Council, on which alone Bellarmine relies to prove the word to have had a greater antiquity, is a mere figment. For the authorities for an earlier use of the term, such as they are, the reader may consult Gaetano Moroni s Dizionario at the word Cardinal. As regards the term &quot; genuine &quot; in Bingham s statement, it may be mentioned that both Baronius and Bellarmine regard the council said to have been held at Rome by Sylvester I. in 324 as genuine. Van Espen, on the other hand, considers it to be apocryphal. Further, in alluding to the origin of the name, Bingham notices the opinion of Bellarmine that the word was first applied to certain principal churches, and remarks that others have supposed that those among the priests in populous cities who were chosen from among the rest to be a council for the bishop were first called cardinals. And Stillingfleet says, &quot;When afterwards these titles were much increased, those presbyters that were placed in the ancient titles, which were the chief among them, were called Cardinales Presbyteri, which were looked on as the chief of the clergy, and therefore were the chief members of the council of presbyters to the bishop.&quot; Stillingfleet appears, however, to have been think ing exclusively of Rome. Various other churches in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain as Bourges, Metz, Ravenna, Fermo, Salerno, Naples, Cologne, Compostella, &c., claimed the title of cardinal for their canons as by privilege, in most cases probably usurped and not granted. But the name appears gradually to have been understood to appertain only to those whom the pope specially created cardinals. And at last, in 15G7, Pope Pius V. definitively decreed that none should assume the title of cardinal save thosw created such by the Roman pontiff, and the word from that time to this has been exclusively so applied.

If the origin and early use of the term cardinal is obscure, the institution of a collegiate body consisting of cardinals and of none other is yet more so. There seem to be traces of such a conception in the life of Leo III. (t 816) written by Anastasius the librarian. And Moroni cites many passages from various authors and documents between the above date and 1100, with a view of showing that, at all events, by the end of that time the body of cardinals was recognized as a collegiate corporation. But his citations seem to prove rather the reverse. Nor do wo reach solid ground in this respect till we come to the bull &quot;Postquam&quot; of Sixtus V. (3d December 1585) which finally regulates the composition of the Sagro Collegia. By this instrument seventy is fixed as the maximum number of the sacred college &quot; after the example of the seventy elders appointed by God as counsellors of Moses.&quot; Nor has the number ever been exceeded since that time, though it is expressly laid down by the authorities on the subject, that no canonical disability exists to prevent the pope from exceeding that number should he see fit to do so. By the same bull &quot; Postquam,&quot; it is also provided that the seventy of the Sacred College should consist of six cardinal bishops, fifty cardinal priests, and fourteen cardinal deacons. The six cardinal bishops are the bishops of the sees lying immediately around Rome. The fifty cardinal priests take their &quot; titles &quot; from the principal churches in Rome, but are many of them bishops or archbishops of distant sees, and four must be by regulation members (usually the &quot; generals &quot;) of the monastic orders. The fourteen deacons take their titles from the &quot; deaconries &quot; established in the earliest ages of the Church for the assist ance and protection of the widows and orphans of the faithful. It may be added here that Sixtus V., by tho above-mentioned bull, decrees that if any person created a cardinal be not in deacon s orders, he must receive them within the year. But &quot; dispensations,&quot; by virtue of which the dignity has been held for many years by men not even in deacons orders, have been common. If any cardinal should be in such a position at the time of the Pope s death, he cannot enter conclave or participate in the election, unless by immediately qualifying himself by taking orders.

As the institution of cardinals was entirely arbitrary and an abuse, so, despite the shadow of an attempt to find or make a raison d etre for their existence in the assignment of such dignities to certain special sees and churches in and 