Edmund Venables and Walter Alison Phillips

“ It was necessary that an abbot should be at least 25 years of age, of legitimate birth, a monk of the house, unless it furnished no suitable candidate, when a liberty was allowed of electing from another convent, well instructed himself, and able to instruct others, one also who had learned how to command by having practised obedience. ”

“ No monk might sit in his presence, or leave it without his permission. The highest place was naturally assigned to him, both in church and at table. In the East he was commanded to eat with the other monks. In the West the rule of St Benedict appointed him a separate table, at which he might entertain guests and strangers. This permission opening the door to luxurious living, the council of Aix, A.D. 817, decreed that the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a guest. ”

“ John, patriarch of Antioch, at the beginning of the 12th century, informs us that in his time most monasteries had been handed over to laymen, beneficiarii, for life, or for part of their lives, by the emperors.
In conventual cathedrals, where the bishop occupied the place of the abbot, the functions usually devolving on the superior of the monastery were performed by a prior.
The title abbé (Ital. abbate) , as commonly used in the Catholic church on the European continent, is the equivalent of the English “Father,” being loosely applied to all who have received the tonsure. ”

“ Lay abbots (M. Lat. defensores, abbacomites, abbates laici, abbates milites, abbates saeculares or irreligiosi, abbatiarii, or sometimes simply abbates) were the outcome of the growth of the feudal system from the 8th century onwards. ”

“ This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century, and partially so up to the 11th. ”

“ The first undoubted instance is the bull by which Alexander II. in 1063 granted the use of the mitre to Egelsinus, abbot of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury (see Mitre) . The mitred abbots in England were those of Abingdon, St Alban’s, Bardney, Battle, Bury St Edmund’s, St Augustine’s Canterbury, Colchester, Croyland, Evesham, Glastonbury, Gloucester, St Benet’s Hulme, Hyde, Malmesbury, Peterborough, Ramsey, Reading, Selby, Shrewsbury, Tavistock, Thorney, Westminster, Winchcombe, St Mary’s York. ”