DEAN (Lat. decanus, derived from the Gr. 8eaa, ten)

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 897 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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DEAN (Lat. decanus, derived from the Gr. 8eaa, ten) , the style of a certain functionary, primarily ecclesiastical. Whether the term was first used among the secular clergy to signify the priest who had a charge of inspection and superintendence over two parishes, or among the regular clergy to signify the monk who in a monastery had authority over ten other monks, appears doubtful. "Decurius" may be found in early writers used to signify the same thing as " decanus," which shows that the word and the idea signified by it were originally borrowed from the old Roman military system.
The earliest mention which occurs of an "archipresbyter " seems to be in the fourth epistle of St Jerome to Rusticus, in which he says that a cathedral church should possess one bishop, one archipresbyter and one archdeacon. Liberatus also (Breviar. c. xiv.) speaks of the office of archipresbyter in a manner which, as J.

Bingham

BINGHAM, JOSEPH (1668-1723)

says, enables one to understand what the nature of his duties and position was. And he thinks that those are right who hold that the archipresbyters were the same as the deans of English cathedral churches. E. Stillingfleet (Irene. part ii. c. 7) says of the archipresbyters that " the memory of them is preserved still in cathedral churches, in the chapters there, where the dean was nothing else but the archipresbyter; and both dean and prebendaries were to be assistant to the bishop in the regulating the church affairs belonging to the city, while the churches were contained therein."

Bingham

BINGHAM, JOSEPH (1668-1723)

, however, following Liberatus, describes the office of the archipresbyter to have been next to that of the bishop, the head of the presbyteral college, and the functions to have consisted in administering all matters pertaining to the church in the absence of the bishop. But this does not describe accurately the office of dean in an English cathedral church. The dean is indeed second to the bishop in rank and dignity, and he is the head of the presbyteral college or chapter; but his functions in no wise consist in administering any affairs in the absence of the bishop. There may be some matters connected with the ordering of the internal arrangements of cathedral. churches, respecting which it may be considered a doubtful point whether the authority of the bishop or that of the dean is supreme. But the consideration of any such question leads at once to the due theoretical distinction between the two. With regard to matters spiritual, properly and strictly so called, the bishop is supreme in the cathedral as far as and no further, thanhe is supreme in his diocese generally. With regard to matters material and temporal, as concerning the fabric of the cathedral, the arrangement and conduct of the services, and the management of the property of the chapter, &c., the dean (not excluding the due authority of the other members of the chapter, but speaking with reference to the bishop) is
supreme. And the cases in which a doubt might arise are those in which the material arrangements of the fabric or of the services may be thought to involve doctrinal considerations.
The Roman Catholic writers on the subject say that there are two sorts of deans in the churchthe deans of cathedral churches, and the rural deansas has continued to be the case in the English Church. And the probability would seem to be that the former were the successors and representatives of the monastic decurions, the latter of the inspectors of " ten " parishes in the primitive secular church. It is thought by some. that the rural dean is the lineal successor of the chorepiscopus, who in the early church was the assistant of the bishop, discharging most, if not all, episcopal functions in the rural districts of the diocese. But upon the whole the probability is otherwise. W. Beveridge, W. Cave, Bingham and Basnage all hold that the chorepiscopi were true bishops, though Romanist theologians for the most part have maintained that they were simple priests. But if the chorepiscopus has any representative in the church of the present day, it seems more likely that the archdeacon is such rather than the dean.
The

ordinary

ORDINARY (med. Lat. ordinarius, Fr. ordinaire)

use of the term dean, as regards secular bodies of persons, would lead to the belief that the oldest member of a chapter had, as a matter of right, or at least of usage, become the dean thereof. But Bingham (lib. ii. chap. 18) very conclusively shows that such was at no time the case; as is also further indicated by the

maxim

MAXIM, SIR HIRAM STEVENS (184o- )

to the effect that the dean must be selected from the

body

BODY

of the chapter" Unus de gremio tantum potest eligi et promoveri ad decanatus dignitatem." The duties of the dean in a Roman Catholic cathedral are to preside over the chapter, to declare the decisions to which the chapter may have in its debates arrived by plurality of voices, to exercise inspection over the choir, over the conduct of. the capitular

body

BODY

, and over the discipline and regulations of the church; and to celebrate divine service on occasion of the greater festivals of the church in the absence or inability of the bishop. With the exception of the last clause the same statement may be made as to the duties and functions of the deans of Church of England cathedral churches.
Deans had also a place in the judicial system of the Lombard kings in the 8th, 9th and loth centuries. But the office indicated by that term, so used, seems to have been a very subordinate one; and the name was in all probability adopted with immediate reference to the etymological meaning of the word,a person having authority over ten (in this case apparently) families. L. A.

Muratori

MURATORI

, in his Italian Antiquities, speaks of the resemblance between the saltarii or sylvani and the decani, and shows that the former had authority in the rural districts, and the latter in towns, or at least in places where the population was sufficiently close for them to have authority over ten families. Nevertheless, a document cited by

Muratori

MURATORI

from the archives of the canons of Modena, and dated in the year 813, recites the names of several " deaneries" (decania), and thus shows that the authority of the dean extended over a certain circumscription of territory.
In the case of the " dean of the sacred college," the connexion between the application of the term and the etymology of it is not so evident as in the foregoing instances of its use; nor is it by any means clear how and when the idea of seniority was first attached to the word. This office is held by the oldest cardinali.e. he who has been longest in the enjoyment of the purple, not he who is oldest in years,who is usually, but not necessarily or always, the bishop of Ostia and

Velletri

VELLETRI (anc. Velitrae)

. Perhaps the use of the word " dean," as signifying simply the eldest member of any

corporation

CORPORATION (from Lat. corporare, to form into a body, corpus, corporis)

or body of men, may have been first adopted from its application to that high dignitary. The dean of the sacred college is in the ecclesiastical hierarchy second to the

pope

alone. His privileges and

special

SPECIAL

functions are very many; a compendious account of the principal of them may be found in the

work

WORK

of G. Moroni, vol. xix. p. 168.
There are four sorts of deans of whom the law of England takes notice. (I) The dean and chapter are a council subordinate to the bishop, assistant to him in matters spiritual relating to religion,
In the colleges of the English universities one of the fellows usually holds the office of " dean," and is specially charged with the discipline, as distinguished from the teaching functions of the tutors. In some universities the head of a faculty is called " dean," and in each of these cases the word is used in a non-ecclesiastical and purely titular sense.

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