DEAN

Of deans there are two sorts; 1st, the dean of a cathedral , who is an ecclesiastical magistrate, next in degree to the bishop. He is chief of the chapter, and it is supposed is called a dean, ( Decanus ,) from a similar title in ancient monasteries, of an officer who presided over ten monks. The dean represents the Arch presbyter , or Pro to papas , who all the world over, from the most ancient times, was found under one denomination or another in the principal church of the diocese, to which a body of clergy was uniformly attached. Notre Dame at Paris had a dean as early as 991 at least. There was a dean of Bangor in 603; of Llandaff in 612; at Canterbury from 825 to 1080, then the name of Prior was substituted. Salisbury had its dean in 1072; Lincoln, 1092. In conventual cathedrals, the head was generally prior, the bishop being virtually abbot. The dean was the first dignitary of the cathedral; the head of the corporation; and, in subordination to the bishop, has, according to the statutes of more ancient cathedrals, the cure of souls over the members of the cathedral, and the administration of the corrective discipline of the Church. He has also duties in the choir and the chapter in common with all the chapter. He is by our law a sole corporation, that is, he represents a whole succe ion, and is capable of taking an estate as dean, and conveying it to his succe ors. 2nd, Rural deans , whose office is of ancient date in the Church of England, long prior to the Reformation, as it has been throughout Europe, and which many of the bishops are now reviving. Their chief duty is to visit a certain number of parishes, and to report their condition to the bishop. (See Rural Dean .) The dean was not always head of the chapter abroad; the provost being sometimes the superior. But he had always the administration of the discipline in spirituals , [ cur am animarum , as it is expre ly called in statutes both of home and foreign Churches,] the provosts often concerning themselves merely in temporals, and he had the superintendence of the choir, or cathedral body. (See Dictionnaire de Droit Can on i que, Lyons , 1787, voce Doyen .) They were, in fact, very much like the deans in our colleges, though more strictly limited ad sacra . The Dean of Faculty, in most ancient and some modern universities, presided over the meetings of their respective faculties, and maintained the academical discipline.