DIGNITARY

One who holds cathedral or other preferment to which jurisdiction is annexed. The dignitaries in British cathedrals are, for the most part, the dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon. Sometimes the subdean and succentor canonicorum are so called; and in a few churches in Ireland, the provost , and sacrist (or treasurer). The only dignitary in cathedrals of the new foundation is the dean ; as the archdeacon is not nece arily a member of such chapters. It is a vulgar error to style prebendaries, or canons residentiary, dignitaries. The prebendaries without dignity were styled canonic i (or pre ben dari i ) simplices .— Jebb. DILAPIDATION is the incumbent suffering the chancel, or any other edifices, of his ecclesiastical living, to go to ruin or decay, by neglecting to repair the same; and it likewise extends to his committing, or suffering to be committed, any wilful waste in or upon the glebe, woods, or any other inheritance of the church. By the injunctions of King Edward VI. it is required, “that the proprietors, parsons, vicars, and clerks, having churches, chapels, or mansions, shall yearly bestow on the said mansions or chancels of their churches, being in decay, the fifth part of their benefices, till they be fully repaired; and the same being thus repaired, they shall always keep and maintain them in good estate.”—See Art. XIII. of Queen Elizabeth’s Injunctions . By the constitutions of Othobon it is ordained, that “all clerks shall take care decently to repair the houses of their benefices and other buildings, as need shall require, whereunto they shall be earnestly admonished by their bishops or archdeacons; and if any of them, after the monition of the bishops or archdeacons, shall neglect to do the same for the space of two months, the bishop shall cause the same effectually to be done, at the cost and charges of such clerk, out of the profits of his church and benefice, by the authority of this present statute, causing so much thereof to be received as shall be sufficient for such reparation: the chancels also of the church they shall cause to be repaired by those who are bound thereunto according as is above expre ed; also we do enjoin, by attestation of the Divine judgment, the archbishops and bishops, and other inferior prelates, that they do keep in repair their houses and other edifices, by causing such reparation to be made as they know to be needful.”—See 13 Eliz. c. 10; 17 Geo. III. c. 53; 21 Geo. III. c. 66; Gibson’s Codex , pp. 751–754, and Hodgson’s Instructions to the Clergy .