(G. A. B.)
CATGUT,the name applied to cord of great toughness and tenacity prepared from the intestines of sheep, or occasionally from those of the horse, mule and ass. Those of the cat are not employed, and therefore it is supposed that the word is properlykitgut, kitmeaning “fiddle,” and that the present form has arisen through confusion withkit= cat. The substance is used for the strings of harps and violins, as well as other stringed musical instruments, for hanging the weights of clocks, for bow-strings, and for suturing wounds in surgery. To prepare it the intestines are cleaned, freed from fat, and steeped for some time in water, after which their external membrane is scraped off with a blunt knife. They are then steeped for some time in an alkaline ley, smoothed and equalized by drawing out, subjected to the antiseptic action of the fumes of burning sulphur, if necessary dyed, sorted into sizes, and twisted together into cords of various numbers of strands according to their uses. The best strings for musical instruments are imported from Italy (“Roman strings”); and it is found that lean and ill-fed animals yield the toughest gut.
CATHA,thekhatof the Arabs, a shrub widely distributed and much cultivated in Arabia and tropical Africa from, Abyssinia to the Cape. The dried leaves are used for the preparation of a kind of tea and also as tobacco. The plant is a member of the natural orderCelastraceae, a family of shrubs and trees found in temperate and tropical climates and represented in Britain by the spindle-tree (Euonymus europaeus).
CATHARS(CathariorCatharists), a widespread heretical sect of the middle ages. They were the débris of an early Christianity, scattered in the 10th to 14th centuries over East and West, having their analogues in the Mahommedan world as well. In the East they were called Bogomils (q.v.) and Paulicians; in the West, Patarenes, Tixerands (i.e.Weavers), Bulgars, Concorricii, Albanenses, Albigeois, &c.; in both, Cathars and Manicheans. This article relates to the Western Cathars, as they appear (1) in the Cathar Ritual written in Provençal and preserved in a 13th-century MS. in Lyons, published by Clédat, Paris, 1888; (2) in Bernard Gui’sPractica inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis, edited by Canon C. Douais, Paris, 1886; and (3) in theprocès verbalof the inquisitors’ reports. Some were downright dualists, and believed that there are two gods or principles, one of good and the other of evil, both eternal; but as a rule they subordinated the evil to the good. All were universalists in so far as they believed in the ultimate salvation of all men.1
Their tenets were as follows:—The evil god, Satan, who inspired the malevolent parts of the Old Testament, is god and lord of this world, of the things that are seen and are temporal, and especially of the outward man which is decaying, of the earthen vessel, of the body of death, of the flesh which takes us captive under the law of sin and desire. This world is the only true purgatory and hell, being the antithesis of the world eternal, of the inward man renewed day by day, of Christ’s peace and kingdom which are not of this world. Men are the result of a primal war in heaven, when hosts of angels incited by Satan or Lucifer to revolt were driven out, and were imprisoned in terrestrial bodies created for them by the adversary. But there are also celestial bodies, bodies spiritual and not natural. These the angel souls left behind in heaven, and they are buildings from God, houses not made with hands, tunics eternal.Imprisoned in the garment of flesh, burdened with its sin, souls long to be clothed upon with the habitations they left in heaven. So long as they are at home in the body, they are absent from the Lord. They would fain be at home with the Lord, and absent from the body, for which there is no place in heaven since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption. There is no resurrection of the flesh. The true resurrection is the spiritual baptism bequeathed by Christ to theboni homines. How shall man escape from his prison-house of flesh, and undo the effects of his fall? For mere death brings no liberation, unless a man is become a new creation, a new Adam, as Christ was; unless he has received the gift of the spirit and become a vehicle of the Paraclete. If a man dies unreconciled to God through Christ, he must pass through another cycle of imprisonment in flesh; perhaps in a human, but with equal likelihood in an animal’s body. For when after death the powers of the air throng around and, persecute, the soul flees into the first lodging of clay that it finds.2Christ was a life-giving spirit, and theboni homines, the “good men,” as the Cathars called themselves, are his ambassadors. They alone have kept the spiritual baptism with fire which Christ instituted, and which has no connexion with the water baptism of John; for the latter was an unregenerate soul, who failed to recognize the Christ, a Jew whose mode of baptism with water belongs to the fleeting outward world and is opposed to the kingdom of God. It would be interesting to trace Bardesanes and the Syriac Hymn of the Soul in all this.
The Cathars fell into two classes, corresponding to the Baptized and the Catechumens of the early church, namely, the Perfect, who had been “consoled,”i.e.had received the gift of the Paraclete; and thecredentesor Believers. The Perfect formed the ordained priesthood, were women no less than men, and controlled the church; they received from the Believers unquestioning obedience, and as vessels of election in whom the Holy Spirit already dwelt, they were adored by the faithful, who were taught to prostrate themselves before them whenever they asked for their prayers. For none but the Consoled had received into their hearts the spirit of God’s Son, which cries “Abba, Father.” They alone were become adopted sons, and so able to use the Lord’s Prayer, which begins, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” The Perfect alone knew God and could address him in this prayer, the only one they used in their ceremonies. The merecredenscould at best invoke the living saint, and ask him to pray for him.
All adherents of the sect seem to have kept three Lents in the year, as also to have fasted Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of each week; in these fasts a diet of bread and water was usual. But acredensunder probation for initiation, which lasted at least one and often several years, fasted always. The life of a Perfect was so hard, and, thanks to the inquisitors, so fraught with danger, that most Believers deferred the rite until the death-bed, as in the early centuries many believers deferred baptism. The rule imposed complete chastity. A husband at initiation left his wife, committing her “to God and the gospel”; a wife her husband. A male Perfect could not lay his hand on a woman without incurring penance of a three-days’ fast. All begetting of children is evil, for Adam’s chambering with Eve was the forbidden fruit. It is good for a man not to touch a woman; a man’s relations with his own wife are merely a means of fornication, and marriage and concubinage are indistinguishable as against the kingdom of God, in which there is no marrying or giving in marriage. Those only have been redeemed from earth who were virgins, undefiled with women. The passages of the New Testament which seem to connive at the married relation were interpreted by the Cathars as spoken in regard of Christ and the church. The Perfect must also leave his father and mother, and his children, for a man’s foes are they of his own household. The family must be sacrificed to the divine kinship. He that loveth father or mother more than Christ is not worthy of him, nor he that loveth more his son or daughter. The Perfect takes up his cross and follows after Christ.
Next he must abstain from all flesh diet except fish. He may not even eat cheese or eggs or milk, for they, like meat, are producedper viam generationis seu coitus. Everything that is sexually begotten is impure. Fish were supposed to be born in the water without sexual connexion, and on the basis of this old physiological fallacy the Cathars equally with the Catholic framed their rule of fasting. And there was yet another reason why the Perfect should not eat animals, for a human soul might be doing time in its body. Nor might a Perfect or one in course of probation kill anything, for the Mosaic commandment applies to all life. He might not lie nor take an oath, for the precept “Swear not at all” was, like the rest of the gospel, taken seriously. This was the chief of their “anarchist doctrines.”3
The Cathar rites, which remain to us in a manual of the sect, “recall,” says the Abbé Guiraud, no too favourable a witness, “those of the primitive church with a truth and precision the more striking the nearer we go back to the apostolic age.” The medieval inquisitor saw in them an aping of the rites of the Catholic church as he knew them; but they were really, says the same authority, “archaeological vestiges (i.e.survivals) of the primitive Christian liturgy. In the bosom of medieval society they were the last witness to a state of things that the regular development of Catholic cult had amplified and modified. They resemble the erratic blocks which lost amid alien soils recall, where we find them, the geological conditions of earlier ages. This being so, it is of the deepest interest to study the Cathar cult, since through its rites we can get a glimpse of those of the primitive church, about which want of documents leaves us too often in the dark.”
The central Cathar rite wasconsolamentum, or baptism with spirit and fire. The spirit received was the Paraclete derived from God and sent by Christ, who said, “The Father is greater than I.” Of a consubstantial Trinity the Cathars naturally had never heard. Infant baptism they rejected because it was unscriptural, and because all baptism with water was an appanage of the Jewish demiurge Jehovah, and as such expressly rejected by Christ.
Theconsolamentumremoves original sin, undoes the sad effects of the primal fall, clothes upon us our habitation which is from heaven, restores to us the lost tunic of immortality. A Consoled is an angel walking in the flesh, whom the thin screen of death alone separates from Christ and the beatific vision. The rite was appointed by Christ, and has been handed down from generation to generation by theboni homines.
The long probation called “abstinence” which led up to it is a survival of the primitive catechumenate with its scrutinies. The prostrations of thecredensbefore the Perfect were in their manner and import identical with the prostrations of the catechumen before the exorcist. We find the same custom in the Celtic church of St Columba. Just as at the third scrutiny the early catechumen passed a last examination in the Gospels, Creed and Lord’s Prayer, so after their year of abstinence the credens receives creed and prayer; the allocution with which the elder “handed on” this prayer is preserved, and of it the Abbé Guiraud remarks that, if it were not in a Cathar ritual, one might believe it to be of Catholic origin. It is so Christian in tone, he quaintly remarks elsewhere, that an inquisitor might have used it quite as well as a heretic. In it the Perfect addresses the postulant, as in the corresponding Armenian rite, by the name of Peter; and explains to him from Scripture the indwelling of the spirit in the Perfect, and his adoption as a son by God. The Lord’s Prayer is then repeated by the postulant after the elder, who explains it clause by clause; the wordspanissuperstantialisbeing interpreted not of the material but of the spiritual bread, which consists of the Words of Life.
There followed the Renunciation, primitive enough in form, but the postulant solemnly renounced, not Satan and his works and pomp, but the harlot church of the persecutors, whose prayers were more deadly than desirable. He renounced the cross which its priests had signed on him with their chrism, their sham baptisms and other magical rites. Next followed the spiritual baptism itself, consisting of imposition of hands, and holding of the Gospel on the postulant’s head. The elder begins a fresh allocution by citing Matt. xxviii. 19, Mark xvi. 15, 16, John iii. 3 (where the Cathars’ text must originally have omitted in v. 5 the words “of water and,” since their presence contradicts their argument). Acts ix. 17, 18, viii. 14-17, are then cited; also John xx. 21-23, Matt. xvi. 18, 19, Matt. xviii. 18-20, for the Perfect one receives in this rite power to bind and loose. The Perfect’s vocation is then defined: he must not commit adultery nor homicide, nor lie, nor swear any oath, nor pick and steal, nor do unto another that which he would not have done unto himself. He shall pardon his wrongdoers, love his enemies, pray for them that calumniate and accuse him, offer the other cheek to the smiter, give up his mantle to him that takes his tunic, neither judge nor condemn. Asked if he will fulfil each of these, the postulant answers: “I have this will and determination. Pray God for me that he give me his strength.”
The next episode of the rite exactly reproduces the Romanconfiteoras it stood in the 2nd century; “the postulant says: ’Parcite nobis. For all the sins I have committed, in word or thought or deed, I come for pardon to God and to the church and to you all.’ And the Christians shall say: ‘By God and by us and by the church may they be pardoned thee, and we pray God that he pardon you them.’”
There follows the act of “consoling.” The elder takes the Gospel off the white cloth, where it has lain all through the ceremony, and places it on the postulant’s head, and the other good men present place their right hands on his head; they shall say theparcias(spare), and thrice the “Let us adore the Father and Son and Holy Spirit,” and then pray thus: “Holy Father, welcome thy servant in thy justice and send upon him thy grace and thy holy spirit.” Then they repeat the “Let us adore,” the Lord’s Prayer, and read the Gospel (John i. 1-17).
This was the vital part of the whole rite. Thecredensis now a Perfect one. He is girt with the sacred thread round his naked body under the breasts. Where the fear of the persecutor was absent he was also clad in a black gown. The Perfect ones present give him the kiss of peace, and the rite is over. This part of the rite answers partly to the Catholic confirmation of a baptized person, partly to the ordination of a pope of Rome or Alexandria. The latter in being ordained had the Gospel laid on their heads, and the same feature occurs in old Gallican and Coptic rites of ordaining a bishop.
Thus the Cathar ritual, like that of the Armenian dissenters (seePaulicians), reflects an age when priestly ordination was not yet differentiated from confirmation. “Is it not curious,” says the Abbé Guiraud, “to remark that the essential rite of theconsolamentumis in effect nothing but the most ancient form of Christian ordination?”
The Cathar Eucharist was equally primitive, and is thus described by a contemporary writer in a 13th-century MS. of the Milan Library:—”The Benediction of bread is thus performed by the Cathars. They all, men and women, go up to a table, and standing up say the ‘Our Father.’4And he who is prior among them, at the close of the Lord’s Prayer, shall take hold of the bread and say: ‘Thanks be to the God of our Jesus Christ. May the Spirit be with us all.’ And after that he breaks and distributes to all. And such bread is called bread blessed, although no one believes that out of it is made the body of Christ. The Albanenses, however, deny that it can be blessed or sanctified, because it is corporeal” (i.e.material).
As Tertullian relates of his contemporaries in the 2nd century, so the Cathars would reserve part of their bread of blessing and keep it for years, eating of it occasionally though only after saying theBenedicite. The Perfect kept it wrapped up in a bag of pure white cloth, tied round the neck,5and sent it long distances to regions which through persecution they could not enter. On the death-bed it could even, like the CatholicViaticum, take the place of the rite ofConsolamentum, if this could not be performed. Once a month this solemn rite of breaking bread was held, thecredentesassisting. The service was calledapparellamentum, because a table was covered with a white cloth and the Gospel laid on it. The Perfect were adored, and the kiss of peace was passed round.
The influence of Catharism on the Catholic church was enormous. To counteract it celibacy was finally imposed on the clergy, and the great mendicant orders evolved; while the constant polemic of the Cathar teachers against the cruelty, rapacity and irascibility of the Jewish tribal god led the church to prohibit the circulation of the Old Testament among laymen. The sacrament of “extreme unction” was also evolved by way of competing with the death-bedconsolamentum.
Authorities—J.J.I. Döllinger,Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte(München, 1890); Jean Guiraud,Questions d’histoire(Paris, 1906); F.C. Conybeare,The Key of Truth(Oxford, 1898); Henry C. Lea,History of the Inquisition(New York, 1888); C. Douais,L’Inquisition(Paris, 1906), and hisLes Hérétiques du midi au XIIIe siècle(Paris, 1891);Les Albigeois(Paris, 1879); alsoPractica Inquisitionis(of Bernard Gui or Guidon), (Paris, 1886); L. Clédat,Le Nouveau Testament, traduit au XIIIe siècle en langue provençale, suivi d’un rituel cathare(Paris, 1887); E. Cunitz inBeiträge zu den theol. Wissensch.(1852), vol. iv.; P. van Limborch,Liber Sententiarum Inquis. Tholos. 1307-1323(Amsterdam, 1692); Hahn,Gesch. der Ketzer im M.A.(Stuttgart, 1845); Ch. Schmidt,Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares(Paris, 1849); A. Lombard,Pauliciens bulgares et Bons-Hommes(Geneva, 1879); Fredericq,Corpus documentorum haer, pravitatis Neerlandicae(Gent, 1889-1896); Felix Tocco, “Nuovi documenti” inArchiv. di studi ital.(1901), and hisL’Eresia nel media evo(Florence, 1881); P. Flade,Das romische Inquisitions-verfahren in Deutschland(Leipzig, 1902); Ch. Molinier, “Rapport sur une mission en Italie,” inArchives scientifiques de Paris, tom. 14 (1888); C.H. Haskins, “Robert le Bougre,” inAmerican Hist. Rev.(1902).
Authorities—J.J.I. Döllinger,Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte(München, 1890); Jean Guiraud,Questions d’histoire(Paris, 1906); F.C. Conybeare,The Key of Truth(Oxford, 1898); Henry C. Lea,History of the Inquisition(New York, 1888); C. Douais,L’Inquisition(Paris, 1906), and hisLes Hérétiques du midi au XIIIe siècle(Paris, 1891);Les Albigeois(Paris, 1879); alsoPractica Inquisitionis(of Bernard Gui or Guidon), (Paris, 1886); L. Clédat,Le Nouveau Testament, traduit au XIIIe siècle en langue provençale, suivi d’un rituel cathare(Paris, 1887); E. Cunitz inBeiträge zu den theol. Wissensch.(1852), vol. iv.; P. van Limborch,Liber Sententiarum Inquis. Tholos. 1307-1323(Amsterdam, 1692); Hahn,Gesch. der Ketzer im M.A.(Stuttgart, 1845); Ch. Schmidt,Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares(Paris, 1849); A. Lombard,Pauliciens bulgares et Bons-Hommes(Geneva, 1879); Fredericq,Corpus documentorum haer, pravitatis Neerlandicae(Gent, 1889-1896); Felix Tocco, “Nuovi documenti” inArchiv. di studi ital.(1901), and hisL’Eresia nel media evo(Florence, 1881); P. Flade,Das romische Inquisitions-verfahren in Deutschland(Leipzig, 1902); Ch. Molinier, “Rapport sur une mission en Italie,” inArchives scientifiques de Paris, tom. 14 (1888); C.H. Haskins, “Robert le Bougre,” inAmerican Hist. Rev.(1902).
(F. C. C.)
1A certain Peter (Doc. Doat., 22, p. 98) declared that could he but get hold of the false and perfidious God of the Catholics who created a thousand men in order to save a single one and damn all the rest, he would break him to pieces and tear him asunder with his nails and spit in his face.2Here we have a doctrine of metempsychosis which seems of Indian origin (seeAsceticism). But Julius Caesar (de B.G.vi. 13) attests this belief among the ancient Druids of Gaul.3The Abbé Guiraud remarks that in refusing to take oaths the Cathars “contraried the social principles on which the constitutions of all states repose,” and congratulates himself that society is not yet so thoroughly “laicized” as to have given up oaths in the most important acts of social life.4Cf. S. GregoriiEp.ix. 12 (26): “Mos apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem oblationis hostiam consecrarent.” (“The custom of the apostles was to use no other prayer but the Lord’s in consecrating the host of the offering.”)5Cf. Duchesne,Origines, ed. 1898, p. 177.
1A certain Peter (Doc. Doat., 22, p. 98) declared that could he but get hold of the false and perfidious God of the Catholics who created a thousand men in order to save a single one and damn all the rest, he would break him to pieces and tear him asunder with his nails and spit in his face.
2Here we have a doctrine of metempsychosis which seems of Indian origin (seeAsceticism). But Julius Caesar (de B.G.vi. 13) attests this belief among the ancient Druids of Gaul.
3The Abbé Guiraud remarks that in refusing to take oaths the Cathars “contraried the social principles on which the constitutions of all states repose,” and congratulates himself that society is not yet so thoroughly “laicized” as to have given up oaths in the most important acts of social life.
4Cf. S. GregoriiEp.ix. 12 (26): “Mos apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem oblationis hostiam consecrarent.” (“The custom of the apostles was to use no other prayer but the Lord’s in consecrating the host of the offering.”)
5Cf. Duchesne,Origines, ed. 1898, p. 177.
CATHAY,the name by which China (q.v.) was known to medieval Europe and is still occasionally referred to in poetry, as in Tennyson’s “Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” It is derived from Khitāī, or Khitāt, the name which was properly that of the kingdom established by the Khitān conquerors in the northern provinces of China abouta.d.907, which after the fall of this dynasty in 1125 remained attached to their former territory, and was subsequently applied by the nations of Central Asia to the whole of China. Thus “Kitai” is still the Russian name for China. The name penetrated to Europe in the 13th century with the fame of the conquests of Jenghiz Khan. After the discovery of southern China by European navigators Cathay was erroneously believed to be a country to the north of China, and it was the desire to reach it that sent the English adventurers of the 16th century in search of the north-east passage.
CATHCART, SIR GEORGE(1794-1854), English soldier, third son of the 1st Earl Cathcart, was born in London on the 12th of May 1794. He was educated at Eton and Edinburgh University. In 1810 he entered the army, and two years later accompanied his father to Russia as aide-de-camp. With him he joined the Russian headquarters in March 1813; and he was present at all the great battles of that year in Germany, and of the following year in France, and also at the taking of Paris. The fruits of his careful observation and critical study of these operations appeared in theCommentarieson the war in Russia and Germany 1812-1813, a plain soldier-like history, which he published in 1850. After the peace of 1814 he accompanied his father to the congress of Vienna. He was present at Quatre Bras and at Waterloo, as an aide-de-camp to the duke of Wellington, and remained on the staff till the army of occupation quitted France.Reappointed almost immediately, he accompanied the duke to the congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and Verona, and in 1826 to Prussia. Promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1826, he was placed on half-pay in 1834. He was recalled to active service in 1838, and sent as commander of the King’s Dragoon Guards to Canada, where he played an important part in suppressing the rebellion and pacifying the country. In 1844 he returned to England, and two years later was appointed deputy-lieutenant of the Tower, a post which he held up to the time of his promotion to major-general in 1851. In March 1852 he succeeded Sir Harry Smith as governor and commander-in-chief at the Cape, and brought the Kaffir war, then in progress, to a successful conclusion. He promulgated the first constitution of Cape Colony, and conducted operations against the Basuto. Cathcart was made a K.C.B. and received the thanks of both Houses for his services (1853). In December 1853 he was made adjutant-general of the army, but never entered upon his duties, being sent out to the Crimean War as soon as he arrived in England. He was even given a dormant commission entitling him to the chief command in case of accident to Lord Raglan, and the highest hopes were fixed on him as a scientific and experienced soldier. But these hopes were not to be fulfilled; for he fell at the battle of Inkerman (November 5, 1854). His remains, with those of other officers, were buried on Cathcart’s Hill. Sir George Cathcart married in 1824 Lady Georgiana Greville, who survived him, and by whom he had a family.
SeeColburn’s United Service Magazine, January 1855;Correspondence of the Hon. Sir George Cathcart relative to Kaffraria(1856); A.W. Kinglake’sInvasion of the Crimea, vol. v.
SeeColburn’s United Service Magazine, January 1855;Correspondence of the Hon. Sir George Cathcart relative to Kaffraria(1856); A.W. Kinglake’sInvasion of the Crimea, vol. v.
CATHCART, WILLIAM SCHAW CATHCART,1st Earl(1755-1843), English soldier and diplomatist, was born at Petersham on the 17th of September 1755, and educated at Eton. In 1771 he went to St Petersburg, where his father, Charles, 9th Baron Cathcart (1721-1776), a general in the army, was ambassador. From 1773 to 1777 he studied law, but after succeeding to the barony in 1776 he obtained a commission in the cavalry. Proceeding to America in 1777, he had before the close of his first campaign twice won promotion on the field of battle. In 1778 he further distinguished himself in outpost work, and at the battle of Monmouth he commanded an irregular corps, the “British Legion,” with conspicuous success; for a time also he acted as quartermaster-general to the forces in America. He returned home in 1780, and in February 1781 was made captain and lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream Guards. He was elected a representative peer for Scotland in 1788, and in 1792 he became colonel of the 29th foot. He served with distinction in the campaigns in the Low Countries, 1793-1795, in the course of which he was promoted major-general; and in 1801 he was made a lieutenant-general, having in the meanwhile received the appointments of vice-admiral of Scotland (1795), privy councillor (1798), and colonel of the 2nd Life Guards (1797). From 1803 to 1805 Lord Cathcart was commander-in-chief in Ireland, and in the latter year he was sent by Pitt in command of the British expedition to Hanover (seeNapoleonic Campaigns). After the recall of this expedition Cathcart commanded the forces in Scotland until 1807, when he was placed in charge of the expedition to Copenhagen, which surrendered to him on the 6th of September. Four weeks later he was created Viscount Cathcart of Cathcart and Baron Greenock of Greenock in the peerage of the United Kingdom, resuming the Scottish command on his return from the front. On the 1st of January 1812 he was promoted to the full rank of general, and a few months later he proceeded to Russia as ambassador and military commissioner. In the latter capacity he served with the headquarters of the allies throughout the War of Liberation (1812-1814); his success in the delicate and difficult task of maintaining harmony and devotion to the common cause amongst the generals of many nationalities was recognized after the war by his elevation to the earldom (July 1814). He then went to St Petersburg, and continued to hold the post of ambassador until 1820, when he returned to England. He died at his estate near Glasgow on the 16th of June 1843.
His son,Charles Murray Cathcart, 2nd earl (1783-1859), succeeded to the title in 1843. He entered the 2nd Life Guards in 1800, and saw active service under Sir James Craig in the Mediterranean, 1805-1806. In 1807 he became by courtesy Lord Greenock. He took part in the Walcheren expedition of 1809 as a major, and as a lieutenant-colonel served at Barossa, Salamanca and Vittoria. He had already gained staff experience, and he now served under Graham in Holland, 1814, as quartermaster-general. He was present at Waterloo, and for his services received the C.B. and several foreign orders. During the peace he became deeply interested in scientific pursuits, and a new mineral discovered by him in 1841 was named Greenockite. His later military services included the chief command in Canada during a period of grave unrest (1846-1849). He retired from active service in 1850, becoming a full general just before his death. The title passed to his son and grandson as 3rd and 4th earls.
CATHCART,a parish situated partly in Renfrewshire and partly in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The Renfrewshire portion has the larger area (2387 acres), but the smaller population (7375), the area of the Lanarkshire portion being 745 acres and the population (1901) 20,983. The industries include paper-making, dyeing and sandstone quarrying, but limestone and coal have also been worked. The parish includes the town of Cathcart (pop. 4808), and the villages of Old and New Cathcart, but much of it, though outside the city boundaries, is practically continuous with some of the southern suburbs of Glasgow, with which there is communication by electric tram and the Caledonian railway’s circular line. The White Cart flows through the parish. In the 12th century Cathcart became a barony of the Cathcarts, who derived the title of their lordship (1460) and earldom (1814) from it. On the Queen’s Knowe, a hillock near the ruins of Cathcart Castle, a memorial marks the spot where Queen Mary watched the progress of the battle of Langside (1568), the site of which lies within the parish.
CATHEDRAL,more correctly “cathedral church” (ecclesia cathedralis), the church which contains the official “seat” or throne of a bishop—cathedra, one of the Latin names for this, giving us the adjective “cathedral.” The adjective has gradually, for briefness of speech, assumed the character of a substantive, but though an instance of this (strictly incorrect) use of the word as a substantive has been found as far back as 1587, it became common only at the end of the 18th, or first half of the 19th, century. One of the earliest instances of the termecclesia cathedralisis said to occur in the acts of the council of Tarragona in 516. Another name for a cathedral church isecclesia mater, indicating that it is the mother church. As being the one important church, it was also known asecclesia major. This is the formal expression used by Archbishop Walter Gray of York (1216-1255), and it is preserved in modern times by the name of “La Majeure,” by which the old cathedral church of Marseilles is popularly known. Again, as the chief house of God, the cathedral church was theDomus Dei, and from this name the GermanDomkirche, orDom, is derived, as also the SwedishDomkyrka, and the ItalianDuomo.
History and Organization.—It was early decreed that thecathedraof a bishop was not to be placed in the church of a village, but only in that of a city. There was no difficulty as to this on the continent of Europe, where towns were numerous, and where the cities were the natural centres from which Christianity was diffused among the people who inhabited the surrounding districts. In the British islands, however, the case was different; towns were few, and owing to other causes, instead of exercising jurisdiction over definite areas or districts, many of the bishops were bishops of tribes or peoples, as the bishops of the south Saxons, the west Saxons, the Somersaetas and others. Thecathedraof such a bishop was often migratory, and was at times placed in one church, and then another, and sometimes in the church of a village. In 1075 a council was held in London, under the presidency of Archbishop Lanfranc, which, reciting the decrees of the council of Sardica held in 347 and that of Laodicea held in 360 on this matter, ordered thebishop of the south Saxons to remove his see from Selsey to Chichester; the Wilts and Dorset bishop to remove hiscathedrafrom Sherborne to Old Sarum, and the Mercian bishop, whosecathedrawas then at Lichfield, to transfer it to Chester. Traces of the tribal and migratory system may still be noted in the designations of the Irish see of Meath (where the result has been that there is now no cathedral church) and Ossory, the cathedral church of which is at Kilkenny. Some of the Scottish sees were also migratory.
By the canon law the bishop is regarded as the pastor of the cathedral church, theparochiaof which is his diocese. In view of this, canonists speak of the cathedral church as the one church of the diocese, and all others are deemed chapels in their relation to it.
Occasionally two churches jointly share the distinction of containing the bishop’scathedra. In such case they are said to be con-cathedral in relation to each other. Instances of this occurred in England before the Reformation in the dioceses of Bath and Wells, and of Coventry and Lichfield. Hence the double titles of those dioceses. In Ireland an example occurs at Dublin, where Christ Church and St Patrick’s are jointly the cathedral churches of that diocese. In France the bishop of Couserans (a see suppressed at the Revolution) had two con-cathedral churches at St Lizier, and the bishop of Sisteron (a see also suppressed) had a second throne in the church of Forcalquier which is still called “La Con-cathédrale.” Other instances might be named. In the case of York the collegiate churches of Beverley, Ripon and Southwell were almost in the same position, but although the archbishop had a stall in each he had no diocesancathedrain them, and the chapters were not united with that of the metropolitical church in the direct government of the diocese, or the election of the archbishop, nor had they those other rights which were held to denote the cathedral character of a church.
Cathedral churches are reckoned as of different degrees of dignity: (1) the simple cathedral church of a diocesan bishop, (2) the metropolitical church to which the other diocesan cathedral churches of a province are suffragan, (3) the primatial church under which are ranged metropolitical churches and their provinces, (4) patriarchal churches to which primatial, metropolitical, and simple cathedral churches alike owe allegiance. The title of “primate” was occasionally conferred on metropolitans of sees of great dignity or importance, such as Canterbury, York, Rouen, &c., whose cathedral churches remained simply metropolitical. Lyons, where the cathedral church is still known as “La Primatiale,” and Lund in Sweden, may be cited as instances of churches which were really primatial. Lyons had the archbishops of Sens and Paris and their provincial dioceses subject to it till the Revolution, and Lund had the archbishop of Upsala and his province subject to it. As with the title of primate, so also that of “patriarch” has been conferred on sees such as Venice and Lisbon, the cathedral churches of which are patriarchal in name alone. The cathedral church of St John Lateran, the cathedral church of the pope as bishop of Rome and patriarch of the West, alone in western Europe possesses potentially a patriarchal character. Its formal designation is “Patriarchalis Basilica, Sacrosancta Romana Cathedralis Ecclesia Lateranensis.”
The removal of a bishop’scathedrafrom a church deprives that church of its cathedral dignity, although often the name clings in common speech, as for example at Antwerp, which was deprived of its bishop at the French Revolution.
The history of the body of clergy attached to the cathedral church is obscure, and as in each case local considerations affected its development, all that can be attempted is to give a general outline of the main features which were more or less common to all. Originally the bishop and cathedral clergy formed a kind of religious community, which, in no true sense a monastery, was nevertheless often called amonasterium. The word had not the restricted meaning which it afterwards acquired. Hence the apparent anomaly that churches like York and Lincoln, which never had any monks attached to them, have inherited the name of minster or monastery. In these early communities the clergy often lived apart in their own dwellings, and were not infrequently married. In the 8th century, however, Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (743-766), compiled a code of rules for the clergy of the cathedral churches, which, though widely accepted in Germany and other parts of the continent, gained little acceptance in England. According to Chrodegang’s rule the cathedral clergy were to live under a common roof, occupy a common dormitory and submit to the authority of a special officer. The rule of Chrodegang was, in fact, a modification of the Benedictine rule. Gisa, a native of Lorraine, who was bishop of Wells from 1061 to 1088, introduced it into England, and imposed its observance on the clergy of his cathedral church, but it was not followed for long there, or elsewhere in England.
During the two centuries, roughly bounded by the years 900 and 1100, the cathedral clergy became more definitely organized, and were also divided into two classes. One was that of a monastic establishment of some recognized order of monks, very often that of the Benedictines, while the other class was that of a college of clergy, living in the world, and bound by no vows, except those of their ordination, but governed by a code of statutes or canons. Hence the name of “canon” given to them. In this way arose the distinction between the monastic and secular cathedral churches. In England the monastic cathedral churches were Bath, Canterbury, Carlisle, Coventry, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester and Worcester, all of them Benedictine except Carlisle, which was a church of Augustinians. The secular churches were Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, St Paul’s (London), Salisbury, Wells, York, and the four Welsh cathedral churches. In Ireland all were secular except Christ Church, Dublin (Augustinian), and Down (Benedictine), and none, even in their earliest days, were ever, it is believed, churches of recognized orders of monks, except the two named. In Scotland St Andrew’s was Augustinian, Elgin (or Moray), Glasgow and Aberdeen were always secular, and ordered on the models of Lincoln and Salisbury. Brechin had a community of Culdees till 1372, when a secular chapter was constituted. The cathedral church of Galloway, at Whithorn, of English foundation, was a church of Praemonstratensians. In Germany, as in England, many of the cathedral churches were monastic. In Denmark all seem to have been Benedictine at first, except Borglum, which was Praemonstratensian till the Reformation. The others were changed to churches of secular canons. In Sweden, Upsala was originally Benedictine, but was secularized about 1250, and it was ordered that each of the cathedral churches of Sweden should have a chapter of at least fifteen secular canons. In France monastic chapters were very common, but nearly all the monastic cathedral churches there had been changed to churches of secular canons before the 17th century. One of the latest to be so changed was that of Seez, in Normandy, which was Augustinian till 1547, when Pope Paul III. dispensed the members from their vows, and constituted them a chapter of secular canons. The chapter of Senez was monastic till 1647, and others perhaps even later, but the majority were secularized about the time of the Reformation.
In the case of monastic cathedral churches there were no dignitaries, the internal government was that of the order to which the chapter belonged, and all the members kept perpetual residence. The reverse of this was the case with the secular chapters; the dignities of provost, dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, &c., soon came into being, for the regulation and good order of the church and its services, while the non-residence of the canons, rather than their perpetual residence, became the rule, and led to their duties being performed by a body of “vicars,” who officiated for them at the services of the church.
Abroad, the earliest head of a secular church seems to have been the provost (praepositus, Probst, &c.), who was charged, not only with the internal regulation of the church, and oversight of the members of the chapter and control of the services, but was also the steward or seneschal of the lands and possessions of the church. The latter often mainly engaged his attention,to the neglect of his domestic and ecclesiastical duties, and complaints were soon raised that the provost was too much mixed in worldly affairs, and was too frequently absent from his spiritual duties. This led, in many cases, to the institution of a new officer called the “dean,” who had charge of that portion of the provost’s duties which related to the internal discipline of the chapter and the services of the church. In some cases the office of provost was abolished, but in others it was continued, the provost, who was also occasionally archdeacon as well, remaining head of the chapter. This arrangement was most commonly followed in Germany. In England the provost was almost unknown. Bishop Gisa introduced a provost as head of the chapter of Wells, but the office was afterwards subordinated to the other dignities, and the provost became simply the steward of certain of the prebendal lands. The provost of the collegiate church of Beverley was the most notable instance of such an officer in England, but at Beverley he was an external officer with no authority in the government of the church, no stall in the choir and no vote in chapter. The provost of Eton, introduced by Henry VI., occupied a position most nearly approaching that of a foreign cathedral provost. In Germany and in Scandinavia, and in a few of the cathedral churches in the south of France, the provost was the ordinary head of the cathedral chapter, but the office was not common elsewhere. As regards France, of one hundred and thirty-six cathedral churches existing at the Revolution, thirty-eight only, and those either on the borders of Germany or in the extreme south, had a provost as the head of the chapter. In others the provost existed as a subordinate officer. There were two provosts at Autun, and Lyons and Chartres had four each, all as subordinate officers.
The normal constitution of the chapter of a secular cathedral church comprised four dignitaries (there might be more), in addition to the canons. The dean (decanus) seems to have derived his designation from the Benedictine dean who had ten monks under his charge. The dean, as already noted, came into existence to supply the place of the provost in the internal management of the church and chapter. In England the dean was the head of all the secular cathedral churches, and was originally elected by the chapter and confirmed in office by the bishop. He is president of the chapter, and in church has charge of the due performance of the services, taking specified portions of them by statute on the principal festivals. He sits in the chief stall in the choir, which is usually the first on the right hand on entering the choir at the west. Next to the dean (as a rule) is the precentor (primicerius, cantor, &c.), whose special duty is that of regulating the musical portion of the services. He presides in the dean’s absence, and occupies the corresponding stall on the left side, although there are exceptions to this rule, where, as at St Paul’s, the archdeacon of the cathedral city ranks second and occupies what is usually the precentor’s stall. The third dignitary is the chancellor (scholasticus, écolâtre, capiscol, magistral, &c.), who must not be confounded with the chancellor of the diocese. The chancellor of the cathedral church is charged with the oversight of its schools, ought to read divinity lectures, and superintend the lections in the choir and correct slovenly readers. He is often the secretary and librarian of the chapter. In the absence of the dean and precentor he is president of the chapter. The easternmost stall, on the dean’s side of the choir, is usually assigned to him. The fourth dignitary is the treasurer (custos, sacrista, cheficier). He is guardian of the fabric, and of all the furniture and ornaments of the church, and his duty was to provide bread and wine for the eucharist, and candles and incense, and he regulated such matters as the ringing of the bells. The treasurer’s stall is opposite to that of the chancellor. These four dignitaries, occupying the four corner stalls in the choir, are called in many of the statutes the “quatuor majores personae” of the church. In many cathedral churches there were additional dignitaries, as the praelector, subdean, vice-chancellor, succentor-canonicorum, and others, who came into existence to supply the places of the other absent dignitaries, for non-residence was the fatal blot of the secular churches, and in this they contrasted very badly with the monastic churches, where all the members were in continuous residence. Besides the dignitaries there were the ordinary canons, each of whom, as a rule, held a separate prebend or endowment, besides receiving his share of the common funds of the church. For the most part the canons also speedily became non-resident, and this led to the distinction of residentiary and non-residentiary canons, till in most churches the number of resident canons became definitely limited in number, and the non-residentiary canons, who no longer shared in the common funds, became generally known as prebendaries only, although by their non-residence they did not forfeit their position as canons, and retained their votes in chapter like the others. This system of non-residence led also to the institution of vicars choral, each canon having his own vicar, who sat in his stall in his absence, and when the canon was present, in the stall immediately below, on the second form. The vicars had no place or vote in chapter, and, though irremovable except for offences, were the servants of their absent canons whose stalls they occupied, and whose duties they performed. Abroad they were often called demi-prebendaries, and they formed thebas choeurof the French churches. As time went on the vicars were themselves often incorporated as a kind of lesser chapter, or college, under the supervision of the dean and chapter.
There was no distinction between the monastic cathedral chapters and those of the secular canons, in their relation to the bishop or diocese. In both cases the chapter was the bishop’sconsiliumwhich he was bound to consult on all important matters and without doing so he could not act. Thus, a judicial decision of a bishop needed the confirmation of the chapter before it could be enforced. He could not change the service books, or “use” of the church or diocese, without capitular consent, and there are many episcopal acts, such as the appointment of a diocesan chancellor, or vicar general, which still need confirmation by the chapter, but the older theory of the chapter as the bishop’s council in ruling the diocese has become a thing of the past, not in England only, but on the continent also. In its corporate capacity the chapter takes chargesede vacanteof a diocese. In England, however (except as regards Salisbury and Durham), this custom has never obtained, the two archbishops having, from time immemorial, taken charge of the vacant dioceses in their respective provinces. When, however, either of the sees of Canterbury or York is vacant, the chapters of those churches take charge, not only of the diocese, but of the province as well, and incidentally, therefore, of any of the dioceses of the province which may be vacant at the same time.
All the English monastic cathedral chapters were dissolved by Henry VIII., and, except Bath and Coventry, were refounded by him as churches of secular chapters, with a dean as the head, and a certain number of canons ranging from twelve at Canterbury and Durham to four at Carlisle, and with certain subordinate officers as minor canons, gospellers, epistolers, &c. The precentorship in these churches of the “New Foundation,” as they are called, is not, as in the secular churches of the “Old Foundation,” a dignity, but is merely an office held by one of the minor canons.
English cathedral churches, at the present day, may be classed under four heads: (1) the old secular cathedral churches of the “Old Foundation,” enumerated in the earlier part of this article; (2) the churches of the “New Foundation” of Henry VIII., which are the monastic churches already specified, with the exception of Bath and Coventry; (3) the cathedral churches of bishoprics founded by Henry VIII., viz. Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford and Peterborough (the constitution of the chapters of which corresponds to those of the New Foundation); (4) modern cathedral churches of sees founded since 1836, viz. (a) Manchester, Ripon and Southwell, formerly collegiate churches of secular canons; (b) St Albans and Southwark, originally monastic churches; (c) Truro, Newcastle and Wakefield, formerly parish churches, (d) Birmingham and Liverpool, originally district churches. The ruined cathedral church of the diocese of Sodor (i.e.the Southern Isles) and Man, at Peel in the latter island, appears never to have had a chapter of clergy attached to it.