pacities, i.e. in provincial
synods in respect of regional rules laid down by them, and in bishops in
respect of rules laid down by them for their dioceses. According to Du
Cange, the earliest record of the use of the word _dispensatio_ in this
connexion is in the letter of Pope Gelasius I. of the 11th of March 494,
to the bishops of Lucania (in Jaffe, _Reg. Pont. Rom._, ed. 2, tom. i.
no. 636): necessaria rerum Dispensatione constringimur, ... sic canonum
paternorum decreta librare, ... ut quae praesentium necessitas temporum
restaurandis Ecclesiis relaxanda deposcit, adhibita consideratione
diligenti, quantum fieri potest temperemus.[1] Dispensations from the
observance of traditional rules were, however, during the early
centuries exceedingly rare, and there are more instances of the popes
repudiating than of their exercising the power to grant them. Thus
Celestine I. (d. 432) wrote: "The rules govern us, not we the rules: we
are subject to the canons, since we are the servants of the precepts of
the canons" (_Epist. 3 ad Episcopos Illyrici_); and Pope Zozimus wrote
even more strongly: "This see possesses no authority to make any
concession or change; for with us abides antiquity firmly rooted
(_inconvulsis radicibus_), reverence for which the decrees of the
Fathers enjoined." As time went on, however, and the Church expanded,
this rigidly conservative attitude proved impossible to maintain, and
the principle of "tempering" the law when forced to do so "by the
exigencies of affairs or of the times" (_rerum vel temporum angustia_),
as laid down by Gelasius, was adopted into the canon law itself. The
principle was, of course, singularly open to abuse. In theory it was
laid down from the first that dispensations were only to be granted in
cases of urgent necessity and in the highest interests of the Church; in
practice, from the 11th century onwards, the power of dispensation was
used by the popes as one of the most potent instruments for extending
their influence. Dispensations to hold benefices in plurality formed,
with provisions and the papal claim to the right of direct appointment,
a powerful means for extending the patronage of the Holy See and
therefore its hold over the clergy, and from the 13th century onwards
this abuse assumed vast proportions (Hinschius iii. p. 250). Even more
scandalous was the almost unrestrained traffic in licences and
dispensations at Rome, which grew up, at least as early as the 14th
ce