.R. Horsfall-Turner, _Walks and
Wanderings in County Cardigan_ (Bingley).

CARDINAL (Lat. _cardinalis_), in the Roman Church, the title of the
highest dignitaries next to the pope. The cardinals constitute the
council or senate of the sovereign pontiff, his auxiliaries in the
general government of the Church; it is they who act as administrators
of the Church during a vacancy of the Holy See and elect the new pope.
Together they constitute a spiritual body called the Sacred College. The
dignity of cardinal is not an essential part of the legal constitution
of the Church; it is a reflection of and participation in the sovereign
dignity of the Head of the Church, by the chief clergy of the Church of
Rome. The present position is the result of a long process of evolution,
of which there are several interesting survivals.

The name is derived from _cardo_, hinge; like many other words (the word
_pope_ in particular) it was originally of a more general application,
before it was reserved exclusively to the members of the Sacred College,
and the word is still used adjectivally in the sense of pre-eminent or
that on which everything else "hinges." As early as the 6th century we
find mentioned, in the letters of St Gregory, cardinal bishops and
priests. This expression signifies clergy who are attached to their
particular church in a stable relation, as a door is attached to a
building by its hinges (see Thomassin, _Vetus et nova discipl._ vol. 1,
lib. ii. cap. 113-115). Moreover, this sense is still preserved in the
present day in the expressions _incardinatio_, _excardinatio_, which
signify the act by which a bishop permanently attaches a foreign cleric
to his diocese, or allows one of his own clergy to leave his diocese in
order to belong to another. For a long time, too, the superior clergy,
and especially the canons of cathedrals or the heads of important
churches, were _cardinales_ (see examples in Du Cange, _Glossarium_,
s.v.). Gradually, however, this title was confined by usage to the Roman
cardinals, until Pius V., by his constitution of the 15th of February
1568, reserved it to them exclusively.

The Sacred College.

The grouping of the cardinals into a body called the Sacred College, the
College of Cardinals, is connected, in the case at least of cardinal
priests, with the ancient _presbyterium_, which existed in each church
from the earliest times. The Sacred College as such was not, however,
defini