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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Primate</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12423b.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="A bishop possessing superior authority, not only over the bishops of his own province, but over several provinces and metropolitans"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="12423b.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/p.htm">P</a> > Primate</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Primate</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(Lat. <em>primas,</em> from <em>primus,</em> "first").</p> <p>In the <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">Western Church</a> a primate is a <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> possessing superior authority, not only over the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of his own province, like the <a href="../cathen/10244c.htm">metropolitan</a>, but over several provinces and <a href="../cathen/10244c.htm">metropolitans</a>. This does not refer to episcopal powers, which each <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a> possesses fully, but to <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">ecclesiastical jurisdiction</a> and organization, especially in national churches.</p> <p>Primates exist only in the West, and correspond not to the <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">patriarchs</a> but to the exarchs of the East. There is no uniformity in the institution, it has no place in <a href="../cathen/09068a.htm">common law</a>; primatial <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> are privileges. In their widest acceptation these <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a> would be: to convoke and preside over national councils, to crown the sovereign, to hear appeals from the <a href="../cathen/10244c.htm">metropolitan</a> and even episcopal courts, and finally the honorary right of precedence.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>This organization formerly useful, as it favoured and maintained unity in national churches, has lost its importance and disappeared; first, because national Churches as such no longer exist, and secondly on account of the gradual disciplinary centralization of the <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">Western Churches</a> around the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Roman See</a>. Except in the case of <a href="../cathen/06721b.htm">Gran</a> in <a href="../cathen/07547a.htm">Hungary</a>, the primatial title is merely honorific. At the solemnities accompanying the <a href="../cathen/02364b.htm">canonization</a> of the <a href="../cathen/09744a.htm">Japanese martyrs</a> in 1867, no special place was reserved for primates; and in the <a href="../cathen/15303a.htm">Vatican Council</a> the precedence of primates was recognized only at the insistance of the Prince-Primate of <a href="../cathen/07547a.htm">Hungary</a> (<a href="../cathen/15354a.htm">Vering</a>, "Kirchenrecht", § 133), as something exceptional and not to be considered a precedent. The <a href="../cathen/03052b.htm">Brief</a> "Inter multiplices", 27 November, 1869 (<a href="../cathen/01111c.htm">Acta S. Sedis</a>, V, 235), ranks the primates according to their date of promotion after the <a href="../cathen/11549a.htm">patriarchs</a>, but adds: Ex special indulgentia, i.e. by special favour, for that occasion only, nor must it be interpreted as conferring any right on them or diminishing the right of others.</p> <p>The history of the primacies in the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> is largely concerned with interminable disputes concerning special <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">rights</a>, privileges, etc. The real primacies were at first those that did not bear the name. The <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/03385a.htm">Carthage</a> exercised a <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> primatial <a href="../cathen/08567a.htm">jurisdiction</a> over the provinces of Roman Africa, without being called a primate; on the other hand, in the provinces, other than the Proconsular, the oldest <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishop</a>, who resembled a <a href="../cathen/10244c.htm">metropolitan</a>, was called the primate. The title Primate of Africa was restored again in 1893 by <a href="../cathen/09169a.htm">Leo XIII</a> in favour of the <a href="../cathen/01691a.htm">Archbishop</a> of <a href="../cathen/03385a.htm">Carthage</a>. The <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">Bishop</a> of Toledo was also a primate for the <a href="../cathen/15476b.htm">Visigothic</a> kingdom. On the other hand, the Bishops of <a href="../cathen/14633a.htm">Thessalonica</a> and Arles, invested with the vicariate of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, had authority over several provinces. We meet later with claims to primatial authority in every country, and refusals to recognize these claims; the primates who have exercised a real authority being especially those of Mayenne, the successors of <a href="../cathen/02656a.htm">St. Boniface</a>, and of <a href="../cathen/09472a.htm">Lyons</a>, made by <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a>, Primate of the Gauls, in reality of the provinces called formerly "Laughmenses". All kinds of reasons were invoked: the evangelization of the country, the importance of the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">see</a>, pontifical concessions, etc.</p> <p>It is impossible to give more than the mere names of primacies: in <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a>, Toledo, Compostella, Braga; in <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a>, <a href="../cathen/09472a.htm">Lyons</a>, <a href="../cathen/12725a.htm">Reims</a>, <a href="../cathen/02720b.htm">Bourges</a>, Vienne, Narbonne, <a href="../cathen/02682a.htm">Bordeaux</a>, Rouen; in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, Mayenne, <a href="../cathen/15042a.htm">Trier</a>, Magdeburg; in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, <a href="../cathen/03299b.htm">Canterbury</a>, York; in <a href="../cathen/13613a.htm">Scotland</a>, St. Andrews; in <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a>, Armagh; in the Scandinavian countries, Lund. But of all these nothing but a title has remained; and at the <a href="../cathen/15303a.htm">Vatican Council</a> the only <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> figuring as primates, in virtue of recent concessions, were those of <a href="../cathen/13411b.htm">Salzburg</a>, <a href="../cathen/01582b.htm">Antivari</a>, <a href="../cathen/13396b.htm">Salerno</a>, <a href="../cathen/13466a.htm">Bahia</a>, Gnesen, <a href="../cathen/14459a.htm">Tarragona</a>, <a href="../cathen/06721b.htm">Gran</a>, <a href="../cathen/10104a.htm">Mechlin</a>, and Armagh (Coll. Lacens., VII, pp. 34, 488, 726).</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">     THOMASSIN, <em>Vetus et nova discipl.,</em> pt. I, bk. I, xxvi sq.; PHILLIPS, <em>Kirchenrecht,</em> § 62.</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Boudinhon, A.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Primate.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12423b.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Boudinhon, Auguste.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Primate."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 12.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12423b.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron.</span> <span id="dedication">With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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