volume 2, chapter 4, section 43-45.

_E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 3, no. 1._

See, also, CAPUCHINS.

BENEFICIUM.--COMMENDATION.

Feudalism "had grown up from two great sources--the beneficium, and the practice of commendation, and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any amount of extension in the methods of dependence. The beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by the kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in the surrender by landowners of their estates to churches or powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as tenants for rent or service. By the latter arrangement the weaker man obtained the protection of the stronger, and he who felt himself insecure placed his title under the defence of the Church. By the practice of commendation, on the other hand, the inferior put himself under the personal care of a lord, but without altering his title or divesting himself of his right to his estate; he became a vassal and did homage. The placing of his hands between those of his lord was the typical act by which the connexion was formed."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 9, section 93._

ALSO IN: _H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2, part 1._

See, also, SCOTLAND: 10TH-11TH CENTURIES.

BENEFIT OF CLERGY.

"Among the most important and dearly-prized privileges of the church was that which conferred on its members immunity from the operation of secular law, and relieved them from the jurisdiction of secular tribunals. ... So priceless a prerogative was not obtained without a long and resolute struggle. ... To ask that a monk or priest guilty of crime should not be subject to the ordinary tribunals, and that civil suits between laymen and ecclesiastics should be referred exclusively to courts composed of the latter, was a claim too repugnant to the common sense of mankind to be lightly accorded. ... The persistence of the church, backed up by the unfailing resource of excommunication, finally triumphed, and the sacred immunity of the priesthood was acknowledged, sooner or later, in the laws of every nation of Europe." In England, when Henry II. in 1164, "endeavored, in the Constitutions of Clarendon, to set bounds to the privileges of the church, he therefore especially attacked the benefit of clergy. ... The disastrous result of the quarrel between the King and the archbishop [Becket] rendered it necessary to abandon all such schemes of reform. ... As time passed on, the benefit of clergy gradually extended itself. That the laity were illiterate and the clergy educated was taken for granted, and the test of churchmanship came to be the ability to read, so that the privilege became in fact a free pardon on a first offence for all who knew their letters. ... Under Elizabeth, certain heinous offences were declared felonies without benefit of clergy. ... Much legislation ensued from time to time, effecting the limitation of the privilege in various offences. ... Early in the reign of Anne the benefit of clergy was extended to all malefactors by abrogating the reading test, thus placing the unlettered felon on a par with his better educated fellows, and it was not until the present century was well advanced that this remnant of mediæval ecclesiastical prerogative was abolished by 7 and 8 Geo. iv. c. 28."

_H. C. Lea, Studies in Church History, part 2._

ALSO IN: _William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, section 722-725 (chapter 19, page 3)_.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170.

BENEVENTO, OR GRANDELLA, Battle of (1266).

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.

BENEVENTUM: The Lombard Duchy.

The Duchy of Beneventum was a Lombard fief of the 8th and 9th centuries, in southern Italy, which survived the fall of the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy. It covered nearly the territory' of the modern kingdom of Naples. Charlemagne reduced the Duchy to submission with considerable difficulty, after he had extinguished the Lombard kingdom. It was afterwards divided into the minor principalities of Benevento, Salerno and Capua, and became part of the Norman conquest.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 800-1016; and 1000-1090; also, LOMBARDS: A. D. 573-774, and AMALFI.

BENEVENTUM, Battle of (B. C. 275).

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

BENEVOLENCES.

"The collection of benevolences, regarded even at the time [England, reign of Edward IV.] as an innovation, was perhaps a resuscitated form of some of the worst measures of Edward II. and Richard II., but the attention which it aroused under Edward IV. shows how strange it had become under the intervening kings. ... Such evidence as exists shows us Edward IV. canvassing by word of mouth or by letter for direct gifts of money from his subjects. Henry III. had thus begged for new year's gifts. Edward IV. requested and extorted 'free-will offerings' from everyone who could not say no to the pleadings of such a king. He had a wonderful memory, too, and knew the name and the particular property of every man in the country who was worth taxing in this way. He had no excuse for such meanness; for the estates had shown themselves liberal."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England,