ORDINARY, in common or canon law, means one who has ordinary or immediate jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical, in any place. In this sense archdeacons are ordinaries, but the appellation is most frequently applied to the bishop of the diocese, who has of course the ordinary ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the collation to benefices within such diocese. There are some chapels, chapters, abbeys, &c. exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary. The archbishop is ordinary of the whole province, to visit, and receive appeals from the inferior judicatures. The Romish writers on canon law call the pope by way of eminence ordinary of ordinaries, since by the Lateran council he has usurped the right of collating, by probation, to all benefices; in exclusion of the common collators.
ORDINARY of Assizes and Sessions, was a deputy of the bishop of the diocese, anciently appointed to give malefactors their neck-verses, and judge whether they read or not: also to perform divine service for them, and assist in preparing them for death. So the
ORDINARY of Newgate, is one who is attendant in ordinary upon the condemned malefactors in that prison, to prepare them for death; and he records the behaviour of such persons.