commendatory, or donatory, a person to whom is given the enjoyment of the revenues of a monastery, hospital, or benefice.

The charificaries among the Greeks, were a kind of donatories, or commendatories, who enjoyed all the revenues of hospitals and monasteries, without giving an account thereof to any person.—The original of this abuse is referred to the Iconoclasts, particularly Constantine Copronymus, the avowed enemy of the monks, whose monasteries he gave away to strangers. In after times, the emperors and patriarchs gave many to people of quality, not by way of gift, to reap any temporal advantage from them; but to repair, beautify, and patronize them. At length avarice crept in, and those in good condition were given away, especially such as were rich; and at last they were all given away, rich and poor, those of men and of women, and that to laymen and married men.