in a general sense, denotes a tax or tribute.

CANONICUM is more particularly used in the Greek church for a fee paid by the clergy to bishops, archbishops, and metropolitans, for degrees and promotions.

CANONICUM also denotes a due of first fruits, paid by the Greek laity to their bishops, or, according to Du Cange, to their priests. The canonicum is affected according to the number of houses or chimneys in a place.

The emperor Isaac Comnenus made a constitution for regulating the canonicum of bishops, which was confirmed by another made in 1086, by his nephew Alexis Comnenus. A village containing thirty fires, was to pay for its canonicum one piece of gold, two of silver, one sheep, six bushels of barley, six of wheat flour, six measures of wine, and thirty hens.