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

The Charisticaries among the Greeks were a kind of donatories or commendatories, who enjoyed all the revenues of hospitals and monasteries, without giving an account of these to any one. The origin of this abuse is referred to the iconoclasts, particularly to 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 enable the donatories to reap any temporal advantage from the grants, but to repair, beautify, and patronise them. But avarice having soon crept in, those in good condition were given away, especially such as were rich; and at length they were all given away, rich and poor, monasteries and nunneries, and that even to laymen and to married men.