Private church ( Latin ecclesia propria , German Eigenkirche ) - in the Middle Ages, a church, abbey or monastery built on the personal land of the feudal lord over which he had property rights , in particular the right to distribute parishes , i.e. appoint clergy without agreement with the bishop . In small parish churches, this right was not of particular value, but in the Holy Roman Empire during the era of Otto the Great, control of vast church estates was a significant prerogative of the emperor. The feudal lord received the right to use tithing and other church incomes, but he had to pay for church needs. Also, the feudal lord and his family members were included in memorial prayers, which, at least formally, was the main reason for the foundation of churches on their own land. In turn, the bishops, whose influence was reduced because of this, were themselves forced to create private churches and populate their territories with loyal and free residents.
The concept of it. Eigenkirche was introduced in 1894 by Ulrich Stutz to designate the church, which is the property of a person or group of persons ( ktitor ), including not only the church building with its contents, but also the land, buildings and other tangible and intangible rights relating to it [1] . Stutz limited this concept only to Germanic peoples, however, in one form or another, private churches existed in Byzantium , eastern and western Slavs, and among the Celtic peoples [2] .
remain private churches until the present.
Notes
- ↑ Wood, 2006 , p. one.
- ↑ Wood, 2006 , p. 95.
Literature
- Susan Wood. The proprietary church in the medieval West . - Oxford University Press, 2006 .-- 1020 p.