Word Finder - superiors

definition

A person of higher rank or quality.

definition

The senior person in a monastic community.

definition

The head of certain churches and colleges.

definition

One who has made an original grant of heritable property to a tenant or vassal, on condition of a certain annual payment (feu duty) or of the performance of certain services.

At last his superiors seemed to discover his real difficulties.

In medieval ecclesiastical usage the term might be applied to almost any person having ecclesiastical authority; it was very commonly given to the more dignified clergy of a cathedral church, but often also to ordinary priests charged with the cure of souls and, in the early days of monasticism, to monastic superiors, even to superiors of convents of women.

As a diplomatist he has had few rivals and perhaps no superiors.

The act of the British officer was disavowed by his superiors as soon as known.

What might have happened we cannot tell; but Descartes threw himself on the protection of the French ambassador and the prince of Orange, and the city magistrates, from whom he vainly demanded satisfaction in a dignified letter,2 were snubbed by their superiors.

His son Jean Antoine served with distinction through all the later campaigns of the reign of Louis XIV., and especially distinguished himself in 1705 at the battle of Cassano, where he was so severely wounded in the neck that he had ever after to wear a silver stock; yet he never rose above the rank of colonel, owing to an eccentric habit of speaking unpleasant truths to his superiors.

In the following year he wrote to Bacon, ordering him notwithstanding any injunctions from his superiors, to write out and send to him a treatise on the sciences which he had already asked of him when papal legate.

The people, who felt the severity of his laws, at the same time acknowledged their justice, and found themselves protected from the rapacity of their superiors.

His success as a preacher in the provinces determined his superiors to call him to Paris in 1669 to occupy for a year the pulpit of the church of St Louis.

His friendship with Radicati, a man of liberal opinions, occasioned Frisi's removal by his clerical superiors to Novara, where he was compelled to do duty as a preacher.

His splendid oratorical power was as yet unrevealed; but his intellectual gifts being recognized his superiors charged him with the instruction of the novices.

He thus became an independent authority, no longer at the command of distant superiors.

Originally the socially salutary action was in the main that which was enjoined on the individual by his political and religious superiors and by social sentiment; it was also in the main that to which his higher, more complex and re-representative feelings prompted.

He was not ordained presbyter until 365, and his ordination was probably the result of the entreaties of his ecclesiastical superiors, who wished to use his talents against the Arians, who were numerous in that part of the country and were favoured by the Arian emperor, Valens, who then reigned in Constantinople.

Prince Bernard, in command of a brigade at Quatre Bras and Frasnes, recognizing the pressing danger that threatened on the Brussels road, retained his position there to check the French advance, instead of drawing off westwards and massing with the rest of his division at Nivelles; and in this action he was firmly supported by his immediate superiors.

In the middle ages the question was often mooted whether states subject to feudal superiors, or the states forming the empire, were sovereign.

The term prior was most commonly used to denote the superiors in a monastery, at first with an indefinite significance, but later, as monastic institutions crystallized, describing certain definite officials.

Though he was apt to represent himself as disliked and neglected by the admiralty, and was frequently insolent towards his superiors, he was, as a matter of fact, pretty constantly employed, and he more than justified his appointments by his activity and success as captain of the "Pallas" (32) and "Imperieuse" (38) on the ocean and in the Mediterranean.

To carry out this view, it was one of his plans to send foreigners as superiors or officers to the Jesuit houses in each country, requiring of these envoys, however, invariably to use the language of their new place of residence and to study it both in speaking and writing till entire mastery of it hadlocality.

Twice in the year the superiors of the several coenobia met at the chief monastery, under the presidency of an archimandrite ("the chief of the fold," from MbvSpa, a fold), and at the last meeting gave in reports of their administration for the year.

Hardly any one will be so confident of the virtue of his rulers as to believe that every war which his country wages in every part of its dominions with uncivilized as well as civilized populations, is just and necessary, and it is certainly prima facie not in accordance with an ideal morality that men should bind themselves absolutely for life or for a term of years to kill without question, at the command of their superiors, those who have personally done them no wrong."

He was offered by the senate of the theological faculty of Halle the alternative of doing penance before God, submitting to his superiors, and separating himself from Zinzendorf, or leaving the matter to the decision of the king, unless he preferred to "leave Halle quietly."

The personal pronouns are replaced by various terms of respect when speaking to or before superiors, and there are many words besides which are only employed in ceremonial language.

In other respects the life of canons regular in their monasteries, and the external policy and organization among their houses, differed little from what prevailed among the Black Benedictines; their superiors were usually provosts or priors, but sometimes abbots.

The abbot of the head monastery was the superior-general of the whole institute; he nominated the superiors of the other monasteries; he was visitor and held periodical visitations at all of them; he exercised universal supervision, control and authority; and every year a general chapter was held at the head house.

It can scarcely be doubted that the favour which was at once accorded to the views of Malthus in certain circles was due in part to an impression, very welcome to the higher ranks of society, that they tended to relieve the rich and powerful of responsibility for the condition of the working classes, by showing that the latter had chiefly themselves to blame, and not either the negligence of their superiors or the institutions of the country.

The Benedictine Rule was taken as the basis of the life; but austerities were introduced beyond what St Benedict prescribed, and the government was framed on the mendicant, not the monastic, model, the superiors being appointed only for a short term of years.

To succeed, it was essential that the fellah should be taught that discipline might be strict without being oppressive, that pay and rations would be fairly distributed, that brutal usage by superiors would be checked, that complaints would be thoroughly investigated, and impartial justice meted out to soldiers of all ranks.

The abolition of hereditable jurisdictions and of the claims of feudal superiors to military service, after Culloden, broke the bond between chiefs and clans, and introduced new social and economical conditions, bequeathing the Land Question to the 10th century.

By Theophilus's instrumentality a synod was called to try or rather to condemn the archbishop; but fearing the violence of the mob in the metropolis, who idolized him for the fearlessness with which he exposed the vices of their superiors, it held its sessions at the imperial estate named " The Oak " (Synodus ad quercum), near Chalcedon, where Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery.

Luther wearied his superiors with his attendance at the confessional.

The interlocutors must in truth render an account under the stimulus of organized heckling from their equals or superiors in de.bating ability.

His open advocacy of Jansenist opinions, however, caused his superiors to relegate him to the most obscure houses of the order, and finally to keep him under surveillance at the abbey of St Germain-des-Pres at Paris.

On his refusal, he was handed over to his superiors and imprisoned in the citadel of Amiens and afterwards at Vincennes.

He next thought that his presence in the National Assembly would be of use to his cause; but being rebuked by his ecclesiastical superiors for declaring himself a republican, he resigned his seat ten days after his election.

As meaning some form of feudal service rendered by tenants to their superiors, it survived for a long time in the Scottish phrase "arriage and carriage," this form of the word being due to a contraction into "arage."

The policy pursued was to declare the permanency of the rights existing at the time of the British interposition, conditionally upon the maintenance of order; to adjust and guarantee the relations of subordinate and tributary chiefs to their superiors so as to prevent all further disputes or encroachments; and to settle the claims of the ousted landholders, who had resorted to pillage or blackmail, by fixing grants of land to be made to them, or settling the money allowances to be paid to them.

As a careful, judicious and accurate observer, both of man and nature, he had few superiors.

In 1807, in conjunction with his cousin Karl van Ess, he had published a German translation of the New Testament, and, as its circulation was discountenanced by his superiors, he published in 1808 a defence of his views, entitled Ausziige aus den heiligen Veitern and anderen Lehrern der katholischen Kirche fiber das nothwendige and niitzliche Bibellesen.

The successes of the Sassanids in the east were gained in the later period of their dominion; and the Roman armies, in spite of decay in discipline and military spirit, still remained their tactical and strategical superiors.

Its members henceforth were men who on almost all points agreed with Rome, and sometimes even men who had joined the Roman church, but continued by order of their superiors to remain members of the consistory, where it was thought that their influence might be useful to their new creed.

The relation between a lord and his vassals, implied in the oath of fealty, has been extended to states of unequal power; it has been found convenient to designate certain states as vassal states, and their superiors as suzerains.

But Confucius had confidence in the preponderating goodness of human nature, and in the power of example in superiors.

After leaving Mantua, he repaired to Milan, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Borromeo, but was soon transferred by his superiors to Venice, as professor of philosophy at the Servite convent.

Examples among the Egyptian monks of this blind submission to the commands of the superiors, exalted into a virtue by those who regarded the entire crushing of the individual will as the highest excellence, are detailed by Cassian and others, - e.g.

He had meanwhile continued his classical and philological studies, and his liberal views brought him into frequent conflict with his superiors.

Her visions continued, and, by command of her ecclesiastical superiors, she wrote her autobiography containing a full account of these experiences, though she was far from basing any claim to holiness upon them.

Wulfstan's relations with his ecclesiastical superiors were not so harmonious, and at one time both Lanfranc of Canterbury and Thomas of York unsuccessfully demanded his removal.

Padre Caccini's denunciation of the new astronomy was indeed disavowed and strongly condemned by his superiors; nevertheless, on the 5th of February 1615, another Dominican monk named Lorini laid Galileo's letter to Castelli before the Inquisition.

His superiors rechristened him Vitalis (after a member of the legendary Theban legion) because they found a difficulty in pronouncing his baptismal name.