ministry
belong to the general Church, as distinct from particular churches. The
priest is the highest officer in a particular church. It is the primary
duty of every priest to serve and obey his bishop with all humility. For
by the bishops particular churches are ruled. To each bishop are subject
all the churches within his jurisdiction. And this applies as well to
monastic establishments as to parishes. The head of each parish is a
priest, the head of each monastery is an abbot, who is himself a priest.
The bishop has a pontifical church, in which is his see (_sedes_), and
of which he is the head. From it he governs the inferior churches. A
bishop can perform all the offices of a priest, but he has seven
functions peculiar to himself: to confirm, to bless, to absolve, to hold
synods, to dedicate churches and altars, to consecrate the ornaments of
churches, to ordain abbots and abbesses and the secular clergy.
Gilbert's diagram represented the bishop as ruling two churches; but he
explains that this is to be interpreted figuratively. A bishop may have
as many as a thousand churches within his jurisdiction: he must have at
least ten.

A bishop is himself subject to authority. His immediate superior is the
archbishop. An archbishop has a sphere of immediate jurisdiction, like
any other bishop, but he also rules a number of subject bishops. Of
these there must be at least three; but an archbishop is not permitted
to have more than twenty subject bishops--an important point, as we
shall see. Above the archbishop is the primate. It is the special
privilege of the primate to ordain and crown the king. He too has his
sphere of immediate jurisdiction, and he must have at least one subject
archbishop, but not more than six.

Primates and archbishops must be consecrated at Rome by the Pope, or at
least must receive the pall[39] from him. Without the pall they are not
raised above their fellow-bishops.

Finally, the primates are subject to the Pope, and the Pope to Christ.

The higher members of the hierarchy have their analogues in the civil
order. The Pope corresponds to the emperor, the primate to the king, an
archbishop to a duke, a bishop to an earl, a priest to a knight. But all
these are merely grades of the order of priests. There are but seven
orders of the ministry--priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes,
exorcists, readers and door-keepers. Of the laity Gilbert says little.
They are of two classes; husbandmen and