Endowment
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( n.) That which is bestowed or settled on a person or an institution; property, fund, or revenue permanently appropriated to any object; as, the endowment of a church, a hospital, or a college.
(2): ( n.) That which is given or bestowed upon the person or mind; gift of nature; accomplishment; natural capacity; talents; - usually in the plural.
(3): ( n.) The act of bestowing a dower, fund, or permanent provision for support.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
in ecclesiastical phrase; is the property given by the founder of a church for its maintenance, including the pay of the clerks. Justinian compelled those who built churches to endow them; without competent provision for support no clerk was ordained to any church; whoever desired a parish church on his estate was to set apart a landed endowment for its clerks (A.D. 541); a bishop was not to consecrate a church until the endowment of it had been regularly secured by a deed or charter (A.D. 572); founders of churches were to understand that they had no further authority over property which they had given to the Church, but that both the Church and its endowment were at the disposition of the bishop, to be employed according to the canons (A.D. 633). According to the ninth Council of Toledo, A.D. 655, a bishop was not to confer on any monastic. church in his diocese more than a fiftieth part of the Church funds; and on a non- monastic church, or church designed for his own burial-place, not more than a one-hundredth part. The royal confirmation was required if one who held a fief from the king endowed a church.
