COMMENDATION, approval, a recommendation of one person to the favour of another. Commendatio is the liturgical term for the office commending the souls of the dying and departed to the mercies of God. In feudal law it was applied to the act by which a freeman placed himself under the protection of a lord (see FEUDALISM). In ecclesiastical law the commendation, or grant in commendam of benefices was made temporarily until a vacancy was filled up, and frequently to persons who, by defect of age or orders, were for the time being debarred from receiving institution. The practice of granting benefices in commendam to laymen, or, in the case of monasteries, to secular clerks who enjoyed their revenues and privileges for life, or to bishops to hold with their sees, became very general in the later middle ages, especially on the continent. In 1836 the tenure of benefices in commendam in England was forbidden by act of parliament.