CONCLAVE, strictly a room or set of rooms, locked with a key (from Lat. conclave, from cum, together, and clavis, a key) ; in this sense the English word is obsolete. Its present loose appli cation to any private or close assembly, especially ecclesiastical, is derived from its technical application to the assembly of car dinals met for the election of the pope, with which this article is concerned, and in which connection it is applied to that system of strict seclusion to which the electors of the pope have been and are submitted, formerly as a matter of necessity, and subsequently as the result of a legislative enactment ; hence the word has come to be used of the electoral assembly of the cardinals. The system goes back only as far as the 12th century.
Episcopal appointment by election can be traced back to an early date. The method of election at Rome was the same as in other towns ; the Roman clergy and people and the neighbouring bishops each took part in it in their several capacities. The people would signify their approbation or disapprobation of the candi dates more or less tumultuously; while the clergy were, strictly speaking, the electoral body, met to elect for themselves a new head, and the bishops acted as presidents of the assembly and judges of the election. We can well imagine that in an assembly of such size, in which the candidates were acclaimed rather than elected by counting votes, the various functions were not very distinct, and that persons of importance, whether clerical or lay, were bound to influence the elections, and sometimes decisively. Moreover, this form of election lent itself to cabals; and these frequently gave rise to quarrels, sometimes involving bloodshed and schisms, i.e., the election of antipopes, as they were later called. The remedy for this abuse was found in having recourse, more or Less freely, to the support of the civil power. The emperor Honorius, for example, upheld Boniface (418) against his competitor Eulalius, at the same time laying down that cases of contested election should henceforth be decided by a fresh election ; but this would have been a dangerous method and was consequently never applied. Theodoric upheld Symmachus (498) against Laurentius because he had been elected first and by a greater majority.
The accepted fact soon became law, that the candidate should not receive the episcopal consecration until he had obtained the confirmation of the emperor. Hence arose long vacancies of the See, indiscreet interference in the elections by the imperial officials, and sometimes cases of simony and venality. This deplorable state of affairs lasted almost without interruption till the middle of the 11th century. When the emperors were at Rome, they presided over the elections; when they were away, the rival factions of the barons struggled for the spiritual power as they did for the temporal. During this period were seen cases of popes imposed by a faction rather than elected, and then, at the mercy of sedition, deposed, poisoned, or thrown into prison, sometimes to be restored by force of arms. After the death of Clement II. the delegates of the Roman clergy actually went to Polden to ask Henry III. to give them a pope, and similar steps were taken after the death of Damascus II. , who reigned only 20 days. Fortunately on this occasion Henry III. appointed, just before his death, a man of high character, his cousin Bruno, bishop of Toul, who presented himself in Rome in company with Hildebrand. From this time began the reform. Hildebrand had the election of Victor II. (1055), Stephen IX. (1057), and Nicholas II. (1058) carried out according to the canonical form, including the imperial rati fication. The celebrated bull In nornine Domini of April determined the electoral procedure. Out of respect for tradition, it preserved all the former factors in the election though their scope was modified. The election was reserved to the members of the higher clergy, to the cardinals, among whom the cardinal bishops have the preponderating position. The consent of the rest of the clergy and the people was now only a formality. The same was the case of the imperial intervention; the emperor had no rights save those he had received as a concession from the Holy See. Further, by this bull, the emperors would have to deal with the fait accompli; for it provided that, in the event of disturbances aroused by mischievous persons at Rome preventing the election from being carried out there freely and without bias, the cardinal bishops, together with a small number of the clergy and of the laity, should be empowered to hold the election where they should think fit ; that should difficulties of any sort prevent the enthrone ment of the new pope, the pope elect would be empowered im mediately to act as if he were actually pope. This legislation was definitely accepted by the emperor by the concordate of Worms (r '19). Two other points of great importance were established by Alexander III. at the Lateran Council of 1179. The constitution Licet de vitanda discordia makes all the cardinals equally electors, and no longer mentions the lower clergy or the people ; it also requires a majority of two-thirds of the votes to decide an election. This latter provision, which still holds good, made imperial antipopes henceforth impossible.
Abuses nevertheless arose. An electoral college too small in numbers, which no higher power has the right of forcing to haste, can prolong disagreements and draw out the course of the election for a long time. It is this period during which we actually find the Holy See left vacant most frequently for long spaces of time. Thus, after the death of Clement IV. in 1268, the cardinals, of whom 17 were gathered together at Viterbo, allowed two years to pass without coming to an agreement ; the magistrates of Viterbo had recourse to the method of seclusion : they shut up the electors in the episcopal palace, blocking up all outlets ; and since the election still delayed, the people removed the roof of the palace and allowed nothing but bread and water to be sent in. Under the pressure of famine and of this strict confinement, the cardinals finally agreed, on Sept. i, 1271, to elect Gregory X., after an interregnum of two years, nine months and two days.
Taught by experience, the new pope considered what steps could be taken to prevent the recurrence of such abuses; in 1274, at the council of Lyons, he promulgated the constitution Ubi periculum, the substance of which was as follows: At the death of the pope, the cardinals who were present are to await their absent colleagues for ten days; they are then to meet in one of the papal palaces in a closed conclave; none of them is to have to wait on him more than one servant, or two at most if he were ill ; in the conclave they are to lead a life in common, not even having separate cells; they are to have no communication with the outer world, under pain of excommunication for any who should attempt to communicate with them; food is to be sup plied to the cardinals through a window which would be under watch. Finally, the election is to be the sole business of the con clave, and the magistrates of the town where it was held are called upon to see that these provisions be observed. Adrian V. and John XX. were weak enough to suspend the constitution UN periculum, and the abuses at once reappeared. This further proof was therefore decisive, and Celestine V., who was elected after a vacancy of more than two years, took care, before abdicating the pontif_cate, to revive the constitution of Gregory X., which was inserted in the Decretals (lib. i. tit. vi., de election. cap. 3).
All previous legislation concerning the conclave was codified and renewed by Pius X.'s bull, V acante Sede Apostolic() (Dec. 25, 1904), which abrogates the earlier texts, except Leo XIII.'s constitution Praedecessores Nostri (May 24, 1882), authorizing occasional derogations in circumstances of difficulty, e.g., the death of a pope away from Rome or an attempt to interfere with the liberty of the Sacred College. The bull of Pius X. is rather a codification than a reform, the principal change being the abolition of the scrutiny of accession and the substitution of a second ordinary scrutiny during the same session.
Until after the Great Schism the conclaves were held in various towns outside of Rome ; but since then they have all been held in Rome, with the single exception of the conclave of Venice ( I800), and in most cases in the Vatican. There was no place permanently established for the purpose, but removable wooden cells were in stalled in the various apartments of the palace, grouped around the Sistine chapel, in which the scrutinies took place. The arrange ments prepared in the Quirinal in 1823 did duty only three times, and for the most recent conclaves it was necessary to arrange an inner enclosure within the vast but irregular palace of the Vatican. Each cardinal is accompanied by a clerk or secretary, known for this reason as a conclavist, and by one servant only. With the officials of the conclave, this makes about two hundred and fifty persons who enter the conclave and have no further communi cation with the outer world save by means of turning-boxes. Since 187o the solemn ceremonies of earlier times have not been seen; for instance the procession which used to celebrate the entry into conclave; or the daily arrival in procession of the clergy and the brotherhoods to enquire at the "rota" (turning-box) of the auditors of the Rota : "Habemusne Pontificem?" and their return accompanied by the chanting of the "Veni Creator" ; or the "Mar shal of the Holy Roman Church and perpetual guardian of the conclave" visiting the churches in state. But a crowd still collects morning and evening in the great square of St Peter's, towards the time of the completion of the vote, to look for the smoke which rises from the burning of the voting-papers after each session; when the election has not been effected, a little straw is burnt with the papers, and the column of smoke then apprises the spectators that they have still no pope. Within the conclave, the cardinals, alone in the common hall, usually the Sistine chapel, proceed morning and evening to their double vote, the direct vote and the "accessit." Sometimes these sessions have been very numerous; for example, in 174o, Benedict XIV. was only elected after 255 scrutinies; on other occasions, however, and notably in the case of the last few popes, a well-defined majority has soon been evi dent, and there have been but few scrutinies. Each vote is im mediately counted by three scrutators, appointed in rotation, the most minute precautions being taken to ensure that the voting shall be secret and sincere. When one cardinal has at last obtained two-thirds of the votes, the dean of the cardinals formally asks him whether he accepts his election, and what name he wishes to assume. As soon as he has accepted, the first cardinal deacon goes to the Loggia of St. Peter's and announces the news to the assembled people. The conclave is dissolved; on the following day the election is officially announced to the various governments. A few days after his election, takes place the coronation, from which the pontificate is officially dated, and the pope receives the tiara with the triple crown, the sign of his supreme spiritual authority (see TIARA).