EMINENCE, a title of honour now confined to the cardinals of the church of Rome. It was originally given as a complimen tary title to emperors, kings, and then to less conspicuous persons. It passed into the Latin of the middle ages as a flattering epithet, and was applied in the church and by the popes to the dignified clergy at large, and sometimes as a form of civility to churchmen of modest rank. On June 10, 163o Urban VIII. confined the use of the titles Eminentiae and Eminentissimi to the cardinals, to imperial electors, and to the master of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (order of the Knights of Malta). Since the dissolu tion of the holy Roman empire, and the entire change, if not actual destruction, of the order of St. John, the title "eminence" has become strictly confined to the cardinals. Before 163o the members of the sacred college were "illustrissimi" and "rev erendissimi." See du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (Niort and London, 1884), s.v. "Eminentia."