TITULAR one who enjoys the bare title of an office, without the actual possession of that office. Thus, the English kings styled themselves kings of France from the time of Henry IV. down to the year 1800; and previous to the recent changes in Italy, the king of Sardinia, as well as the king of Naples, was titular king of Jerusalem. In English ecclesiastical law a titular is a person invested with a title, in virtue of which he holds a benefice, whether he performs its duties or not. In the law of Scotland the term has received another acceptation. When the king, at the reformation, became the proprie tor of all church lands, he erected the monasteries and priories into temporal lordships, and bestowed them on laymen, who were known as lords of erection, or titulars; this latter name indicating that they had the same-title as had formerly been possessed by the religious houses to the lands and tithes. See TEINDS.
is are many titular dignities in the Roman Catholic church; but the class of them which s chiefly noticeable is that which has grown out of the separation between the eastern and western churches. It is well known that the Roman pontiff, notwithstand ing the schism, claims to retain authority over the entire extent of Christendom; and even where there is not any longer resident within the limits of an ancient church or province a body of Christians of the Roman communion, the pope claims to appoint an ccelesiastio to be bishop, metropolitan, primate, or patriarch of the ancient •see (see In .PART1MIS YNFIDELIUM). In England, and still more in Ireland, where archbishops and bishops of the Roman Catholic church exist de facto, but not de jure, they are styled titular.