CARDINALS, College of, an ecclesias tical body consisting of the highest dignitaries in the Roman Catholic Church. The name car dinal is applied to one of the principal advisers of the Supreme Pontiff as it is to the principal virtues or to the four points of the compass; etymologically cardinal is from cardo, hinge, pivot, tenon, point around which anything turns. In the 11th century the term cardinal appears to have come into use to designate the *bish ops collateral to the Pope,° those whose sees are in the neighborhood of Rome, and to the clergy of the principal churches, parishes or titidi of the city; but probably cardinalis was at first said of a principal church rather than of its ministers. Nor was the term cardinal at first restricted to designation of churches and their clergy in Rome and its vicinity; for a long time, even down to 1585, date of the bull Postquam of Sixtus V, which forbade the ap plication of the term to any but members of the sacred college, it was customary to call the ecclesiastics attached to mother-churches or to all cathedrals even, cardinales. The use of the word cardo or its equivalent to express the relation of a bishop to his clergy and peo ple is very ancient: Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch (d. about 202), speaks of the bishop of a church as the pivot on which it turned. Till the issuance of the bull Postquam the title of cardinals was currently bestowed, but not by authority from the centre, upon the clergy of cathedral chapters in countries beyond the Alps, as those of the sees of Bourges, Metz, Cologne, Compostella and other cities in Ger many, Spain and France; even in Italy the same usage was common; for it was with the name Cardinalis as with the name Papa: they both were originally applied to church digni taries, to pastors and Church officers generally; later their application was restricted.
Ever since the reign of Nicholas II the car dinals have possessed the privilege of electing the Pope. The decree of Pope Nicholas (1059) provides that on the death of the Pope the cardinal-bishops shall assemble in.council and then the rest of the sacred college shall join them. In naming the Pope the college must take into account the choice of the clergy and people; only in case no Roman priest is found eligible in every way, shall the choice fall upon one that is not a Roman. In the 12th century the sacred college comprised seven cardinal bishops of the "suburbicariae churches, Ostia, Rufina, Porto, Albano, Tusculum, Sabina and Palestrina; the cardinal-priests were 28, and were the rectors of as many churches in the city; there were 18 cardinal-deacons, of whom 14 belonged to the clerical staff of churches in the city and 4 to the papal court or household.
The members of the sacred college are yet styled by the titles of churches in the city, but are no longer in any sense ministers of those churches or parishes. And, like other Church offices and Church dignities, the cardinalate be came an object of ambition or of cupidity; popes bestowed the honor, princes and popes bestowed the dignity, and the emoluments of episcopal and primatial sees, with the cardi nalate annexed upon minors and infants; thus, John de Medici was raised to the cardinalate at the age of 14 years, being already vested with a number of highest Church dignities; and as late as 1740 a prince of the house of Bourbon was archbishop of Toledo and cardinal at the age of eight years.
According to the present constitution of the sacred college that body consists of 70 mem bers— though very rarely indeed, if ever, are all the places filled. Of the 70 six are cardinal bishops, and they are the ordinaries of sees in the neighborhood of Rome; 50 cardinal-priests and 14 cardinal-deacons. In 1916 the cardinal bishops numbered 4, all Italians; the cardinal priests 48, and of these 5 were Spaniards, 5 were Frenchmen, 2 German, 1 Belgian, 3 Amer ican, 3 British and Irish, 3 Austrians, 2 Hun garians, 1 Bohemian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Cana dian, 1 Brazilian; the rest were Italians. There were 8 cardinal-deacons, among them 1 Dutch, 1 German; the rest were Italians.
The scarlet hat is distinctive of the cardinal itial dignity, and above the double cross in the arms of the archbishop who is a cardinal is the figure of the scarlet hat with its tasseled pend ants. The gown of the cardinal is scarlet (pur pura, commonly rendered purple, but our °pur ple in the language of the ritual is violet, violaceus). Hence "to receive the hat)" means to be made a cardinal; and to aspire to the purple is to aim at the cardinalitial dignity. Etiquette requires that a cardinal be addressed as Eminence; in English usually "your Emi nence,'" and every cardinal is eminentissimus. A bishop or archbishop who is a cardinal uses such a formula as the following in official in struments (the example is taken from the ap probation of a book by an archbishop of Mech lin or Malines in Belgium) : aEngelbert, by the divine mercy, cardinal priest of the holy Roman Church, of the title of Saint Bartholomew in the Island, archbishop of Mechlin, primate of Belgium," etc.