COMMENDAM - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

COMMENDAMAuthored

The Law Mind • 921 words

Definition

Commendam has two distinct legal meanings, one drawn from ecclesiastical law and one from commercial law.

1. Ecclesiastical: The appointment of a qualified clerk to hold a vacant benefice or church living temporarily — receiving its revenues — until a permanent pastor is installed. The benefice was said to be held "in commendam," meaning held in trust or custody. The practice was largely abolished in England by statute in 1836.

2. Commercial (Louisiana): A form of limited partnership derived from the French société en commandité and introduced into Louisiana law under the name "partnership in commendam." In this arrangement, one party — the partner in commendam — contributes capital (money or property) to a partnership managed by another, but bears liability only to the extent of that contribution. The managing partner remains fully liable. The structure is the functional equivalent of the modern limited partnership.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A vacant benefice commended to a cleric until an incumbent was provided.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A vacant living or benefice commended to a cleric (usually a bishop) who enjoyed the revenue until a pastor was provided. A living so held was said to be held in commendam. The practice was abolished by law in 1836.

The common-language definitions capture only the ecclesiastical meaning, which had already faded from practical use by the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers encountering commendam in American legal sources — particularly Louisiana cases and codes — should recognize that the term carries an entirely separate commercial meaning unrelated to church governance.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Partnership in Commendam: The Louisiana-specific entity form. Governed by the Civil Code of Louisiana and functioning as that state's analog to the common-law limited partnership. The partner in commendam (sometimes called the sleeping or silent partner) supplies capital; the general partner manages the enterprise and bears unlimited liability. This form remains significant in Louisiana commercial law history and influenced Louisiana's subsequent adoption of modern limited partnership statutes.

Benefice in Commendam: The ecclesiastical form. A church living held temporarily by a cleric — often a bishop — who collected the revenues pending appointment of a regular incumbent. Criticized historically as a mechanism for pluralism and sinecure.

Why It Matters in Research

The double meaning is the central research trap. A researcher searching for commendam in pre-twentieth-century American sources will encounter the term doing entirely different work depending on jurisdiction and context. In English ecclesiastical sources and early American materials with English legal heritage, commendam almost always refers to the church-living arrangement. In Louisiana sources — cases, treatises, and code annotations — commendam is a commercial law term.

The ecclesiastical sense largely disappeared from live legal practice after 1836 and rarely appears in American caselaw except in historical or ecclesiastical contexts. The Louisiana commercial sense, by contrast, generated substantial caselaw throughout the nineteenth century and connects directly to modern Louisiana partnership law. Researchers working in Louisiana commercial history should treat partnership in commendam as the primary meaning.

Be alert to variant spellings and related terms: commenda (the earlier medieval form, used in maritime and commercial contexts before Louisiana's codification), commandité (the French source term), and société en commandité (the French partnership vehicle from which Louisiana's form derives). Burrill's cross-references commenda and commendam as related but not identical — commenda was the older commercial device used in medieval maritime trade; commendam in Louisiana law is its civil-law descendant as filtered through the French Code de Commerce.

Because Louisiana is a mixed civil-law and common-law jurisdiction, researchers must be careful about assuming commendam tracks common-law limited partnership doctrine exactly. Louisiana courts interpreted partnership in commendam through civilian methodology, and the liability rules, formation requirements, and dissolution principles may differ from common-law equivalents in meaningful ways.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Bouvier, and Burrill are in close agreement on both meanings. All three flag the ecclesiastical definition first and treat the Louisiana commercial application as a secondary but distinct meaning. None of the historical dictionaries develops the commercial definition with significant depth — Bouvier begins to describe the structure but the surviving excerpt is truncated, and Burrill cross-references commenda without elaborating the liability mechanics. Rapalje & Lawrence's surviving excerpt for this term is fragmentary and does not add substantive content.

A notable gap: none of the historical dictionaries address the procedural and liability consequences of the partner-in-commendam relationship in any detail, which means researchers relying solely on these sources will need to consult Louisiana code commentaries and caselaw for operational content. The dictionaries are useful for identification and orientation but not for substantive doctrine.

Webster's 1913 confirms that the ecclesiastical practice was understood as extinct by the time of its writing, reinforcing that any live American legal usage of commendam after the mid-nineteenth century almost certainly refers to the Louisiana commercial form.

Jurisdictional Note

The commercial meaning of commendam is specific to Louisiana and jurisdictions that borrowed directly from Louisiana's civilian tradition. Common-law states did not adopt partnership in commendam as a distinct entity form; they developed limited partnership through separate statutory channels. Ecclesiastical usage, while historically English in origin, appears in some American colonial and early-republic sources but had no continuing legal effect in the United States.

COMMENDAMmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In ecclesiastical law. The appointment of a suitable clerk to hold a void or vacant benefice or church living until a regular pastor be appointed. Hob. 144; Latch, 236. In commercial law. The limited part- nership (or Société en commandité) of the French law has been introduced into the Code of Louisiana under the title of "Part- nership in Commendam." Civil Code La. art. 2810.

COMMENDAMmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In Ecclesiastical Law. The appointment of a suitable clerk to hold a void or vacant benefice or church living until a regular pastor be appointed. Hob. 144; Latch 236. In Louisiana. A species of limited part- nership. It is formed by a contract, by which one person or partnership agrees to furnish another person or partnership a certain amount, either in property or money, to be employed by the person or partnership to whom it is furnished, in his or their own name or firm, on condition of receiving a share in the profits in the proportion determined by the contract, and of being liable to losses and expenses to the amount furnished, and no more. A similar partnership ex- ists in France. Code de Comm. 26, 83; Sirey, 18, pt. 2, p. 25. He who makes this contract is called, in respect to those to whom he makes the advance of capital, a partner in commendam. La. Civ. Code, art. 9811.

COMMENDAMmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

- A benefice or eccle9 Wheat. (U. S.) 190, 229; 14 Ga. 438; 4 Den. (N. Y.) 469; 14 Wend. (N. Y.) 9, 15. COMMERCE, (distinguished from "trade"). 14 Wend. (N. Y.) 9, 15. (distinguished from "transportation"). 45 Iowa 338. (power of congress to regulate). 7 How. (U. S.) 283; 1 Otto (U.S.) 275; 9 Wheat. (U. S.) 1. (includes "navigation" as well as "traffic"). 3 Cliff. (U. S.) 347; 9 Wheat. (U. siastical living, which, being void, or to prevent its becoming void, is committed (commendatur) to the charge and care of some sufficient clerk, to be supplied until it may be conveniently provided with a pastor. Thus, formerly when a parson of a parish was made the bishop of a diocese, there was a cession of his benefice; but if the king gave him power to retain his benefice, he continued parson thereof, and was said to hold it in commendam. This was called a commendam retinere, as opposed to a commendam capere, S.) 1. which was where power was given to take a benefice in addition to one which the incumbent Cal. 492. already had. Commendams were also divided with reference to their duration, into semestris (six months), perpetua (for life), and limitata (temporary). (Phillim. Ecc. L. 503 et seq.; 2 Steph. Com. 692; Colt and Glover v. Bishop of Coventry, Hob. 140.) Commendams were practically abolished by Stat. 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 77, § 18, and the modern acts against pluralities, except in the rare instances in which pluralities (q. v.) are still allowed. Phillim. Ecc. L. 504. 102. (includes "passenger traffic"). 34 (includes "telegraphing"). 5 Nev. (does not include "internal traffic"). 36 Ind. 267. COMMERCE AMONG THE SEVERAL STATES, (in U. S. constitution). 15 Pet. (U. S.) 511; 3 Cow. (N. Y.) 713, 735, 744, 748. COMMERCE-NAVIGATION, (State laws must yield to acts of congress). 9 Wheat. (U. S. 1. COMMERCE; TRANSPORTATION, (in a statute). 45 Iowa 338. COMMERCE OR TRADE, (prohibited to banks). COMMENDATION.-In feudal law, 8 Wheat. (U. S.) 349; 7 Mass. 433. commendation was where an owner of land placed himself and his land under the protection of a lord, so as to constitute himself his vassal or feudal tenant. Commendation, and the grant of beneficia or feuds, were the two principal modes by which the feudal system was established. See 1 Stubbs Const. Hist. 153. COMMENDATORS.-Secular persons upon whom, during popery times, ecclesiastical benefices were bestowed, in Scotland; called so, because the benefices were commended and entrusted to their supervision. - Wharton. COMMENDATORY.-He who holds a church living or preferment in commendam.

COMMENDAMn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A vacant living or benefice commended to a cleric (usually a bishop) who enjoyed the revenue until a pastor was provided. A living so held was said to be held in commendam. The practice was abolished by law in 1836. There was [formerly] some sense for commendams. Selden. Partnership in commendam. See under Partnership.

commendamnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A vacant benefice commended to a cleric until an incumbent was provided.

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