Commendators

COMMENDATORS, eccl. law. Secular persons upon whom ecclesiastical benefices are bestowed, because they were commended and instructed to their oversight: they are merely trustees.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

References in classic literature ?

The Journalist then recites the complaint of the injured Allan Stewart, Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent and Privy Council, averring his having been carried, partly by flattery, partly by force, to the black vault of Denure, a strong fortalice, built on a rock overhanging the Irish channel, where to execute leases and conveyances of the whole churches and parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which he utterly refused as an unreasonable demand, and the more so that he had already conveyed them to John Stewart of Cardonah, by whose interest he had been made Commendator.

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commendators, fourteen earls, nineteen lords, over one hundred lairds,

Scottish nationalism before 1789: an ideology, a sentiment, or a creation?

And attempts by the commendators to add a sober note only added to the nutty levity.