also 5–6 abbasy, 6–7 abbacie. [A modification of the earlier ABBATIE, assimilated to forms like prelacy, med.L. -acia, -atia. It appears to have been originally a Scotch form.]
1. The dignity, estate, or jurisdiction of an abbot.
c. 1425. Wyntown, Cron., VII. v. 123. Of byschaprykis, or abbasyis, Or ony kyrkis benefyis.
1552. Lyndesay, Tragedie, 53. At Arbroith I began,—Ane Abasie of gret ryches and rent.
1580. Baret, Alvearie, An Abbasie or the office of an Abbot, Antistitium.
1634–46. J. Row (the father), Kirk of Scot. (1842), 55. That almes be given out of abbacies, as of before.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 322. Who knoweth not, that a Canonship, Abbacy, Bishoprick, are but relations?
1691. Blount, Law Dict., Abbacy (abbatia) is the same to an Abbot, as Bishoprick to a Bishop: We may call it his Paternity.
1776. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nat., II. V. i. 385 (1869). The abbot … was elected by the monks of the monastery, at least in the greater part of abbacies.
1872. W. F. Skene, Fordun’s Chron., II. 413. The word ‘Abthania’ has no connection whatever with the word ‘Thanus.’ It is a Latin form of the Gaelic word Abdhaine, which is the equivalent of the Latin ‘Abbatia’ and signifies both the office of Abbot and the territory belonging to an Abbacy.
1873. Burton, Hist. of Scot., I. xii. 399. He is called the lord of the Abbacy.
2. The period during which any one is abbot.
1794. W. Tindal, Hist. Evesham, 26. In the second year of Randulf’s Abbacy Thomas, then dean, went with him to Rome.
1877. R. J. King, in Academy, 3 Nov., 438. The east window of Bristol is the work of Edmund Knowle, whose long abbacy ranged from 1306 to 1332.
