Ordines majores et minores. The holy orders of priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, any of which qualified for presentation and admission to an ecclesiastical dignity or cure, were called ordines majores; and the inferior orders of chanters, psalmists, ostiary, reader, exorcist, and acolyte, were called ordines minores; persons ordained to the ordines minores had their prima tonsura different from the tonsura clericalis, Cowel.
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