Sir John Davis, in his letter to the Earl of Salisbury, published in Vallancey's Collectanea, vol. i. pp. 160, 161, has preserved the following definition of the name and office of a comharba:— 'And that your Lordship may perceive I weave not this web out of my own brain, but that I have authority for it, which I deliver, I will here insert a certificate in Latin made unto me by an Irish scholar, whose opinion I required in this matter, which I have now by chance among my papers: ... The scholar's opinion was this: 'Corbanatus, sive Plebanatus, dignitas est, et modo ad regem pertinet, sed antea ad Papam; in matrici ecclesia debet necessario esse, initiatus in sacris ordinibus, omnesque decimas pertinentes ad hanc debet habere, et beneficia adjuncta huic ipsius sunt, eorumque conferentiam habet et presentationem: dictum hoc nomen, quia populo et plebi ecclesiasticae matricis ecclesiae praefuit; certum numerum sacerdotum quasi collegialium debet habere secum; primum stallum in sua ecclesia habet; habet etiam stallum vacuum in ecclesia cathedrali; et vocem in omni capitulo tam publico quam privato: inscribitur Romano Registro, adeoque dignitas est.' In modern times the Comharba was married, and the dignity was hereditary in some one family. In 1517 Teige O'Rody, who was Comharba of Fenagh, in the county of Leitrim, was married to Honora, the daughter of O'Mulloy. For further information on this subject the reader is referred to Ussher's tract on Corbes, Erenachs, and Termon Lands, published in the second number of the Collectanea, Colgan's Trias Thaum., pp. 630, 631, and Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 37, and vol. iv. p. 30, et sequent.