1. Basilica, as a term used by canon lawyers and liturgists, is a title assigned by formal concession or immemorial custom to certain more important churches, in virtue of which they enjoy privileges of an honorific character which are not always very clearly defined.

2. Corblet says: “The majority of theologians and liturgists admit in a general manner: 1st, that there was total immersion from evangelical times until about the fourteenth century; 2nd, that from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, partial immersion of the body was used with affusion [pouring] on the head; 3rd, that from the fifteenth century affusion alone replaced affusion accompanied by immersion.”