Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dyer, Sir Edward" to "Echidna" (part 4)

(j) It is said that originally a metropolitan had only one official principal, who, like the metropolitan himself, acted both for the diocese and province. Fournier (p. 219) says that in France it was not till the 17th century that there grew up a custom of having different officials for the metropolitan, one for him as bishop, a second as metropolitan, and even a third as primate, with an appeal from one to the other, and that it was an abuse due to the parlements which strove to make the official independent of the bishop. In England there has been, for a long time, a separate diocesan court of Canterbury held before the “commissary.” The word is significant as showing that there was something special and restricted about the position. In York there are two courts, one called the consistory for the diocese, the other called the chancery for the province. But the same person was often official of both courts.

(k) In England the Constitutions of Clarendon added a provision for appeal to the king, “and if the archbishop shall have failed in doing justice recourse is to be had in the last resort (postremo) to our lord the king, that by his writ the controversy may be ended in the court of the archbishop; because there must be no further process without the assent of our lord the king.” The last words were an attempt to limit further appeal to Rome. It will be observed that the king does not hear the cause or adjudicate upon it. He merely corrects slackness or lack of doing justice (Si archiepiscopus defecerit in justitia exhibenda) and by his writ (precepto) directs the controversy to be determined in the metropolitan’s court. As bishop Stubbs says (Report of Eccl. Comm. vol. i. Hist. App. i.): “The appeal to the king is merely a provision for a rehearing before the archbishop, such failure to do justice being not so much applicable to an unfair decision as to the delays or refusal to proceed common at that time” (cf. Joyce, The Sword and the Keys, 2nd ed. pp. 19-20). The recursus ad principem, in some form or other of appeal or application to the sovereign or his lay judges, was at the end of the middle ages well known over western Europe. This recourse in England sometimes took the form of the appeal to the king given by the Constitutions of Clarendon, just mentioned, and later by the acts of Henry VIII.; sometimes that of suing for writs of prohibition or mandamus, which were granted by the king’s judges, either to restrain excess of jurisdiction, or to compel the spiritual judge to exercise jurisdiction in cases where it seemed to the temporal court that he was failing in his duty. The appellatio tanquam ab abusu (appel comme d’abus) in France was an application of a like nature. Such an appeal lay even in cases where there was a refusal to exercise voluntary jurisdiction (de Maillane, Dictionnaire du droit canonique, tit. “Abus,” cf. tit. “Appel”). This writer traces their origin to the 14th century; but the procedure does not seem to have become regularized or common till the reigns of Louis XII. or Francis I. (cf. Dict. eccl., Paris, 1765, titt. “Abus” and “Appel comme d’abus”). On the recursus ad principem and the practice of “cassation” in Belgium, Germany and Spain, cf. Van Espen’s treatise under this title (Works, vol. iv.) and Jus eccles. univ. pars iii. tit. x. c. 4. Louis XIV. forbad the parlements to give judgment themselves in causes upon an appel comme d’abus. They had to declare the proceedings null and abusive and command the court Christian to render right judgment (Edict of 1695, arts. 34, 36, cited in Gaudry, Traité de la législation des cultes, Paris, 1854, tom. i. pp. 368, 369).

In Catalonia “Pragmatics,” letters from the prince, issued to restrain jurisdiction assumed by ecclesiastical judges contrary to the customs of the principality. Thus in 1368 Peter III. evoked to the royal court a prosecution for abduction pending before the archbishop of Tarragona, declaring that the archbishop and the official were incompetent to judge noblemen. See this and other instances collected in Usages y demas derechos de Cataluña, by Vives y Cebriá (Barcelona, 1835), tom. iv. p. 137 et seq.

(l) Lastly there was the appeal to the patriarchs, i.e. in the West to Rome. The distinguishing feature of this appeal was that the rule of the other appeals did not apply to it. In the regular course of those appeals an appellant could not leap the intermediate stages; but he could at any stage go to this final appeal, omisso medio, as it was technically called (see de appell. c. Dilect. iii. for general rule, and c. 3 de appell. in 6 for different rule in case of the pope, and authorities cited in Van Espen, pars iii, tit. x. c. 2, 5). Van Espen says: “The whole right of appeal to the Roman pontiff omisso medio had undoubtedly its origin in this principle, that the Roman pontiff is ordinary of ordinaries, or, in other words, has immediate episcopal authority in all particular churches, and this principle had its own beginning from the False Decretals.”

Appeals to Rome lay from interlocutory as well as final judgments. Causes could even be evoked to Rome before any judgment and there heard in first instance (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. x. c. 1, 8).

There was an alleged original jurisdiction of the pope, which he exercised sometimes by permanent legates, whom Gregory VII. and his successors established in the chief countries of Europe, and to whom were committed the legislative executive and judicial powers of the spiritual “prince” in the districts assigned to them. These Clement IV. likened to “pro-consuls” and declared to have “ordinary” jurisdiction; because they had jurisdiction over every kind of cause, without any special delegation, in a certain defined area or province (c. ii. de Officio Legati in 6). They were expressed to have not merely appellate but original jurisdiction over causes (iii. c. i. de Officio Legati). The occupants of certain sees by a kind of prescription became legates without special appointment, legati nati, as in the case of Canterbury. In the 13th century Archbishop Peckham, says Maitland (p. 117), as archbishop “asserted for himself and his official (1) a general right to entertain in the first instance complaints made against his suffragans’ subjects, and (2) a general right to hear appeals omisso medio.” It was, for the time, determined that the archbishop might himself, in virtue of his legatine authority, entertain complaints from other dioceses in first instance, but that this legatine jurisdiction was not included in the ordinary jurisdiction of his official principal, even if the archbishop had so willed it in his commission. In fact, however, the official did before the end of the later medieval period get the same power as the archbishop (Maitland, pp. 118-120; cf. Lyndwood, lib. v. tit. 1), till it was taken from him by the Bill of Citations.

After legates came special delegates appointed by the pope to hear a particular cause. It was the general practice to appoint two or three to sit together (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. v. c. 2, 37). These might sub-delegate the whole cause or any part of it as they pleased, ibid. 9-18. Dr Maitland (essay on “The Universal Ordinary”) thinks, but without very much foundation, that great numbers especially of the more important causes were tried before these delegates; although the records have largely perished, since they were the records of courts which were dissolved as soon as their single cause had been decided. These courts were convenient, since it was the custom to appoint delegates resident in the neighbourhood, and the power of sub-delegation, general or limited, simplified questions of distance. In Belgium causes appealed to Rome had to be committed to local delegates (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. v. c. 3, tit. x. c. 2).

There could be an appeal from these delegates to the pope and from the pope himself to the pope “better informed” (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. x. c. 2, 12, 13). So personal had the system of jurisdiction become that even the trials of bishops ceased to be necessarily conciliar. Generally they were reserved to the pope (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. iii. c. 5, 17-19); but in England the archbishop, either in synod, or with some of his comprovincial bishops concurring, tried and deposed bishops (see case of Bishop Peacock and the other cases cited in Read v. Bishop of Lincoln, 14 P.D. 148, and Phillimore, Eccl. Law, pp. 66 et seq.).

(m) The jurisdiction of a bishop sede vacante passed, by general law, to the dean and chapter; but in England the metropolitans became “guardians” of the spiritualities and exercised original jurisdiction through the vacant diocese (Phillimore, pp. 62-63), except in the case of Durham, and with a peculiar arrangement as to Lincoln.

If the metropolitan see were vacant the jurisdiction was exercised by the dean and chapter through an official (Rothery, Return of Cases before Delegates, Nos. 4, 5). As to France see Fournier, p. 294.

(n) Officials, even of bishops and metropolitans, need not be in holy orders, though Bishop Stubbs in his paper in the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts seems to say so. They had to be clerics, that is, to have received the tonsure. Even papal delegates might be simple clerks (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. v. c. 2, 20).

It came, however, to be the practice to impose some restrictions, as on clerks twice married. Thus Archbishop Chichele provided that no clerk married or bigamous (that is, having had two wives in succession) should exercise spiritual jurisdiction (see Lyndwood, lib. iii. tit. 3). Abroad unsuccessful attempts were made by local councils to enact that officials and vicars-general should be in holy orders (Hefele on Councils of Tortosa in 1429 and Sixth of Milan in 1582). These councils, as will be seen, are late.

(o) With or without the concurrence and goodwill of the national Church, restrictions were imposed by the State on the papal jurisdiction, whether original or appellate. In England the Constitutions of Clarendon (by chap. viii.) prohibited appeals to the pope; but after the murder of St Thomas of Canterbury Henry II. had to promise not to enforce them. The statutes 38 Edw. III. st. 2, 13 Rich. II. st. 2, c. 2, and 16 Rich. II. c. 5 forbid such appeals; but it is suggested that notwithstanding the generality of their language they refer only to cases of temporal cognizance. Cases upon the execution of these statutes are collected in Stillingfleet, On Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, p. 189; Gibson, Codex, 83. Obstacles were placed in the way of appeals to the pope omisso medio. Thus when a writ of significavit issued on the mandate of a bishop, an appeal to Rome availed not to stay execution; but if there were an appeal to the archbishop it was otherwise. It therefore became the custom to lodge a double appeal: one to the archbishop “for defence,” and the other to the pope as the real appeal (“Hostiensis,” Super Decret. ii. fol. 169; cf. Owen, Institutes of Canon Law, 1884, pt. i. c. 19, 5).

There seems to have been no machinery for assisting the original or appellate jurisdiction of the pope by secular process,—by significavit or otherwise.

The matrimonial cause between Henry VIII. and Catharine of Aragon was the most famous English cause tried by delegates under the “original” jurisdiction of the pope, and was ultimately “evoked” to Rome. The foreseen adverse termination of this long-drawn cause led to Henry’s legislation.

When the temporal courts interfered to prevent excess of jurisdiction, they did so by prohibiting the ecclesiastical court from trying and the suitor from suing in that court. The pope could not be effectively prohibited, and no instance is recorded of a prohibition to papal delegates. But suitors have been prohibited from appealing to the pope (see per Willes, J., in Mayor of London v. Cox, L.R. 2 H.L. 280). Whatever may have been the law, it is certain that, notwithstanding the statutes of Edw. III. and Rich. II., appeals to Rome and original trials by papal delegates did go on, perhaps with the king’s licence; for the statute 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12 recites that the hearing of appeals was an usurpation by the pope and a grievous abuse, and proceeds to take away the appeal in matrimonial, testamentary and tithe causes, and to hinder by forbidding citation and process from Rome, all original hearings also. The statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 follows this up by taking away appeals in all other subjects of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

In 1438 the council of Basel took away all papal original jurisdiction (save in certain reserved cases—of which infra), evocation of causes to Rome, appeals to Rome omisso medio, and appeals to Rome altogether in many causes. Such appeals when permissible, except the “greater,” were to be tried by delegates on the spot (31st Session; Mansi, Concilia, in loco). These proceedings at Basel were regarded at Rome as of no effect. Nevertheless this decree and others were adopted by a French national council at Bourges and promulgated by the king as a “Pragmatic Sanction” (Migne, Dict. du droit canonique, “Pragmatique Sanction”). The parlements registered the Sanction and the effect was permanent in France. Louis XI. and Charles VIII. sought to revoke it; but both parlements and states-general refused to recognize the revoking decrees. In 1499 Louis XII. ordered the Pragmatic to be inviolably observed. The parlements thereupon condemned several private persons for obtaining bulls from Rome. In 1516 a Concordat between Leo X. and Francis I. settled all these questions in the sense of the Pragmatic, substantially according to the Basel canon. All causes, except the “greater,” were to be terminated in the country where the proper cognizance would lie (Migne, op. cit. “Concordat”). By this Concordat, by an ordinance of Francis I. in 1539, by two or three other royal edicts, and (above all) by the practice of the parlements, explanatory of this legislation, and their arrêts, the conflict of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions was settled until the Revolution (Migne, ubi sup.). “Greater causes” came in France to be restricted to criminal prosecutions of bishops. Even in these the original jurisdiction of the pope was taken away. In first instance they were tried by the provincial synod. Thence there was appeal to the pope (de Maillane, op. cit. s.v. “Causes majeures”; Dict. eccl., Paris, 1765, s.v. “Cause”). The only original jurisdiction left to the pope was in the case of the matrimonial causes of princes. But they could only be heard on the spot by judges delegate. Examples are the causes of Louis XII. and Jeanne of France in 1498, and of Henry IV. and Marguerite of Valois in 1599 (Migne, op. cit. s.v. “Causes”). The prohibition of papal interference was enforced if necessary by the appel comme d’abus (vide supra). Out of respect for the pope this appeal was not brought against his decrees but against their execution (Dict. eccl., Paris, 1765, s.v. “Abus”).

Spain appears to have permitted and recognized appeals to the pope. A royal writ of the 16th century cited by Covarruvias (c. xxxv.) prohibits execution of the sentence of a Spanish court Christian pending an appeal to the pope.

2. The subject matter over which the ecclesiastical courts had jurisdiction was no longer purely “criminal” with a civil quasi-jurisdiction by way of arbitration. In the later middle ages these courts had jurisdiction over most questions, except indeed the then most important ones, those relating to real property. This civil jurisdiction was sometimes concurrent with that of the secular courts, sometimes exclusive. For England it may be thus classified:—

(a) Matrimonial.—This arose naturally from the sacred character of Christian marriage. This jurisdiction was exclusive. From it followed the right of the courts Christian to pronounce upon questions of legitimacy. Upon this right an inroad was early made, in consequence of the question of legitimation by subsequent marriage. In the 12th century the Church’s rule, that subsequent marriage did legitimize previous issue, was settled (c. 6, x. 4, 17). The king’s judges then began to ask the ordinary the specific question whether A. B. was born before or after his parents’ marriage. After the inconclusive proceedings at the realm-council of Merton (1236), when spiritual and temporal lords took opposite views, the king’s judges went a step further and thenceforward submitted this particular question to a jury. All other questions of legitimacy arising in the king’s courts were still sent for trial to the bishop and concluded by his certificate (see Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law before Edward I. vol. i. 105-106; Maitland, ubi supra, pp. 53-56).

(b) Testamentary and in regard to succession from intestates.—Real property was not the subject of will or testament in the medieval period. But as to personal property, the jurisdiction of the courts Christian became exclusive in England. The Church, East and West, had long asserted a right to supervise those legacies which were devoted to pious uses, a right recognized by Justinian (Cod. i. 3. 46). The bishop or, failing him, the metropolitan, was to see such legacies properly paid and applied and might appoint persons to administer the funds (Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. 330). This right and duty became a jurisdiction in all testamentary causes. Intestacy was regarded with the greatest horror, because of the danger to the intestate’s soul from a death without a fitting part given to pious uses (Maine, Ancient Law, ed. 1906, note by Pollock, p. 230; cf. Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. 354). Hence came the jurisdiction of the ordinary in intestacy, for the peace of the soul of the departed. This head of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was in England not transferred to the secular court till 1857.

(c) Church Lands.—If undoubtedly held in frankalmoign or “free alms,” by a “spiritual” tenure only, the claim of jurisdiction for the ecclesiastical forum seems to have been at first conceded. But the Constitutions of Clarendon (c. 9) reserved the preliminary question, of “frankalmoign” or not, for a jury in the king’s court. Then, if the tenure were found free alms, the plea was to be heard in the court Christian. From the 13th century, however, inclusive, the king’s courts insisted on their exclusive jurisdiction in regard to all realty, temporal or “spiritual” (Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. i. 106).

(d) Title to present to and possession of benefices.—As to the title to present to benefices, the courts Christian at one time had concurrent jurisdiction with the temporal courts. “Advowsons” were, however, looked upon as a species of “real” property in England, and therefore the king’s court early claimed exclusive jurisdiction in disputes where the title to present was involved. The Constitutions of Clarendon provided that these causes should be heard only in the king’s court (c. 1). This rule was applied even where both litigants were “spiritual.” In the 13th century abbots sue each other in the royal court for advowsons (Selden Soc. Select Civil Pleas, i. pl. 245). In 1231, in such a suit, the bishop of London accepts wager of battle (Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. i. 105). In cases, however, where the title to present was not in question, but the fitness of the clerk presented, or, in cases of election to benefices, the validity of the election, there was jurisdiction in the courts Christian.

(e) The recovery of tithes and church dues, including in England church rates levied to repair or improve churches and churchyards.

(f) Questions concerning fabrics, ornaments, ritual and ceremonial of churches.

(g) Administration of pious gifts and revenues given to prelates or convents.—Their right application could be effectively enforced only in the courts Christian; until the rise in England of the equitable jurisdiction of the court of chancery and the development of the doctrine of “uses” at the end of the middle ages.

(h) Enforcement of contractual promises made by oath or pledge of faith.—The breaking of such a promissory oath was called “perjury” (as in classical Latin and in Shakespeare), contrary to modern usage which confines the word to false evidence before a court of justice. In regard to the execution of these promises, the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was possibly traversed by c. 15 of the Constitutions of Clarendon; but allowed by the statute 13 Edw. I. st. 4. As just intimated, besides the enforcement of the promise, the “perjury” was treated as an ecclesiastical crime.

The criminal jurisdiction of courts Christian over laymen included, besides these “perjuries,” (a) all sexual offences not punishable on indictment; (b) Defamation of character (the king’s courts came in time to limit this to such defamation as could not be made the subject of a temporal action); (c) Offences by laymen against clerks (i.e. against all “tonsured” persons, supra); (d) Offences in regard to holy places—“brawling” and such like; (e) Heresy, schism, apostasy, witchcraft.

In regard to “clerks,” there was (1) all the criminal jurisdiction which existed over laymen, and (2) criminal jurisdiction in regard to professional misconduct. Concerning “felonious” clerks the great questions discussed were whether the courts Christian had exclusive jurisdiction or the king’s court, or whether there was a concurrent jurisdiction. The subject was dealt with in the Constitutions of Clarendon, formally revoked after the murder of St Thomas of Canterbury. In the 13th century it was recognized that a “clerk” for felony was subject only to ecclesiastical trial and punishment; punishment which might involve lifelong imprisonment. For “misdemeanours,” as yet unimportant, he had no exemption from secular jurisdiction (Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ch. iv.). At some indeterminate later period, the “clerk” was tried for felony by a jury in the king’s court and then “pleaded his clergy,” after conviction there, and was remitted to the ordinary for ecclesiastical punishment. “Clerks” for the purpose of “benefit of clergy” included not only persons in minor orders, but all “religious” persons, i.e. monks, friars, nuns, &c. Later the custom arose of taking “clerk” to include any “literate,” even if not in orders or “religious” (cf. Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, i. 461). The statute 4 Hen. VII. c. 13 took away benefit of clergy, if claimed a second time, from persons not “within orders,” in certain bad cases. 4 Hen. VIII. c. 2 (a temporary act) took away “clergy,” in certain heinous crimes, from all persons not in “holy” orders. This statute was partly renewed by 22 Hen. VIII. c. 13. Other changes were introduced by 23 Hen. VIII. c. 1 and later acts. In time, “benefit of clergy” became entirely diverted from its original objects.

In France, till 1329, there seems to have been no clear line of demarcation between secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Beaumanoir (Coutume de Baulvoisis, ch. xi., cited Gaudry, op. cit. i. 22) had laid down the principle that spiritual justice should meddle only with spiritual things. In the year named the secular courts complained to the king, Philip of Valois, of the encroachments of the courts Christian. The “cause” was solemnly argued before that monarch, who decided to leave things as they were (Migne, Dict. du droit canon., s.v. “Officialités”). In 1371 Charles V. forbade spiritual courts to take cognizance of “real” and “possessory” actions even in regard to clerks (Migne, loc. cit.; cf. Gaudry, ubi sup.). From this period the parlements began the procedure which, after the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII., in 1438 took regular shape as the appel comme d’ abus (supra; Migne, loc. cit.). Testamentary causes at first were subject to the concurrent jurisdiction of the spiritual and secular courts. After the 14th century, the latter had exclusive jurisdiction (Van Espen, op. cit. lib. iii. tit. ii. cc. 2, 15, 16). In regard to marriage the secular jurists distinguished between the civil contract and the sacrament, for purposes of separating the jurisdiction (Dict. eccl., Paris, 1765, s.v. “Mariage”). The voluntary jurisdiction as regards dispensations was kept for the Church. The contentious jurisdiction of the courts Christian was confined to promises of marriage, nullity of marriage caused by “diriment” impediments only, validity or invalidity of the sacrament, divorce a thoro (ibid.). Questions in regard to the property in a benefice were for the courts Christian; in regard to its possession, for the king’s courts. But if a “possessory” action had been brought in the latter, a subsequent suit in the courts spiritual for the property was deemed “abusive” and restrained (ib., s.v. “Pétitoire”) Breach of faith or of promise confirmed by oath was matter for the court Christian (Fournier, pp. 95, 99, 109, 125). This branch of jurisdiction was larger and more freely used than in England (cf. Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., as to Normandy). The only other remaining civil jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was in personal actions where clerks were defendants (Migne, op. cit., s.v. “Officialités,” Fournier, pp. 65-125); or, after the 14th century, where both parties were clerks. In regard to crimes delicts (délits) were divided into classes for purposes of jurisdiction. Clerks were punishable only in the court Christian, except in cases of grave crimes such as murder, mutilation (Fournier, p. 72), and cases called “royal cases” (vide infra). Laymen were punishable in the court Christian for the délits following: injury to sacred or religious places, sacrilege, heresy (except where it was a “royal case”), sorcery, magic, blasphemy (also punishable in the secular court), adultery, simony, usury and infractions of the truce of God (Fournier, pp. 90-93). What were called “privileged delicts” were judged in the case of the clergy conjointly by the spiritual judge and the king’s judge. Bishops had no exemption (Dict. ecc., s.v. “Délits,” “Cas privilégié,” “Causes majeures”). “Royal cases” included such crimes as touched the prince, as all forms of treason; or the dignity of his officers; or the public safety. In this class were also included such heresies as troubled the state, as by forbidden assemblies, or by teaching prohibited doctrine. Among these heresies were reckoned idolatry, atheism, Protestantism, relapse (ib. et “Cas royaux,” “Hérésie”). These were of exclusive royal jurisdiction as against both spiritual courts and the courts of feudal lords. A similar claim was made by Pombal for Portugal (vide infra).

The parlements, in order to have a ready means of enforcing all these restrictions by appel comme d’abus, compelled the bishops to appoint officials, Frenchmen, graduates, and (as it seems) “seculars” (Dict. eccl., Paris, 1765, s.v. “Official”). This last qualification was disputed (see Fevret, Traité de l’abus).

3. Punishments.—Ecclesiastical sanctions were divided into punishments (poenae), either purely temporal in character or else of a mixed spiritual and temporal character, and censures (censurae), purely spiritual and remedial (see Van Espen, pars iii. tit. xl. cc. 1, 3; Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law, p. 1064). In the book last cited censurae and poenae are classed together as “censures” (which is the modern use).

Poenae.—(a) Fines sprang from the older custom of directing alms by way of penance in the internal forum (Van Espen, ubi sup. c. 1, 5-10). They were to be applied to pious uses. (b) Reclusion in a monastery continued from former period, and might be either temporary or perpetual (loc. cit. 17-19). (c) Imprisonment, in the bishop’s prison, might be in chains, or on bread and water, and temporary or perpetual. In its severer forms it was only inflicted for more atrocious crimes which the secular law would have punished with death (loc. cit. 21-27). The act 23 Henry VIII. c. 11 made special provision for convicted clerks who broke out of the prisons of the ordinary. (d) Fustigation, as in former period, was hardly an ecclesiastical punishment. If given, it was to be of a paternal character (loc. cit. 39-45). Punishments of a mixed nature were: (e) Suspension either from office alone or from office and benefice; (f) Deprivation of benefice; (g) Deposition or Degradation (a more solemn and ceremonial form) from the ministry; (h) Irregularity—not always a punishment—a state of incapacity to be ordained, or, being ordained, to execute the ministry; this might result from some defect of mind and body, but was also incurred by some grave offences.

Censures were as follows: (i) Suspension from attending divine offices or ab ingressu ecclesiae, more appropriate for a layman. A clerk in like case might be suspended from office. (j) Interdict was another form of partial or total suspension from the benefit of the rites and sacraments of the Church. An interdict might be personal or local (see Interdict). (k) Excommunication was either greater or less. The greater separated entirely from the Church. It might be pronounced under anathema. The less deprived of participation in the sacraments, and made a clerk incapable of taking a benefice.

On the European continent the courts Christian often carried out their decrees by their own apparitors who could levy pecuniary penalties on a defendant’s goods (Van Espen, pars iii. tit. ix. c. 4). They could arrest and imprison. In England, except in the peculiar case of imprisonment pending trial for heresy, or in the case of a clerk convicted of crime, these things could not be. The sentence of the court Christian had in all other cases to be enforced by the secular arm. Early in Henry II.’s time it had become the custom of England for the court Christian to “signify” its sentence of excommunication to the king and to demand from him a writ of significavit to the sheriff, to imprison the person excommunicated. The writ apparently issued for no court inferior to the bishop’s, unless upon the bishop’s request. In some sense the king’s writ of significavit was discretionary; but its issue could be enforced by excommunication or interdict.

In the cases of heresy, apostasy and sorcery, the spiritual courts sought the aid of the secular jurisdiction to superadd the punishment of death. Incorrigible offenders on these matters were “left” to the secular power, to be corrected with due “animadversion.” This provision of the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 was always interpreted to mean death (see Van Espen, Observ. in Conc. Lat. IV. Canones, and the decree in the Sext. ut inquisitionis negotium; and, as to English law and practice, Maitland, op. cit., Essay vi., and pp. 161, 176; 2 Hen. IV. c. 15; Fitzherbert, Natura brevium, 269; 2 Hen. V. st. 1, c. 7). The “capital” punishment was generally (always in England) by burning. Burning was an English punishment for some secular offences.

The Concordat with Francis I. by which the pope gave up the right of hearing appeals from France was not many years before the legislation of Henry VIII. in England. Both monarchs proceeded on the same lines; but Francis I. got the pope’s consent: Henry VIII. acted in invitum, and in time went rather further.

The Statute of Appeals (24 Hen. VIII. c. 12) takes away appeals to Rome in causes testamentary and matrimonial and in regard to right of tithes, oblations and obventions. A final appeal is given to the archbishop of the particular province; but in causes touching the king a final appeal is given to the Upper House of Convocation of the province. The statute is aimed at appeals; but the words used in it concerning “citations and all other processes” are wide enough to take away also the “original” jurisdiction of the pope. No appeal was yet given to the crown. Canterbury, York, Armagh, Dublin, Cashel and Tuam are put in the place of Rome. The English and Irish provinces are treated as self-contained. All ends there.

The “Act of Submission of the Clergy” (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19) took away all appeals to Rome and gave a further appeal, “for lack of justice,” from the several courts of the archbishops to the king in chancery. Thence a commission was to issue to persons named therein to determine the appeal definitely. This was copied from the then existent practice in admiralty appeals and was the origin of the so-called court of delegates. It is a moot question whether this statute took away the appeal to the Upper Houses of the various convocations in causes wherein the king was concerned (see Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 15 Q.B. 52; Ex parte Bishop of Exeter, 10 C.B. 102; Re Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 5 Exch. 630). 37 Hen. VIII. c. 17 provided that married laymen might be judges of the courts Christian if they were doctors of civil law, created in any university. This qualification even was considered unnecessary in Charles I.’s time (Cro. Car. 258). Canon 127 of 1603 provided that the judges must be learned in the civil and ecclesiastical laws and at least masters of arts or bachelors of laws. Canon Law as a study had been practically prohibited at the universities since 1536 (Merriman, Thomas Cromwell, i. 142-143; Cal. State Papers, vol. ix. p. xxix. 117; Owen, Institutes of Canon Law, viii.). The substitution of “civilians,” rather than common lawyers, for canonists (civilians, hitherto, not an important body in England) had important consequences (see Maitland, op. cit. 92 et seq.).

Henry VIII. had exercised his jurisdiction as Supreme Head through a vicar-general. Edward VI. exercised original jurisdiction in spiritual causes by delegated commissions (see Archdeacon Hale, Precedents in Criminal Cases, p. xlviii.). Unless the king was to be regarded as an ecclesiastical person, they were not properly ecclesiastical courts; although spiritual persons might sit in them, for they sat only as royal commissioners. The same point has been taken by large bodies of clergy and laity in regard to the court of final appeal created by 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 and its present successor the judicial committee of Privy Council (infra: Rep. Com. Ecc. Discipline, pp. 9, 94 et seq.). At any rate the “original” jurisdiction claimed for the monarch personally and his delegates, under Henry VIII. and Edward VI., has not permanently remained. In theory, Hooker’s contentions have been conceded that “kings cannot in their own proper persons decide questions about matters of faith and Christian religion” and that “they have not ordinary spiritual power” (Ecc. Pol. vii. 8, 1, 6; cf. XXXIX. Articles, Art. 37).

Under Henry VIII. a system began of making certain crimes, which previously had been only of spiritual cognizance, felonies (25 Hen. VIII. c. 6), excluding thereby spiritual jurisdiction (Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, ii. 429). Bigamy (in its modern sense) was thus made felony (1 Jac. I. c. 11). In this reign and the next, temporal courts were sometimes given jurisdiction over purely spiritual offences. A trace of this remains in 1 Edw. VI. c. 1 (still on the statute book; Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, ii. 439). Other traces occur in the Acts of Uniformity, which make offences of depraving the Book of Common Prayer triable at Assizes (between 23 Eliz. c. 1 and 7 & 8 Vict. c. 102—also at Sessions) as well as in the courts Christian.

During Edward VI.’s time the courts Christian seem practically to have ceased to exercise criminal jurisdiction (Hale, Precedents in Criminal Cases, p. xlix.). But they sat again for this purpose under Mary and Elizabeth and (save between 1640 and 1661) continued regular criminal sessions till towards the end of the 17th century as continuously and constantly as the king’s courts (op. cit.).

The “ordinary” ecclesiastical tribunals of the later middle ages still subsist in England, at least as regards the laity. This is hardly the case elsewhere in the Western Church, though some exceptions are noted below. Nevertheless, their exercise of criminal jurisdiction over the laity is now in practice suspended; although in law it subsists (see Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law; Ray v. Sherwood, 1 Curt. R. 193; 1 Moore P.C.R. 363; the observations of Kelly, C.B., in Mordaunt v. Moncrieffe, L.R. 2 Sc. & Div. 381, and of Lord Coleridge in Martin v. Mackonochie, L.R. 4 Q.B.D. 770, and, on the other hand, of Lord Penzance in Phillimore v. Machon, L.R. 1 P.D. 480). Theoretically still, in cases of sexual immorality, penance may be imposed. Monitions to amend may be decreed and be enforced by significavit and writ de contumace capiendo, or by excommunication with imprisonment not to exceed six months (53 Geo. III. c. 127). The tribunals thus subsisting are the courts of the bishop and archbishop, the latter sometimes called the court of appeal of the province. Peculiar jurisdictions have been gradually taken away under the operation of the acts establishing the ecclesiastical commissioners. The appeal given to delegates appointed by the crown has been transferred, first by 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 92 to the privy council, and then by 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 41 to the judicial committee of the privy council. Bishops may now be summoned as assessors by 39 & 40 Vict. c. 59.

There was in the time of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. a “Court of High Commission” with jurisdiction over laity and clergy, based on 1 Eliz. c. i. s. 15, which was reckoned as an ecclesiastical judicature (5 R. 1, Cawdrey’s case) concurrent with the ordinary court Christian. It was created by virtue of the royal supremacy, and was taken away by 16 Car. I. c. 11. As to its history see Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, ii. 414-428.

In regard to clerical offences, 3 & 4 Vict. c. 86 (the “Church Discipline Act”) creates new tribunals; and first a commission of inquiry appointed by the bishop of five persons, of whom the vicar-general, or an archdeacon, or a rural dean of the diocese must be one. If they report a prima facie case, the bishop may (with the consent of parties) proceed to sentence. In the absence of such consent, the bishop may hear the cause with three assessors, of whom one shall be a barrister of seven years’ standing and another the dean of the cathedral, or one of the archdeacons, or the chancellor. This court is called the “consistory” court, but is not the old consistory. Both these tribunals are new. But the bishop may instead send the cause, in first instance, to the old provincial court, to which appeal lies, if it be not so sent.

The Public Worship Regulation Act (37 & 38 Vict. c. 85) gave criminal jurisdiction over beneficed clerks (concurrent with that of the tribunal under 3 & 4 Vict. c. 86) to the judge under the act in matters of the fabric, ornaments, furniture and decorations of churches, and the conduct of divine service, rites and ceremonies. The “judge” under the act is to be a barrister of ten years’ standing, or an ex-judge of a superior secular court, appointed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, with the approval of the crown, or, if they fail to appoint, by the crown. Proceedings under this act are to be deemed to be taken in the appropriate ancient ecclesiastical courts (Green v. Lord Penzance, 6 A. C. 657). The judge under this act became (upon vacancies occurring) ex officio official principal of the arches court of Canterbury and of the chancery court of York. This provision caused grave doubts to be entertained as to the canonical position of this statutory official principal.

Finally, the Clergy Discipline Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c. 32) creates yet a new court of first instance for the trial of clerical offences against morality in the shape of a consistory court, which is not the old court of that name, but is to comprehend the chancellor and five assessors (three clergymen and two laymen chosen from a prescribed list), with equal power with the chancellor on questions of fact. In many instances the conviction of a temporal court is made conclusive on the bishop without further trial. In regard to moral offences, jurisdiction under this act is exclusive. But it only applies to clerks holding preferment. Under all these three acts there is a final appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council.

None of these acts applies to the trial of bishops, who are left to the old jurisdictions, or whatever may be held to be the old jurisdictions (with that of the Roman See eliminated). As to suffragan bishops in the province of Canterbury, see Read v. Bishop of Lincoln, 13 P.D. 221, 14 P.D. 88. (On general questions see Phillimore, Ecc. Law, 65, 73.) Despite the bishop of Lincoln’s case, the law is in some uncertainty.

Dilapidations are now not made matters of suit before the court, but of administrative action by the bishop.

The subject matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been gradually reduced in England, &c., by various causes. (1) The taking away of all matrimonial, testamentary and ab intestate jurisdiction by 20 & 21 Vict. c. 77 (testamentary, &c., England), c. 79 (testamentary, &c., Ireland), c. 85 (matrimonial, England); 33 & 34 Vict. c. 110 (matrimonial, Ireland). Matrimonial jurisdiction was taken from the bishop of Sodor and Man in 1884. (2) Since 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 71, tithe has become, except in a few rare cases, tithe rent charge, and its recovery has been entirely an operation of secular law. Most kinds of offerings are now recoverable in secular courts. (3) Administration of pious gifts has passed to the court of chancery. (4) The enforcement of contractual promises has long been abandoned by the courts Christian themselves. (5) Church rates can no longer be enforced by suit (31 & 32 Vict. c. 109). (6) Defamation was taken away in England by 18 & 19 Vict. c. 41, and in Ireland by 23 & 24 Vict. c. 32. (7) Laymen can no longer be tried in the spiritual courts for offences against clerks. (8) The jurisdiction for “brawling” in church, &c., is taken away by 23 & 24 Vict. c. 32 in the case of the laity. In the case of persons in holy orders there is a concurrent jurisdiction of the two tribunals (Valancy v. Fletcher, 1897, 1 Q.B. 265). This was an offence very frequently prosecuted in the courts Christian (see A.J. Stephens, Ecclesiastical Statutes, i. 336).

The existing ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England is therefore now confined to the following points. (1) Discipline of the clergy. (2) Discipline of the laity in respect of sexual offences as already stated. (3) Control of lay office-bearers, church-wardens, sidesmen, organists, parish clerks, sextons. (4) Protection of the fabrics of churches, of churchyards, ornaments, fittings, &c., sanctioning by licence or faculty any additions or alterations, and preventing or punishing unauthorized dealings by proceedings on the criminal side of the courts. (5) Claims by individuals to particular seats in church or special places of sepulture. (6) Rare cases of personal or special tithes, offerings or pensions claimed by incumbents of benefices. In the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands courts Christian have now jurisdiction substantially as in England. In Jersey and in Guernsey there are courts of first instance with appeal to the bishop of Winchester. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Ireland was as in England till the Irish Church was disestablished in 1869 by 32 & 33 Vict. c. 42.

The position of a disestablished or an unestablished Church is comparatively modern, and has given rise to new jural conceptions. These Churches are collegia licita and come within the liberty of association so freely conceded in modern times. The relations of their bishops, priests or other ministers and lay office-bearers inter se and to their lay folk depend upon contract; and these contracts will be enforced by the ordinary courts of law. A consensual ecclesiastical jurisdiction is thus created, which has to this extent temporal sanction. In foro conscientiae spiritual censures canonically imposed are as binding and ecclesiastical jurisdiction is as powerful as ever.

Into the British-settled colonies no bishops were sent till 1787; and consequently there were no regular courts Christian. The bishop of London was treated as the diocesan bishop of the colonists in North America; and in order to provide for testamentary and matrimonial jurisdiction it was usual in the letters patent appointing the governor of a colony to name him ordinary. In New York state there is still a court called the surrogates court, surrogate being the regular name for a deputy ecclesiastical judge. In Lower Canada, by treaty, the Roman Catholic Church remained established.

Throughout the United States, whatever may have been the position in some of them before their independence, the Church has now no position recognized by the State, but is just a body of believers whose relations are governed by contract and with whom ecclesiastical jurisdiction is consensual.

The position is the same now through all the British colonies (except, as already mentioned, Lower Canada or Quebec). From 1787 onwards, colonial bishops and metropolitans were appointed by letters patent which purported to give them jurisdiction for disciplinary purposes. But a series of cases, of which the most remarkable was that Re the Bishop of Natal (3 Moore P.C. N.S. A.D. 1864), decided that in colonies possessing self-governing legislatures such letters patent were of no value; and soon after the crown ceased to issue them, even for crown colonies.

In India the metropolitan of Calcutta and the bishops of Madras and Bombay have some very limited jurisdiction which is conferred by letters patent under the authority of the statutes 53 Geo. III. c. 155 and 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 85. But the other Indian bishops have no position recognized by the State and no jurisdiction, except consensual.

The Church had the same jurisdiction in Scotland, and exercised it through similar courts to those which she had in England and France, till about 1570. As late as 1566 Archbishop Hamilton of Glasgow, upon his appointment, had restitution of his jurisdiction in the probate of testaments and other matters (Keith, History of the Scottish Bishops, Edinburgh, 1824, p. 38). There was an interval of uncertainty, with at any rate titular bishops, till 1592. Then parliament enacted a new system of Church courts which, though to some extent in its turn superseded by the revival of episcopacy under James VI., was revived or ratified by the act of 1690, c. 7, and stands to this day. It is a Presbyterian system, and the Scottish Episcopal Church is a disestablished and voluntary body since 1690.

The Presbyterian courts thus created are arranged in ascending order:—

(a) Kirk Session consists of the minister of the parish and the “ruling elders” (who are elected by the session). It has cognizance of scandalous offences by laymen and punishes them by deprivation of religious privileges. It does not judge ministers (Brodie-Innes, Comparative Principles of the Laws of England and Scotland, 1903, p. 144).

(b) The Presbytery has jurisdiction, partly appellate and partly original, over a number of parishes. There are now eighty-four presbyteries. These courts consist of every parochial minister or professor of divinity of any university within the limits, and of an elder commissioned from every kirk session. A minister is elected to preside as moderator. These courts judge ministers in first instance for scandalous conduct. As civil courts they judge in first instance all questions connected with glebes and the erection and repair of churches and manses. They regulate matters concerning public worship and ordinances, and have appellate jurisdiction from the kirk session.

(c) The Provincial Synod consists of a union of three or more presbyteries with the same members. There are now sixteen. They meet twice a year to hear appeals from presbyteries. No appeal can go direct to the General Assembly, omisso medio, unless the presbytery have so expressly directed, or unless there be no meeting of synod after the decision of the presbytery before the meeting of General Assembly.

(d) The General Assembly is the supreme ecclesiastical court of this system. It meets annually. The king’s “lord high commissioner” attends the sittings; but does not intervene or take part in the court’s decisions. The court consists of ministers and elders, elected from the presbyteries in specified proportions, and of commissioners from the four universities, the city of Edinburgh and the royal burghs. The Presbyterian Church in India sends one minister and one elder. The whole Assembly consists of 371 ministers and 333 elders. The jurisdiction is entirely appellate. The Assembly appoints a commission to exercise some of its functions during the intervals of its session. To this commission may be referred the cognizance of particular matters.

Questions of patronage now (by 37 & 38 Vict. c. 82) belong to the Church courts; but not questions of lapse or stipend. Seats, seat rents, pews, the union and disjunction of parishes and formation of district parishes are of secular jurisdiction. Questions of tithes (or “teinds”) and ministers’ stipends were referred to commissioners by acts of the Scots parliaments beginning in 1607. The commissioners of teinds became a species of ecclesiastical court. By Scots act of 1707, c. 9, their powers were transferred to the judges of the court of session, who now constitute a “teind court” (Brodie-Innes, op. cit. pp. 138, 139). Matrimonial matters and those relating to wills and succession (called in Scotland “consistorial” causes) were in 1563 taken from the old bishops’ courts and given to “commissaries” appointed by the crown with an appeal to the court of session, which by act 1609, c. 6, was declared the king’s great consistory. They have remained matters of secular jurisdiction.

The Scots ecclesiastical courts are entitled to the assistance of the secular courts to carry out their jurisdiction by “due assistance.” Within the limits of their jurisdiction they are supreme. But if a court go outside its jurisdiction, or refuse to exercise powers conferred on it by law, the civil court may “reduce” (i.e. set aside) the sentence and award damages to the party aggrieved.

With the Reformation in the 16th century, Church courts properly speaking disappeared from the non-episcopal religious communities which were established in Holland, in the Protestant states of Switzerland and of Germany, and in the then non-episcopal countries of Denmark and Norway.

Discipline over ministers and other office-bearers was exercised by administrative methods in the form of trials before consistories or synods. To this extent ecclesiastical jurisdiction is still exercised in these countries. Consistories and synods have exercised discipline of a penitential kind over their lay members; but in later times their censures have generally ceased to carry temporal consequences. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the civil side for the trial of causes soon disappeared. Heresy has been treated as a crime to be tried in and punished by the ordinary courts of the country, as in the cases of Servetus (q.v.) and Grotius (q.v.).

For the episcopal churches of Sweden and Finland the first constitution or “Church order” was formed in 1571. It provided for the visitation of the clergy by the bishop, and for the power of the clergy to exclude their lay folk from the Holy Communion, subject to appeal to the bishop. Both minor and major excommunication had been in use, and for a long time public penance was required. The procedure underwent great modification in 1686; but public penance was not taken away till 1855, and then confession to and absolution by the priest in the presence of witnesses was still required. Civil jurisdiction in causes appears to have been given up early (Cornelius, Svenska Kirkaus Historia, Upsala, 1875, pp. 146, 186, 189, 285).

Over the rest of western continental Europe and in the colonies of Spain, Portugal and France, ecclesiastical jurisdiction remained generally in the state which we have already described till near the end of the 18th century. The council of Trent took away the jurisdiction of archdeacons in marriage questions. The testamentary jurisdiction disappeared (as already stated) in France. Disputed cases of contract were more often tried in the secular courts. Recourse to the secular prince by way of appel comme d’abus, or otherwise, became more frequent and met with greater encouragement. Kings began to insist upon trying ecclesiastics for treason or other political crimes in secular courts. So under the advice of his minister (the marquis of Pombal), King Joseph of Portugal in 1759-1760 claimed that the pope should give him permission to try in all cases clerics accused of treason, and was not content with the limited permission given to try and execute, if guilty, the Jesuits then accused of conspiring his death (Life of Pombal, by Count da Carnota, 1871, pp. 128, 141). But there was no sudden change in the position of the courts Christian till the French Revolution.

In France a law of the Revolution (September 1790) purported to suppress all ecclesiastical jurisdictions. On the re-establishing of the Catholic religion on the basis of the new Concordat, promulgated 18 Germinal, year X. (April 8, 1802), no express provision was made for ecclesiastical jurisdictions; but several bishops did create new ecclesiastical tribunals, “officialities” (Migne, Dict. de droit canon., s.v.). The government in some cases recognized these tribunals as capable of judging ecclesiastical causes (Migne, ubi sup.). In 1810 the diocesan official of Paris entertained the cause between Napoleon and Josephine, and pronounced a decree of nullity (Migne, ubi sup. s.v. “Causes”). Such litigation as still continued before the spiritual forum was, however, confined (save in the case of the matrimonial questions of princes) to the professional conduct of the clergy.

Such neighbouring countries as were conquered by France or revolutionized after her pattern took the same course of suppressing their ecclesiastical jurisdictions. After 1814, some of these jurisdictions were revived. But the matter is now determined for all countries which have adopted codes, whether after the pattern of the Code Napoléon or otherwise. These countries have created a hierarchy of temporal courts competent to deal with every matter of which law takes cognizance, and a penal code which embraces and deals with all crimes or delicts which the state recognizes as offences. Hence, even in countries where the Roman Church is established, such as Belgium, Italy, the Catholic states of Germany and cantons of Switzerland, most of the Latin republics of America, and the province of Quebec, and a fortiori where this Church is not established, there is now no discipline over the laity, except penitential, and no jurisdiction exercised in civil suits, except possibly the matrimonial questions of princes (of which there was an example in the case of the reigning prince of Monaco). In Spain causes of nullity and divorce a thoro, in Portugal causes of nullity between Catholics, are still for the court Christian. In Peru, the old ecclesiastical matrimonial jurisdiction substantially remains (Lehr, Le Mariage dans les principaux pays, 1899, arts. 362, 797, 772, 781). Otherwise these three countries are Code countries. In Austria, the ancient ecclesiastical jurisdiction was taken away by various acts of legislation from 1781 to 1856; even voluntary jurisdiction as to dispensations. The Concordat of 1856 and consequent legislation restored matrimonial jurisdiction to the courts Christian over marriages between Roman Catholics. In 1868 this was taken away. The Austrian bishops, however, maintain their tribunals for spiritual purposes, and insist that such things as divorce a vinculo must be granted by their authority (Aichner, Compendium juris ecclesiastici, pp. 551-553).

By consent and submission of her members, the Roman Church decides in foro conscientiae questions of marriage, betrothal and legitimacy everywhere; but no temporal consequences follow except in Spain, Portugal and Peru.

The position in France was the same as that in Belgium, Italy, &c., till 1906, when the Church ceased to be established. The only Latin countries in which conflict has not arisen appear to be the principality of Andorra and the republic of San Marino (Giron y Areas, Situación jurídica de la Iglesia Católica, Madrid, 1905, p. 173 et seq.).

Even as to the discipline of the Roman clergy it is only in certain limited cases that one can speak of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Bishops and beneficed incumbents (curés) must be regularly tried; and where the Church is established the canonical courts are recognized. But the majority of parishes are served by mere desservants or vicaires, who have no rights and can be recalled and dismissed by mere administrative order without trial (Migne, ubi sup. s.v. “Inamovibilité,” “Desservants”).

The Napoleonic legislation re-established the appel comme d’abus (“Articles organiques,” art. 6). The recourse was now to the council of state (see Migne, ubi supra, “Officialité”). But the revocation of a desservant, and the forbidding him the execution of his ministry in the diocese, was not a case in which the council of state would interfere (Migne, ubi sup. “Appel comme d’abus,” “Conseil d’état”).

In those provinces of the Anglican communion where the Church is not established by the state, the tendency is not to attempt any external discipline over the laity; but on the other hand to exercise consensual jurisdiction over the clergy and office-bearers through courts nearly modelled on the old canonical patterns.

In the Roman communion, on the other hand, both where the Church is established and where it is not, the tendency is to reduce the status of curé to that of desservant, and to deal with all members of the priestly or lower orders by administrative methods. This practice obtains in all missionary countries, e.g. Ireland and also in Belgium (S.B. Smith, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law, New York, i. 197 et seq.; p. 403 et seq.; Tauber, Manuale juris canonici, Sabariae, 1904, p. 277). In the United States, the 3rd plenary council of Baltimore in 1884 provided that one rector out of ten should be irremovable (Smith, op. cit. i. 197, 419). In England there are few Roman “benefices” (E. Taunton, Law of the Church, London, 1906, s.v. “Benefice”). A desservant has an informal appeal, by way of recourse, to the metropolitan and ultimately to the pope (Smith, op. cit. p. 201). The bishop’s “official” is now universally called his vicar-general (except in France, where sometimes an official is appointed eo nomine), and generally exercises both voluntary and contentious jurisdiction (op. cit. i. 377). As of old, he must be at least tonsured and without a wife living. At the Vatican Council, a desire was expressed that he should be a priest (ib.). He should be a doctor in theology or a licentiate in canon law (ib. p. 378). Whether a bishop is bound to appoint a vicar-general is still disputed (ib. p. 380; cf. supra; contra, Bouix, Inst. Juris Canon. De Judic. i. 405). In 1831 the pope enacted that in all the dioceses of the then Pontifical States, the court of first instance for the criminal causes of ecclesiastics should consist of the ordinary and four other judges. In the diocese of Rome, the court of the cardinal vicar-general consists of such vicar-general and four other prelates (Smith, ubi supra). In the Roman communion in England and the United States, there are commissions of investigation appointed to hear in first instance the criminal causes of clerks. They consist of five, or at least three, priests nominated by the bishop in and with the advice of the diocesan synod. In the United States, since 1884, the bishop presides on these commissions. They report their opinions to the bishop, who passes final sentence (ib. ii. 129-131).

“Exemptions” now include all the regular religious orders, i.e. those orders which have solemn vows. Over the members of these orders their superiors have jurisdiction and not the bishop. Otherwise if they live out of their monastery, or even within that enclosure so notoriously offend as to cause scandal. In the first case, they may be punished by the ordinary of the place, acting as delegate of the pope without special appointment (Conc. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 3). In the second case, the bishop may require the superior to punish within a certain time and to certify the punishment to him; in default he himself may punish (Conc. Trid. Sess. xxv. c. 14, cf. Smith, op. cit. i. 204-206). So, regulars having cure of souls are subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop in matters pertaining thereto (ib. p. 206). The exemption of regular religious orders may be extended to religious societies without solemn vows by special concession of the pope, as in the case of the Passionists and Redemptorists (ib. p. 205; Sanguineti, Juris ecc. inst., Rome, 1800, pp. 393, 394).

Appeal lies, in nearly all cases, to the metropolitan (Smith, op. cit. pp. 219-223). Metropolitans usually now have a metropolitan tribunal distinct from their diocesan court (ib. ii. 141), but constructed on the same lines, with the metropolitan as judge and his vicar-general as vice-judge. In some “missionary” dioceses, the metropolitan, qua metropolitan, has a separate commission of investigation, to try the criminal causes of clerks, sentence being passed by himself or his vicar-general (ib. p. 142).

The next step in the hierarchy, that of “primates” (supra), has “in the present state of the Church” ceased to exist for our purpose (Sanguineti, op. cit. p. 334), as a result of Tridentine legislation. The only appellate jurisdiction from the metropolitans is the Roman See. To it also lies a direct appeal from the court of first instance, omisso medio (Smith, op. cit. i. 224). The pope’s immediate and original jurisdiction in every diocese is now expressly affirmed by the Vatican Council (ib. p. 239). That original jurisdiction he reserves exclusively to himself in causis majoribus (ib. pp. 249-250). These are (1) causes relating to elections, translations and deprivations of, and criminal prosecutions against, bishops, and (2) the matrimonial cases of princes (Taunton, op. cit. s.v. “Cause”).

In the Eastern Church, the early system of ecclesiastical judicature long continued. But a sacred character was ascribed to the emperors. They are “anointed lords like the bishops” (Balsamon, in Conc. Ancyr. Can. xii., representing the view of the 12th and 13th centuries). Bishops were often deposed by administrative order of the emperor; synods being expected afterwards to confirm, or rather accept, such order. The germ of this dealing with a major causa may be found in the practice of the Arian emperors in the 4th century. The cause of Ignatius and Photius was dealt with in the 9th century by various synods; those in the East agreeing with the emperor’s view for the time being, while those in the West acted with the pope. (The details are in Mansi, Conc. in locis, and in Hefele, Conc. in locis, more briefly. They are summarized in Landon, Manual of Councils, s.v. “Constantinople,” “Rome,” and in E.S. Foulkes, Manual of Ecclesiastical History, s.v. “Century IX.”) Since these transactions patriarchs have been deposed by the Byzantine emperors; and the Turkish sultans since the 15th century have assumed to exercise the same prerogative.

The spiritual courts in the East have permanently acquired jurisdiction in the matrimonial causes of baptized persons; the Mahommedan governments allowing to Christians a personal law of their own. The patriarch of Constantinople is enabled to exercise an extensive criminal jurisdiction over Christians (Neale, Hist. of the Eastern Church, i. 30, 31).

The empire of Russia has in the matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction partly developed into other forms, partly systematized 4th century and later Byzantine rules. The provincial system does not exist; or it may be said that all Russia is one province. An exception should be made in the case of Georgia, which is governed by an “exarch,” with three suffragans under him. In the remainder of the empire the titles of metropolitan, save in the case of the metropolitan of all Russia, and of archbishop, were and are purely honorary, and their holders have merely a diocesan jurisdiction (see Mouravieff, History of the Russian Church, translated Blackmore, 1842, translator’s notes at pp. 370, 390, 416 et seq.). So in Egypt the bishop or “pope” (afterwards patriarch) of Alexandria was the only true metropolitan (Neale, History of the Eastern Church, Gen. Introd. vol. i. p. 111). The metropolitan of Russia from the time of the conversion (A.D. 988) settled at Kiev, and his province was part of the patriarchate of Constantinople, and appeals lay to Constantinople. Many such appeals were taken, notably in the case of Leon, bishop of Rostov (Mouravieff, op. cit. p. 38). The metropolitical see was for a short time transferred to Vladimir and then finally to Moscow (Mouravieff, chs. iv., v.). After the taking of Constantinople in 1452, the Russian metropolitans were always chosen and consecrated in Russia, appeals ceased, and Moscow became de facto autocephalous (Joyce, ubi sup. p. 379; Mouravieff, op. cit. p. 126). The tsar Theodore in 1587 exercised the power of the Byzantine emperors by deposing the metropolitan, Dionysius Grammaticus (Mouravieff, p. 125). In 1587 the see of Moscow was raised to patriarchal rank with the consent of Constantinople, and the subsequent concurrence of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem (ib. c. vi.). Moscow became the final court, in theory, as it had long been in practice. Certain religious houses, however, had their own final tribunals and were “peculiars,” exempt from any diocesan or patriarchal jurisdiction for at least all causes relating to Church property (ib. p. 131).

The subject matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Russia during the whole patriarchal period included matrimonial and testamentary causes, inheritance and sacrilege, and many questions concerning the Church domains and Church property, as well as spiritual offences of clergy and laity (ib.). The bishops had consistorial courts; the patriarchs, chanceries and consistories (ib.). Bishops were judged in synod (see, e.g. the case of the archbishop of Polotsk in 1622, ib. p. 179) and only lawfully judged in synod (ib. p. 215).

Clerks and the dependants of the metropolitan (afterwards the patriarch) appear to have been immune from secular jurisdiction, except in the case of crimes against life, from the time of Ivan the Terrible (ib. pp. 180-181). The tsar Michael, in the earlier 17th century, confirmed these immunities in the case of the clergy of the patriarch’s own diocese, but provided that in country places belonging to his diocese, monasteries, churches and lands should be judged in secular matters by the Court of the Great Palace, theoretically held before the tsar himself (ib. p. 181). This tsar limited the “peculiar” monasteries to three, and gave the patriarch jurisdiction over them (ib.). The next tsar, Alexis, however, by his code instituted a “Monastery Court,” which was a secular tribunal composed of laymen, to judge in civil suits against spiritual persons, and in matters arising out of their manors and properties (ib. p. 193). This court was not in operation during the time when the patriarch Nikon was also in effect first minister; but upon his decline exercised its full jurisdiction (ib. p. 216). Nikon was himself tried for abdicating his see, causing disorder in the realm, oppression and violence, first before a synod of Moscow composed of his suffragans and some Greek bishops, and afterwards before another synod in which sat the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, the metropolitans of Servia and Georgia, the archbishops of Sinai and Wallachia, and the metropolitans of Nice, Amasis, Iconium, Trebizond, Varna and Scio, besides the Russian bishops. This synod in 1667 deposed Nikon, degraded him from holy orders, and sentenced him to perpetual penance in a monastery (ib. pp. 220-232). The next tsar, Theodore, suppressed the secular “monastery court,” and directed that all suits against spiritual persons should proceed only in the patriarchal “court of requests” (ib. p. 264). There was, however, a species of appel comme d’abus. Causes could be evoked to the tsar himself, “when any partiality of the judges in any affair in which they themselves were interested was discovered” (ib.).

The old system was swept away by Peter the Great, who settled ecclesiastical jurisdiction substantially on its present basis. The patriarchate was abolished and its jurisdiction transferred by a council at St Petersburg in 1721 to a Holy Governing Synod. The change was approved by the four patriarchs of the East in 1723 (ib. chs. xv.-xvii.). Peter permanently transferred to the secular forum the testamentary jurisdiction and that concerning inheritance, as also questions of “sacrilege” (ib. p. 264). As the result of a long series of legislation, beginning with him and ending with Catherine II., all church property of every kind was transferred to secular administration, allowances, according to fixed scales, being made for ministers, monks and fabrics (op. cit. translator’s appendix i. p. 413 et seq.). There remain to the spiritual courts in Russia the purely ecclesiastical discipline of clerks and laity and matrimonial causes.

The court of first instance is the “consistorial court” of the bishop. This consists of a small body of ecclesiastics. Its decisions must be confirmed by the bishop (op. cit. translator’s appendix ii. pp. 422-423). In the more important causes, as divorce (i.e. a vinculo), it only gives a provisional decision, which is reported by the bishop, with his own opinion, for final judgment, to the Most Holy Governing Synod.

The governing synod is the final court of appeal. It consists of a small number of bishops and priests nominated by the tsar, and is assisted by a “procurator,” who is a layman, who explains to it the limits of its jurisdiction and serves as the medium of communication between it and the autocrat and secular authorities. It deals with the secular crimes of spiritual persons, if of importance and if not capital (these last being reserved for the secular forum), and with heresy and schism. It is the only court which can try bishops or decree divorce. The tsar formally confirms its judgments; but sometimes reduces penalties in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy (see Mouravieff, op. cit. ch. xvii. translator’s app. ii.).

The governing synod now sits at St Petersburg, but appoints delegated commissions, with a portion of its jurisdiction, in Moscow and Georgia. The latter commission is presided over by the “exarch” (supra).

Since the War of Independence, the kingdom of Greece has been ecclesiastically organized after the model of Russia, as one autocephalous “province,” separated from its old patriarchate of Constantinople, with an honorary metropolitan and honorary archbishops (Neale, op. cit. Gen. Introd. vol. i.). The Holy Synod possesses the metropolitical jurisdiction. It sits at Athens. The metropolitan of Athens is president, and there are four other members appointed by the government in annual rotation from the senior bishops. There is attached to it a government commissioner, with no vote, but affixing his signature to the synodical judgments (Joyce, op. cit. p. 35).

The subject matter of the jurisdiction of Hellenic courts Christian seems to be confined to strictly spiritual discipline, mainly in regard to the professional misconduct of the clergy. Imprisonment may be inflicted in these last cases (ib.). All matrimonial causes are heard by the secular tribunals (Lehr, op. cit. sec. 587).

The bishop’s consistorial court, consisting of himself and four priests, has a limited jurisdiction in first instance. Such a court can only suspend for seven days unless with the sanction of the Holy Synod (Joyce, op. cit.).

The Holy Synod can only inflict temporary suspension, or imprisonment for fifteen days, unless with the sanction of the King’s ministry. Deprivation, or imprisonment for more than two months, requires the approval of the king (ib.). The king or the ministry do not, however, rehear the cause by way of appeal, but merely restrain severity of sentence (ib.).

The Church of Cyprus has been autocephalous since at any rate the oecumenical synod of Ephesus in 431. The episcopate now consists of an archbishop and three suffragans (Hackett, Orthodox Church in Cyprus, 1901, ch. v. et passim). The final court is the island synod, which consists of the archbishop, his suffragans and four dignified priests. It has original and exclusive cognizance of causes of deposition of bishops (op. cit. pp. 260, 262).

Each bishop is assisted by at least two officers with judicial or quasi-judicial powers, the “archimandrite” who adjudicates upon causes of revenue and the archdeacon who adjudicates on questions between deacons (op. cit. pp. 272-273). The “exarch” of the archbishop, who is a dignitary but not a bishop, has a seat in the provincial synod.

In the Balkan States, the system—inherited from Byzantine and Turkish times—of ecclesiastical jurisdictions prevails, except that they are now autocephalous, and independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Matrimonial causes in Servia are of ecclesiastical cognizance (Lehr, op. cit. sect. 901).

Authorities.—St Augustine, Epistles; Codex Theodosianus, edited by Th. Mommsen and P.M. Meyer (1905); Code and Novells of Emperor Justinian, ed. J. Gothofredus (1665); T. Balsamon, “In Conc. Ancyr.” in the Corpus juris canonici (1879-1881); “Hostiensis” Super Decretum; W. Lyndwood, Provinciale (Oxford, 1679); Sir A. Fitzherbert, Natura brevium (1534); Sir T. Ridley, View of the Civile and Ecclesiastical Law (1607); J. Ayliffe, Parergon juris ecclesiastici (1726); J. Godolphin, Abridgement of the Laws Ecclesiastical (London, 1687); E. Gibson, Codex juris ecclesiastici (Oxford, 1761); D. Covarruvias, Opera omnia (Antwerp, 1638); Jean Hardouin, Concilia (1715); J.D. Mansi, Concilia (1759-1798); E. Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (1704); L.S. le Nain de Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique (1701-1712); P.T. Durand de Maillane, Dictionnaire du droit canonique (1761); Dictionnaire ecclésiastique et canonique, par une société de religieux (Paris, 1765); Z.B. van Espen, Jus ecclesiasticum universum (Louvain, 1720), De recursu ad Principem, observationes in Concilium Lateranense iv.; L. Thomassin, Vetus et nova disciplina ecc. (1705-1706); W. Beveridge, Synodicon (Oxford, 1672); J.A.S. da Carnota, Life of Pombal (1843); J.P. Migne, Dictionnaire de droit canon. (Paris, 1844); R. Keith, History of the Scottish Bishops (Edinburgh, 1824); P.N. Vives y Cebriá, Usages y demas derechos de Cataluña (1832); C.A. Cornelius, Svenska Kyrkaus Historia (Upsala, 1875); Mouravieff, History of the Russian Church (trans. Blackmore, 1842); Ffoulkes, Manual of Ecclesiastical History (1851); E.H. Landon, Manual of Councils of the Church (1893); W.H. Hale, Precedents in Criminal Cases (London, 1847); E.B. Pusey, Councils of the Church (Oxford, 1857); C.J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte (Freiburg, 1855-1890); M. Gaudry, Traité de la législation des cultes (Paris, 1854); W. Stubbs, Select Charters (Oxford, 1895); A.W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford, 1869); A.J. Stephens, Ecclesiastical Statutes (1845); H.C. Rothery, Return of Cases before Delegates (1864); J.W. Joyce, The Sword and the Keys (2nd ed., 1881); Report of Ecclesiastical Courts Commission (1888); P. Fournier, Les Officialités au moyen âge (1880); S.B. Smith, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law (New York, 1889-1890); S. Sanguineti, Juris ecc. inst. (Rome, 1890); J.F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England (London, 1883); Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before Edward I. (1898); F.W. Maitland, Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (1898); R. Owen, Canon Law (1884); Sir R.J. Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law (2nd ed., 1895); J.W. Brodie-Innes, Comparative Principles of the Laws of England and Scotland (1903); R.B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (1902); S. Aichner, Compendium juris ecclesiast. (8th ed., Brixen, 1905, especially in regard to Austro-Hungarian Empire); J. Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus (1901); Tauber, Manuale juris canonici (1906); E.L. Taunton, Law of the Church (London, 1906); Report of Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline (1906).

(W. G. F. P.)

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW, in its broadest sense, the sum of the authoritative rules governing the Christian Church, whether in its internal polity or in its relations with the secular power. Since there are various churches, widely differing alike in their principles and practice, it follows that a like difference exists in their ecclesiastical law, which is the outcome of their corporate consciousness as modified by their several relations to the secular authority. At the outset a distinction must be made between churches which are “established” and those that are “free.” The ecclesiastical laws of the latter are, like the rules of a private society or club, the concern of the members of the church only, and come under the purview of the state only in so far as they come in conflict with the secular law (e.g. polygamy among the Mormons, or violation of the trust-deeds under which the property of a church is held). In the case of “established” Churches, on the other hand, whatever the varying principle on which the system is based, or the difference in its practical application, the essential conditions are that the ecclesiastical law is also the law of the land, the decisions of the church courts being enforced by the civil power. This holds good both of the Roman Catholic Church, wherever this is recognized as the “state religion,” of the Oriental Churches, whether closely identified with the state itself (as in Russia), or endowed with powers over particular nationalities within the state (as in the Ottoman empire), and of the various Protestant Churches established in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe.

Writers on the theory of ecclesiastical law, moreover, draw a fundamental distinction between that of the Church of Rome and that of the Protestant national or territorial Churches. This distinction is due to the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to be the only Church, her laws being thus of universal obligation; whereas the laws of the various established Protestant Churches are valid—at least so far as legal obligation is concerned—only within the limits of the countries in which they are established. The practical effects of this distinction have been, and still are, of enormous importance. The Roman Catholic Church, even when recognized as the state religion, is nowhere “established” in the sense of being identified with the state, but is rather an imperium in imperio which negotiates on equal terms with the state, the results being embodied in concordats (q.v.) between the state and the pope as head of the Church. The concordats are of the nature of truces in the perennial conflict between the spiritual and secular powers, and imply in principle no surrender of the claims of the one to those of the other. Where the Roman Catholic Church is not recognized as a state religion, as in the United States or in the British Islands, she is in the position of a “free Church,” her jurisdiction is only in foro conscientiae, and her ecclesiastical laws have no validity from the point of view of the state. On the other hand, the root principle of the ecclesiastical law of the established Protestant Churches is the rejection of alien jurisdiction and the assertion of the supremacy of the state. The theory underlying this may vary. The sovereign may be regarded, as in the case of the Russian emperor or of the English kings from the Reformation to the Revolution, as the vicar of God in all causes spiritual as well as temporal within his realm. As the first fervent belief in the divine right of kings faded, however, a new basis had to be discovered for a relation between the spiritual and temporal powers against which Rome had never ceased to protest. This was found in the so-called “collegial” theory of Church government (Kollegialsystem), which assumed a sort of tacit concordat between the state and the religious community, by which the latter vests in the former the right to exercise a certain part of the jus in sacra properly inherent in the Church (see Pufendorf, Samuel). This had great and lasting effects on the development of the theory of Protestant ecclesiastical law on the continent of Europe. In England, on the other hand, owing to the peculiar character of the Reformation there and of the Church that was its outcome, no theory of the ecclesiastical law is conceivable that would be satisfactory at once to lawyers and to all schools of opinion within the Church. This has been abundantly proved by the attitude of increasing opposition assumed by the clergy, under the influence of the Tractarian movement, towards the civil power in matters ecclesiastical, an attitude impossible to justify on any accepted theory of the Establishment (see below).

Protestant ecclesiastical law, then, is distinguished from that of the Roman Catholic Church (1) by being more limited in its scope, (2) by having for its authoritative source, not the Church only or even mainly, but the Church in more or less complete union with or subordination to the State, the latter being considered, equally with the Church, as an organ of the will of God. The ecclesiastical law of the Church of Rome, on the other hand, whatever its origin, is now valid only in so far as it has the sanction of the authority of the Holy See. And here it must be noted that the “canon law” is not identical with the “ecclesiastical law” of the Roman Catholic Church. By the canon law is meant, substantially, the contents of the Corpus juris canonici, which have been largely superseded or added to by, e.g. the canons of the council of Trent and the Vatican decrees. The long projected codification of the whole of the ecclesiastical law of the Church of Rome, a work of gigantic labour, was not taken in hand until the pontificate of Pius X. (See also Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.)

The ecclesiastical law of England is in complete dependence upon the authority of the state. The Church of England cannot be said, from a legal point of view, to have a corporate existence or even a representative assembly. The Convocation of York and the Convocation of Canterbury are provincial assemblies possessing no legislative or judicial authority; even such purely ecclesiastical questions as may be formally commended to their attention by “letters of business” from the crown can only be finally settled by act of parliament. The ecclesiastical courts are for the most part officered by laymen, whose subordination to the archbishops and bishops is purely formal, and the final court of appeal is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In like manner changes in the ecclesiastical law are made directly by parliament in the ordinary course of legislation, and in point of fact a very large portion of the existing ecclesiastical law consists of acts of parliament.

The sources of the ecclesiastical law of England are thus described by Dr. Richard Burn (The Ecclesiastical Law, 9th ed., 1842):—“The ecclesiastical law of England is compounded of these four main ingredients—the civil law, the canon law, the common law, and the statute law. And from these, digested in their proper rank and subordination, to draw out one uniform law of the church is the purport of this book. When these laws do interfere and cross each other, the order of preference is this:—’The civil law submitteth to the canon law; both of these to the common law; and all three to the statute law. So that from any one or more of these, without all of them together, or from all of them together without attending to their comparative obligation, it is not possible to exhibit any distinct prospect of the English ecclesiastical constitution.’ Under the head of statute law Burn includes ‘the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, agreed upon in Convocation in the year 1562; and in like manner the Rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, which, being both of them established by Acts of Parliament, are to be esteemed as part of the statute law.’”

The first principle of the ecclesiastical law in England is the assertion of the supremacy of the crown, which in the present state of the constitution means the same thing as the supremacy of parliament. This principle has been maintained ever since the Reformation. Before the Reformation the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope was recognized, with certain limitations, in England, and the Church itself had some pretensions to ecclesiastical freedom. The freedom of the Church is, in fact, one of the standing provisions of those charters on which the English constitution was based. The first provision of Magna Carta is quod ecclesia Anglicana libera sit. By the various enactments of the period of the Reformation the whole constitutional position of the Church, not merely with reference to the pope but with reference to the state, was definitely fixed. The legislative power of convocation was held to extend to the clergy only, and even to that extent required the sanction and assent of the crown. The common law courts controlled the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, claiming to have “the exposition of such statutes or acts of parliament as concern either the extent of the jurisdiction of these courts or the matters depending before them. And therefore if these courts either refuse to allow these acts of parliament, or expound them in any other sense than is truly and properly the exposition of them, the king’s great courts of common law may prohibit and control them.”

The design of constructing a code of ecclesiastical laws was entertained during the period of the Reformation, but never carried into effect. It is alluded to in various statutes of the reign of Henry VIII., who obtained power to appoint a commission to examine the old ecclesiastical laws, with a view of deciding which ought to be kept and which ought to be abolished; and in the meantime it was enacted that “such canons, institutions, ordinances, synodal or provincial or other ecclesiastical laws or jurisdictions spiritual as be yet accustomed and used here in the Church of England, which necessarily and conveniently are requisite to be put in ure and execution for the time, not being repugnant, contrarient, or derogatory to the laws or statutes of the realm, nor to the prerogatives of the royal crown of the same, or any of them, shall be occupied, exercised, and put in ure for the time with this realm” (35 Henry VIII. c. 16, 25 c. 19, 27 c. 8).

The work was actually undertaken and finished in the reign of Edward VI. by a sub-committee of eight persons, under the name of the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, which, however, never obtained the royal assent. Although the powers of the 25 Henry VIII. c. 1 were revived by the 1 Elizabeth c. 1, the scheme was never executed, and the ecclesiastical laws remained on the footing assigned to them in that statute—so much of the old ecclesiastical laws might be used as had been actually in use, and was not repugnant to the laws of the realm.

The statement is, indeed, made by Sir R. Phillimore (Ecclesiastical Law, 2nd ed., 1895) that the “Church of England has at all times, before and since the Reformation, claimed the right of an independent Church in an independent kingdom, to be governed by the laws which she has deemed it expedient to adopt.” This position can only be accepted if it is confined, as the authorities cited for it are confined, to the resistance of interference from abroad. If it mean that the Church, as distinguished from the kingdom, has claimed to be governed by laws of her own making, all that can be said is that the claim has been singularly unsuccessful. From the time of the Reformation no change has been made in the law of the Church which has not been made by the king and parliament, sometimes indirectly, as by confirming the resolutions of convocation, but for the most part by statute. The list of statutes cited in Sir R. Phillimore’s Ecclesiastical Law fills eleven pages. It is only by a kind of legal fiction akin to the “collegial” theory mentioned above, that the Church can be said to have deemed it expedient to adopt these laws.

The terms on which the Church Establishment of Ireland was abolished, by the Irish Council Act of 1869, may be mentioned. By sect. 20 the present ecclesiastical law was made binding on the members for the time being of the Church, “as if they had mutually contracted and agreed to abide by and observe the same”; and by section 21 it was enacted that the ecclesiastical courts should cease after the 1st of January 1871, and that the ecclesiastical laws of Ireland, except so far as relates to matrimonial causes and matters, should cease to exist as law. (See also England, Church of; Establishment; &c.)

Authorities.—The number of works on ecclesiastical law is very great, and it must suffice here to mention a few of the more conspicuous modern ones: Ferdinand Walter, Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts aller christlichen Konfessionen (14th ed., Bonn, 1871); G. Phillips, Kirchenrecht, Bde. i.-vii. (Regensburg, 1845-1872) incomplete; the text-book by Cardinal Hergenröther (q.v.); P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten in Deutschland, 6 Bde. (Berlin, 1869 sqq.), only the Catholic part, a masterly and detailed survey of the ecclesiastical law, finished; Sir Robert Phillimore, Eccl. Law of the Church of England (2nd ed., edited by Sir Walter Phillimore, 2 vols., London, 1895). For further references see Canon Law, and the article “Kirchenrecht” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. Leipzig, 1901).

ECCLESIASTICUS (abbreviated to Ecclus.), the alternative title given in the English Bible to the apocryphal book otherwise called “The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach.” The Latin word ecclesiasticus is, properly speaking, not a name, but an epithet meaning “churchly,” so that it would serve as a designation of any book which was read in church or received ecclesiastical sanction, but in practice Ecclesiasticus has become a by-name for the Wisdom of Sirach. The true name of the book appears in the authorities in a variety of forms, the variation affecting both the author’s name and the description of his book. The writer’s full name is given in l. 27 (Heb. text) as “Simeon the son of Jeshua (i.e. Jesus) the son of Eleazar the son of Sira.” In the Greek text this name appears as “Jesus son of Sirach Eleazar” (probably a corruption of the Hebrew reading), and the epithet “of Jerusalem” is added, the translator himself being resident in Egypt. The whole name is shortened sometimes to “Son of Sira,” Ben Sira in Hebrew, Bar Sira in Aramaic, and sometimes (as in the title prefixed in the Greek cod. B) to Sirach. The work is variously described as the Words (Heb. text), the Book (Talmud), the Proverbs (Jerome), or the Wisdom of the son of Sira (or Sirach).

Of the date of the book we have only one certain indication. It was translated by a person who says that he “came into Egypt in the 38th year of Euergetes the king” (Ptolemy VII.), i.e. in 132 B.C., and that he executed the work some time later. The translator believed that the writer of the original was his own grandfather (or ancestor, πάππος). It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the book was composed not later than the first half of the 2nd century B.C., or (if we give the looser meaning to πάππος) even before the beginning of the century. Arguments for a pre-Maccabean date may be derived (a) from the fact that the book contains apparently no reference to the Maccabean struggles, (b) from the eulogy of the priestly house of Zadok which fell into disrepute during these wars for independence.

In the Jewish Church Ecclesiasticus hovered on the border of the canon; in the Christian Church it crossed and recrossed the border. The book contains much which attracted and also much which repelled Jewish feeling, and it appears that it was necessary to pronounce against its canonicity. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 100 b) Rabbi Joseph says that it is forbidden to read (i.e. in the synagogue) the book of ben Sira, and further that “if our masters had not hidden the book (i.e. declared it uncanonical), we might interpret the good things which are in it” (Schechter, J. Q. Review, iii. 691-692). In the Christian Church it was largely used by Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 200) and by St Augustine. The lists of the Hebrew canon, however, given by Melito (c. A.D. 180) and by Origen (c. A.D. 230) rightly exclude Ecclesiasticus, and Jerome (c. A.D. 390-400) writes: “Let the Church read these two volumes (Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus) for the instruction of the people, not for establishing the authority of the dogmas of the Church” (Praefatio in libros Salomonis). In the chief MS. of the Septuagint, cod. B, Ecclesiasticus comes between Wisdom and Esther, no distinction being drawn between canonical and uncanonical. In the Vulgate it immediately precedes Isaiah. The council of Trent declared this book and the rest of the books reckoned in the Thirty-nine Articles as apocryphal to be canonical.

The text of the book raises intricate problems which are still far from solution. The original Hebrew (rediscovered in fragments and published between 1896 and 1900) has come down to us in a mutilated and corrupt form. The beginning as far as iii. 7 is lost. There is a gap from xvi. 26 to xxx. 11. There are marginal readings which show that two different recensions existed once in Hebrew. The Greek version exists in two forms—(a) that preserved in cod. B and in the other uncial MSS., (b) that preserved in the cursive codex 248 (Holmes and Parsons). The former has a somewhat briefer text, the latter agrees more closely with the Hebrew text. The majority of Greek cursives agree generally with the Latin Vulgate, and offer the fuller text in a corrupt form. The Syriac (Peshitta) version is paraphrastic, but on the whole it follows the Hebrew text. Owing to the mutilation of the Hebrew by the accidents of time the Greek version retains its place as the chief authority for the text, and references by chapter and verse are usually made to it.

Bickell and D.S. Margoliouth have supposed that the Hebrew text preserved in the fragments is not original, but a retranslation from the Greek or the Syriac or both. This view has not commended itself to the majority of scholars, but there is at least a residuum of truth in it. The Hebrew text, as we have it, has a history of progressive corruption behind it, and its readings can often be emended from the Septuagint, e.g. xxxvii. 11 (read ומירא על for the meaningless ומרר אל). The Hebrew marginal readings occasionally seem to be translations from the Greek or Syriac, e.g. xxxviii. 4 (ברא שמים for ἒκτισεν φάρμακα). More frequently, however, strange readings of the Greek and Syriac are to be explained as corruptions of our present Hebrew. Substantially our Hebrew must be pronounced original.

The restoration of a satisfactory text is beyond our hopes. Even before the Christian era the book existed in two recensions, for we cannot doubt, after reading the Greek translator’s preface, that the translator amplified and paraphrased the text before him. It is probable that at least one considerable omission must be laid to his charge, for the hymn preserved in the Hebrew text after ch. li. 12 is almost certainly original. Ancient translators allowed themselves much liberty in their work, and Ecclesiasticus possessed no reputation for canonicity in the 2nd century B.C. to serve as a protection for its text. Much, however, may be done towards improving two of the recensions which now lie before us. The incomplete Hebrew text exists in four different MSS., and the study of the peculiarities of these had already proved fruitful. The Syriac text, made without doubt from the Hebrew, though often paraphrastic is often suggestive. The Greek translation, made within a century or half-century of the writing of the book, must possess great value for the criticism of the Hebrew text. The work of restoring true Hebrew readings may proceed with more confidence now that we have considerable portions of the Hebrew text to serve as a model. For the restoration of the Greek text we have, besides many Greek MSS., uncial and cursive, the old Latin, the Syro-Hexaplar, the Armenian, Sahidic and Ethiopic versions, as well as a considerable number of quotations in the Greek and Latin Fathers. Each of the two recensions of the Greek must, however, be separately studied, before any restoration of the original Greek text can be attempted.

The uncertainty of the text has affected both English versions unfavourably. The Authorized Version, following the corrupt cursives, is often wrong. The Revised Version, on the other hand, in following the uncial MSS. sometimes departs from the Hebrew, while the Authorized Version with the cursives agrees with it. Thus the Revised Version (with codd. א*, A, B, C) omits the whole of iii. 19, which the Authorized Version retains, but for the clause, “Mysteries are revealed unto the meek,” the Authorized Version has the support of the Hebrew, Syriac and cod. 248. Sometimes both versions go astray in places in which the Hebrew text recommends itself as original by its vigour; e.g. in vii. 26, where the Hebrew is,

Hast thou a wife? abominate her not.

Hast thou a hated wife? trust not in her.

Again in ch. xxxviii. the Hebrew text in at least two interesting passages shows its superiority over the text which underlies both English versions.

Hebrew. Revised Version (similarly
Authorized Version).

ver. 1. Acquaint thyself with a physician before thou have need of him. Honour a physician according to thy need of him with the honours due unto him.

ver. 15. He that sinneth against his Maker will behave himself proudly against a physician. He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician.

In the second instance, while the Hebrew says that the man who rebels against his Heavenly Benefactor will a fortiori rebel against a human benefactor, the Greek text gives a cynical turn to the verse, “Let the man who rebels against his true benefactor be punished through the tender mercies of a quack.” The Hebrew text is probably superior also in xliv. 1, the opening words of the eulogy of the Fathers: “Let me now praise favoured men,” i.e. men in whom God’s grace was shown. The Hebrew phrase is “men of grace,” as in v. 10. The Greek text of v. 1, “famous men,” seems to be nothing but a loose paraphrase, suggested by v. 2, “The Lord manifested in them great glory.”

In character and contents Ecclesiasticus resembles the book of Proverbs. It consists mainly of maxims which may be described in turn as moral, utilitarian and secular. Occasionally the author attacks prevalent religious opinions, e.g. the denial of free-will (xv. 11-20), or the assertion of God’s indifference towards men’s actions (xxxv. 12-19). Occasionally, again, Ben Sira touches the highest themes, and speaks of the nature of God: “He is All” (xliii. 27); “He is One from everlasting” (xlii. 21, Heb. text); “The mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh” (xviii. 13). Though the book is imitative and secondary in character it contains several passages of force and beauty, e.g. ch. ii. (how to fear the Lord); xv. 11-20 (on free-will); xxiv. 1-22 (the song of wisdom); xlii. 15-25 (praise of the works of the Lord); xliv. 1-15 (the well-known praise of famous men). Many detached sayings scattered throughout the book show a depth of insight, or a practical shrewdness, or again a power of concise speech, which stamps them on the memory. A few examples out of many may be cited. “Call no man blessed before his death” (xi. 28); “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled” (xiii. 1); “He hath not given any man licence to sin” (xv. 20); “Man cherisheth anger against man; and doth he seek healing from the Lord?” (xxviii. 3); “Mercy is seasonable ... as clouds of rain” (xxxv. 20); “All things are double one against another: and he hath made nothing imperfect” (xlii. 24, the motto of Butler’s Analogy); “Work your work before the time cometh, and in his time he will give you your reward” (li. 30). In spite, however, of the words just quoted it cannot be said that Ben Sira preaches a hopeful religion. Though he prays, “Renew thy signs, and repeat thy wonders ... Fill Sion with thy majesty and thy Temple with thy glory” (xxxvi. 6, 14 , Heb. text), he does not look for a Messiah. Of the resurrection of the dead or of the immortality of the soul there is no word, not even in xli. 1-4, where the author exhorts men not to fear death. Like the Psalmist (Ps. lxxxviii. 10, 11) he asks, “Who shall give praise to the Most High in the grave?” In his maxims of life he shows a somewhat frigid and narrow mind. He is a pessimist as regards women; “From a woman was the beginning of sin; and because of her we all die” (xxv. 24). He does not believe in home-spun wisdom; “How shall he become wise that holdeth the plough?” (xxxviii. 25). Artificers are not expected to pray like the wise man; “In the handywork of their craft is their prayer” (v. 34). Merchants are expected to cheat; “Sin will thrust itself in between buying and selling” (xxvii. 2).

Bibliography.—The literature of Ecclesiaticus has grown very considerably since the discovery of the first Hebrew fragment in 1896. A useful summary of it is found at the end of Israel Levi’s article, “Sirach,” in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Eberhard Nestle’s article in Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible is important for its bibliographical information as well as in other respects. A complete edition of the Hebrew fragments in collotype facsimile was published jointly by the Oxford and Cambridge Presses in 1901. J.H.A. Hart’s edition of cod. 248 throws much light on some of the problems of this book. It contains a fresh collation of all the chief authorities (Heb., Syr., Syr.-Hex., Lat. and Gr.) for the text, together with a complete textual commentary.

The account given in the Synopsis attributed to Athanasius (Migne, P.G., iv. 375-384) has an interest of its own. The beginning is given in the Authorized Version as “A prologue made by an uncertain author.”

(W. E. B.)

ECGBERT, or Ecgberht (d. 839), king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the throne in 802 on the death of Beorhtric. It is said that at an earlier period in his life he had been driven out for three years by Offa and Beorhtric. The accession of Ecgbert seems to have brought about an invasion by Æthelmund, earl of the Hwicce, who was defeated by Weoxtan, earl of Wiltshire. In 815 Ecgbert ravaged the whole of the territories of the West Welsh, which probably at this time did not include much more than Cornwall. The next important occurrence in the reign was the defeat of Beornwulf of Mercia at a place called Ellandun in 825. After this victory Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex submitted to Wessex; while the East Anglians, who slew Beornwulf shortly afterwards, acknowledged Ecgbert as overlord. In 829 the king conquered Mercia, and Northumbria accepted him as overlord. In 830 he led a successful expedition against the Welsh. In 836 he was defeated by the Danes, but in 838 he won a battle against them and their allies the West Welsh at Hingston Down in Cornwall. Ecgbert died in 839, after a reign of thirty-seven years, and was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf. A somewhat difficult question has arisen as to the parentage of Ecgbert. Under the year 825 the Chronicle states that in his eastern conquests Ecgbert recovered what had been the rightful property of his kin. The father of Ecgbert was called Ealhmund, and we find an Ealhmund, king in Kent, mentioned in a charter dated 784, who is identified with Ecgbert’s father in a late addition to the Chronicle under the date 784. It is possible, however, that the Chronicle in 825 refers to some claim through Ine of Wessex from whose brother Ingeld Ecgbert was descended.

See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by Earle and Plummer (Oxford, 1899); W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885-1893). Also a paper by Sir H.H. Howorth in Numismatic Chronicle, third series, vol. xx. pp. 66-87 (reprinted separately, London, 1900), where attention is called to the peculiar dating of several of Ecgbert’s charters, and the view is put forward that he remained abroad considerably later than the date given by the Chronicle for his accession. On the other hand a charter in Birch, Cart. Sax., purporting to date from 799, contains the curious statement that peace was made between Cœnwulf and Ecgbert in that year.

ECGBERT, or Ecgberht (d. 766), archbishop of York, was made bishop of that see in 734 by Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria, succeeding Wilfrid II. on the latter’s resignation. The pall was sent him in 735 and he became the first northern archbishop after Paulinus. He was the brother of Eadberht, who ruled Northumbria 737-758. He was the recipient of the famous letter of Bede, dealing with the evils arising from spurious monasteries. Ecgberht himself wrote a Dialogus Ecclesiasticae Institutionis, a Penitentiale and a Pontificale. He was a correspondent of St Boniface, who asks him to support his censure of Æthelbald of Mercia.

See Bede, Continuatio, sub. ann. 732, 735, 766, and Epistola ad Ecgberctum (Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Chronicle, sub ann. 734, 735, 738, 766 (Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899); Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford, 1869-1878), iii. 403-431; Proceedings of Surtees Society (Durham, 1853).

ECGFRITH (d. 685), king of Northumbria, succeeded his father Oswio in 671. He was married to Æthelthryth, daughter of Anna of East Anglia, who, however, took the veil shortly after Ecgfrith’s accession, a step which possibly led to his long quarrel with Wilfrid archbishop of York. Ecgfrith married a second wife, Eormenburg, before 678, the year in which he expelled Wilfrid from his kingdom. Early in his reign he defeated the Picts who had risen in revolt. Between 671 and 675 Ecgfrith defeated Wulfhere of Mercia and seized Lindsey. In 679, however, he was defeated by Æthelred of Mercia, who had married his sister Osthryth, on the river Trent. Ecgfrith’s brother Ælfwine was killed in the battle, and the province of Lindsey was given up when peace was restored at the intervention of Theodore of Canterbury. In 684 Ecgfrith sent an expedition to Ireland under his general Berht, which seems to have been unsuccessful. In 685, against the advice of Cuthbert, he led a force against the Picts under his cousin Burde, son of Bile, was lured by a feigned flight into their mountain fastnesses, and slain at Nechtanesmere (now Dunnichen) in Forfarshire. Bede dates the beginning of the decline of Northumbria from his death. He was succeeded by his brother Aldfrith.

See Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine, Historians of Church of York, Rolls, Series, London, 1879-1894), 19, 20, 24, 34, 39, 44; Bede, Hist. Eccl. (Plummer, Oxford, 1896), iii. 24, iv. 5, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, 26.

ECGONINE, in chemistry, C9H15NO3, a cycloheptane derivative with a nitrogen bridge. It is obtained by hydrolysing cocaine with acids or alkalis, and crystallizes with one molecule of water, the crystals melting at 198° to 199° C. It is laevo-rotatory, and on warming with alkalis gives iso-ecgonine, which is dextro-rotatory. It is a tertiary base, and has also the properties of an acid and an alcohol. When boiled with caustic baryta it gives methylamine. It is the carboxylic acid corresponding to tropine, for it yields the same products on oxidation, and by treatment with phosphorus pentachloride is converted into anhydroecgonine, C9H13NO2, which, when heated to 280° C. with hydrochloric acid, splits out carbon dioxide and yields tropidine, C8H13N. Anhydroecgonine melts at 235° C., and has an acid and a basic character. It is an unsaturated compound, and on oxidation with potassium permanganate gives succinic acid. It is apparently a tropidine monocarboxylic acid, for on exhaustive methylation it yields cycloheptatriene-1·3·5-carboxylic acid-7. Sodium in amyl alcohol solution reduces it to hydroecgonidine C9H15NO2, while moderate oxidation by potassium permanganate converts it into norecgonine. The presence of the heptamethylene ring in these compounds is shown by the production of suberone by the exhaustive methylation, &c., of hydroecgonidine ethyl ester (see Polymethylenes and Tropine). The above compounds may be represented as:

ECHEGARAY Y EIZAGUIRRE, JOSÉ (1833- ), Spanish mathematician, statesman and dramatist, was born at Madrid in March 1833, and was educated at the grammar school of Murcia, whence he proceeded to the Escuela de Caminos at the capital. His exemplary diligence and unusual mathematical capacity were soon noticed. In 1853 he passed out at the head of the list of engineers, and, after a brief practical experience at Almería and Granada, was appointed professor of pure and applied mathematics in the school where he had lately been a pupil. His Problemas de geometría analítica (1865) and Teorías modernas de la física unidad de las fuerzas materiales (1867) are said to be esteemed by competent judges. He became a member of the Society of Political Economy, helped to found La Revista, and took a prominent part in propagating Free Trade doctrines in the press and on the platform. He was clearly marked out for office, and when the popular movement of 1868 overthrew the monarchy, he resigned his post for a place in the revolutionary cabinet. Between 1867 and 1874 he acted as minister of education and of finance; upon the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty he withdrew from politics, and won a new reputation as a dramatist.

As early as 1867 he wrote La Hija natural, which was rejected, and remained unknown till 1877, when it appeared with the title of Para tal culpa tal pena. Another play, La Última Noche, also written in 1867, was produced in 1875; but in the latter year Echegaray was already accepted as the successful author of El Libro talonario, played at the Teatro de Apolo on the 18th of February 1874, under the transparent pseudonym of Jorge Hayaseca. Later in the same year Echegaray won a popular triumph with La Esposa del vengador, in which the good and bad qualities—the clever stagecraft and unbridled extravagance—of his later work are clearly noticeable. From 1874 onwards he wrote, with varying success, a prodigious number of plays. Among the most favourable specimens of his talent may be mentioned En el puño de la espada (1875); O locura ó santidad (1877), which has been translated into Swedish and Italian; En el seno de la muerte (1879), of which there exists an admirable German version by Fastenrath. El gran Galeoto (1881), perhaps the best of Echegaray’s plays in conception and execution, has been translated into several languages, and still holds the stage. The humorous proverb, ¿Piensa mal y acertarás? exemplifies the author’s limitations, but the attempt is interesting as an instance of ambitious versatility. His susceptibility to new ideas is illustrated in such pieces as Mariana (1892), Mancha que limpia (1895), El Hijo de Don Juan (1892), and El Loco Dios (1900): these indicate a close study of Ibsen, and El Loco Dios more especially might be taken for an unintentional parody of Ibsen’s symbolism.

Echegaray succeeded to the literary inheritance of López de Ayala and of Tamayo y Baus; and though he possesses neither the poetic imagination of the first nor the instinctive tact of the second, it is impossible to deny that he has reached a larger audience than either. Not merely in Spain, but in every land where Spanish is spoken, and in cities as remote from Madrid as Munich and Stockholm, he has met with an appreciation incomparably beyond that accorded to any other Spanish dramatist of recent years. But it would be more than usually rash to prophesy that this exceptional popularity will endure. There have been signs of a reaction in Spain itself, and Echegaray’s return to politics in 1905 was significant enough. He applies his mathematics to the drama; no writer excels him in artful construction, in the arrangement of dramatic scenes, in mere theatrical technique, in the focusing of attention on his chief personages. These are valuable gifts in their way, and Echegaray has, moreover, a powerful, gloomy imagination, which is momentarily impressive. In the drawing of character, in the invention of felicitous phrase, in the contrivance of verbal music, he is deficient. He alternates between the use of verse and prose; and his hesitancy in choosing a medium of expression is amply justified, for the writer’s prose is not more distinguished than his verse. These serious shortcomings may explain the diminution of his vogue in Spain; they will certainly tell against him in the estimate of posterity.

(J. F.-K.)

ÉCHELON (Fr. from échelle, ladder), in military tactics, a formation of troops in which each body of troops is retired on, but not behind, the flank of the next in front, the position of the whole thus resembling the steps of a staircase. To form échelon from line, the parts of the line move off, each direct to its front, in succession, so that when the formation is completed the rightmost body, for example, is farthest advanced, the one originally next on its left is to the left rear, a third is to the left rear of the second, and so on. The word is also used more loosely to express successive lines, irrespective of distances and relative positions, e.g. the “second échelon of ammunition supply,” which is fully a day’s march behind the first.

ECHIDNA, or Porcupine Ant-Eater (Echidna aculeata), one of the few species of Monotremata, the lowest subclass of Mammalia, forming the family Echidnidae. It is a native of Australia, where it chiefly abounds in New South Wales, inhabiting rocky and mountainous districts, where it burrows among the loose sand, or hides itself in crevices of rocks. In size and appearance it bears a considerable resemblance to the hedgehog, its upper surface being covered over with strong spines directed backwards, and on the back inwards, so as to cross each other on the middle line. The spines in the neighbourhood of the tail form a tuft sufficient to hide that almost rudimentary organ. The head is produced into a long tubular snout, covered with skin for the greater part of its length. The opening of the mouth is small, and from it the echidna puts forth its long slender tongue, lubricated with a viscous secretion, by means of which it seizes the ants and other insects on which it feeds. It has no teeth. Its legs are short and strong, and form, with its broad feet and large solid nails, powerful burrowing organs. In common with the other monotremes, the male echidna has its heel provided with a sharp hollow spur, connected with a secreting gland, and with muscles capable of pressing the secretion from the gland into the spur. It is a nocturnal or crepuscular animal, generally sleeping during the day, but showing considerable activity by night. When attacked it seeks to escape either by rolling itself into a ball, its erect spines proving a formidable barrier to its capture, or by burrowing into the sand, which its powerful limbs enable it to do with great celerity. “The only mode of carrying the creature,” writes G. Bennett (Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia), “is by one of the hind legs; its powerful resistance and the sharpness of the spines will soon oblige the captor, attempting to seize it by any other part of the body, to relinquish his hold.” In a younger stage of their development, however, the young are carried in a temporary abdominal pouch, to which they are transferred after hatching, and into which open the mammary glands. The echidnas are exceedingly restless in confinement, and constantly endeavour by burrowing to effect their escape. From the quantity of sand and mud always found in the alimentary canal of these animals, it is supposed that these ingredients must be necessary to the proper digestion of their insect food.

There are two varieties of this species, the Port Moresby echidna and the hairy echidna. The last-mentioned is found in south-eastern New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania. In all the spines are mixed with hair; in the Tasmanian race they are nearly hidden by the long harsh fur. Of the three-clawed echidnas (Proechidna) confined to New Guinea there are two species, Bruijn’s echidna (P. bruijnii), discovered in 1877 in the mountains on the north-east coast at an elevation of 3500 ft., and the black-spined echidna (P. nigroaculeata) of larger size—the type specimen measuring 31 in., as against 24 in.—with shorter claws.