En rearing to the use of se u OS perform this office

15 : Sirovable that in the

Sans church observed 1.2 m3 -LE. ELIN sed it to the bishop * DU CI: Ove with his license.

cherre, supposes

SIT as in the solemnity LEE kox2.c.2.cisar the express de.... GIS: 33 carry, would have iarnă:-42 Roscopum benedicta

saras acum episcopum non D:Rs.caces cia boc fieri de cætero presa xos committere valeat, (2x caserstani az eräinis tamen episcopais sem. Da pasiserioris gradus clericis de Irabdare. **

çaste the fun i be pistniani." Coder juris Ecc. gres, of meercscrado, is the 1941 time of arabishop Abbot-bea * I. cap.ins, de consecrat. the church of Sourmang bad ereske. 01. Castaldus. Praris not only been polluted (per bes- Ceren. Lib. 2. §. xi. The Putias et animalia dirersurum ge- prila in the extract above, does urrum, aliisque modis profa- not appear to make any distincnata) but was also new-built, and tion between the “aqua benethen used for divine offices with dicta" to be used for this, or any out dew consecration ; archbishop other ceremony. But from what Abbot interdicted the minister, Van Espen sars, in the place cited church wardens, and parishioners, before, $. II, this ought to have ab ingressu ecclesiæ,donec ec. been “aqua consecrata:” that is, clesia præfata, et cæmeterium by a bishop, and mixed with ashes: ejusdem, per nos, aut alium auc- a view which is borne out by the toritate nostra munitum, ca- rubric of the office below. nonice et legitime consecrata

To what extent priests might fuerint: prout jura et sanc- confer benedictions, has been altiones ecclesiæ in ea parte editæ ready discussed in a previous dis

The offices of benediction of a processional or military banner, and of an episcopal seal will sufficiently explain themselves. The practice of consecrating military standards is very ancient : Charles Martel is said to have received one, consecrated and sent to him by pope Gregory III.

William the conqueror, says Ingulph, præpropera [f. proposita] querela papam consuluit, et ab eo animatus etiam vexillum legitimæ victoriæ pro munere accepit.' The prior of Hexham, in his history of the battle of the Standard, in 1135, not only relates how the holy banner of S. Peter was delivered to the barons by the archbishop of York, but also as follows: “Mox autem aliqui eorum in medio cujusdam machinæ quam ibi adduxerant, unius navis malum erexerunt, quod Standard appellaverunt: unde Hugo Eborac. archidiaconus :

In summitate vero ipsius arboris quandam argenteam pixidem cum corpore Christi, et sanctorum Petri apostoli, et Joannis Bererlacensis, et Wilfridi Ripensis confessorum ac pontificum vesilla suspenderunt.”.

FORY OF DEGRADATION. . The antiquity of the punishment of Degradation, the order of which is edited in the present volume, is so well known to every reader of ecclesiastical history, that I need not delay upon it. The Apostolical canons, and those of Nice, of S. Basil, and of Peter of Alexandria, all prove the universality of the practice: and although the severity of it differed at various times and in various churches, some degrading altogether, some only from a higher to a lower order, yet as a mode of punishment, it seems everywhere and at all times to have been acknowledged and inflicted.

Both theologians and canonists not unfrequently confound deposition, and degradation: and indeed in one sense, perhaps the most ancient one, they may be regarded as the same; but strictly, in later practice, there was a difference between the two. Simple deposition prohibited a clerk either from exercising the powers of his order, or any ecclesiastical office; or from receiving the revenues of his benefice: but it did not remove him from the spiritual and subject him to

p. 322.

38 Ricardus Hagulstald. de ges- pecially Van Espen, Jus Eccles. tis R. Stephani. script. x. tom. 1. par. 3. tit. xj., and the notes of

Balsamon and Zonaras, Bevereg. 39 A good general account may Pandect.; upon the conflicting be found in Bingham, Antiquities, canons of Nice and Chalcedon : Book vi. cap. 2. But the stu. the latter of which would not perdent will do well to consult Mar- mit the more modified form of tene, de ant. ecc. rit. 2. p. 317, degradation, from a higher order and to examine the canonists, es- to a lower.

a

lay jurisdiction. On the contrary, degradation included the infliction of all the penalties which accompanied deposition, and committed the offender also to the power of the temporal courts ; depriving him of all the privileges and immunities attached to the clergy.

The settled form as it is below, was but of late introduction: and we have no records in the earliest pontificals which are extant, of the manner in which, very anciently, this solemnity was performed : still, it is scarcely probable, that no form or order was observed. I quote the following from Catalani. “ Consuevisse depositionis sententiam calamo Christi sanguine intincto desumpto è sacro calice scribi, duo ex

è tant insignia exempla apud scriptores ecclesiasticos. Alterum refert Theophanes, ubi ait, Theodorum papam eo ritu sententiam depositionis contra Pyrrhum scripsisse : alterum narrat Nicetas in vita S. Ignatii patriarchæ Constantinopolitani, ubi depositionem Photü describit.” 40

I shall therefore, to be as brief as possible, confine myself to one or two illustrations of this office, relating to the English church. Upon the necessity of a certain number of bishops to be present on the occasion, we have in Wilkins a bull directed to cardinal Wolsey, dispensing with it; and that, on account of the difficulty of collecting the proper number, he might authorize one bishop to degrade criminous priests, adjunctis secum seu sibi assistentibus duobus abbatibus, seu dignitates seculares in cathedralibus seu collegiatis ecclesiis obtinentibus.” 41 In the same collec

* Comment. in. pontif. Rom. tom. 3.

p.

138.

41 Concil. tom. 3. p. 713. By the “Reformatio legum," the bi

tion, is the full order, as it was to be observed at the degradation of archbishop Cranmer: ending with the usual formula, upon delivery to the civil power, “Do mine judex, rogamus vos cum omni affectu, quo pos sumus, ut amore Dei, pietatis et misericordiæ intuitu et nostrorum interventu precaminum, miserrimo hui nullum mortis, vel mutilationis periculum inferas."* I must say, that notwithstanding the constructior which is justly and properly to be put upon this claus in many cases, evidencing the fulness of mercy an piry which befits the Church of Christ, yet in the in siance of archbishop Cranmer, and many others ir har dar, it was nothing but a bitter and disgracefu Makery. The ministers and rulers of the Church kad nor canonically themselves inflict the punish Men of death; but they knew well, what would be the superfix's of their delivering up of men, whom they had

, ponedeemned as heretics, to the civil power. They were delivered, not to be forgiven, not even to be mercifully News wish, but to receive at the hands of others a most www and barbarous punishment. We can look upon such trommendation, in no other light than we would now regard the conduct of a judge, who, having