Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	bishop_n	church_n	1,754	5	4.4354	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61093	Of the law-terms, a discourse wherein the laws of the Jews, Grecians, Romans, Saxons and Normans, relating to this subject are fully explained / written by ... Sir Henry Spelman, Kt.	Spelman, Henry, Sir, 1564?-1641.	1684 (1684)	Wing S4929; ESTC R16781	31,761	92

5. How other Festivals and other Vacation days 6. That our Terms took their original from the Canon-Law 7. The Constitutions of our Saxon Kings Edward the Elder Guthurn the Dane and the Synod of Eanham under Ethelred touching this matter 8. The Constitutions of Canutus more particular 9. The Constitutions of Edward the Confessour more material 10. The Constitution of William the Conquerour And of Law-days in Normandy 11. What done by William Rufus Stephen and Henry the 2d 12. Of Hilary-Term according to those ancient Laws 13. Of Easter-Term in like manner 14. Of Trinity-Term and the long Vacation following 15. Of Michaelmas-Term 16. Of the later Constitutions of the Terms by the Statutes of the 51. of Hen. 3. and 36. of Edw. 3. 17. How Trinity-Term was alter'd by the 32. of Hen. 8. 18. And how Michaelmas-Term was abbreviated by Act of Parliament 16. Carol. 1. CHAP. I. Of Law-days among the Ancients THE time allotted to Law-business seemeth to have been that from the beginning amongst all or most Nations which was not particularly dedicated as we said before to the service of God or some rites of Religion Therefore whilst Moses was yet under the Law of Nature and before the positive Law was given he sacrificed and kept the holy Festival with Jethro his father-in-law on the one day but judged not the people till the day after Some particular instance I know may be given to the contrary as I shall mention but this seemeth to have been at that time the general use The Greeks who as Josephus in his book against Appion witnesseth had much of their ancient Rites from the Hebrews held two of their Prytanaean-Days in every Month for civil matters and the third onely for their Sacra Aeschines in his Oration against Ctesiphon chargeth Demosthenes with writing a Decree in the Senate that the Prytanaean Magistrates might hold an Assembly upon the 8. day of the approaching Month of Elaphebolion when the holy Rites of Aesculapius were to be solemnized The Romans likewise whether by instinct of nature or president medled not with Law Causes during the time appointed to the worship of their Gods as appeareth by their Primitive Law of the 12. Tables Feriis jurgia amovento and by the places before cited as also this of the same Tables Post semel exta Deo data sunt licet omnia fari Verbáque honoratus libera Praetor habet When Sacrifice and holy Rites were done The Reverend Pretor then his Courts begun To be short it was so common a thing in those days of old to exempt the times of exercise of Religion from all worldly business that the Barbarous Nations even our Angli whilst they were yet in Germany the Suevians themselves and others of those Northern parts would in no-wise violate or interrupt it Tacitus says of them that during this time Non bellum ineunt non arma sumunt clausum omne ferrum pax quies tunc tantùm nota tunc tantùm amata Of our German Ancestours we shall speak more anon our British are little to the purpose they judged all Controversies by their Priests the Druides and to that end met but once a year as Caesar sheweth us by those of the Gauls I will therefore seek the Original of our Terms onely from the Romans as all other Nations that have been subject to their Civil and Ecclesiastical Monarchy do and must CHAP. II. Of Law-days amongst the Romans using choice days THE ancient Romans whilst they were yet Heathens did not as we at this day use certain continued portions of the year for a legal decision of Controversies but out of a superstitious conceit that some days were ominous and more unlucky than others according to that of the Aegyptians they made one day to be Fastus or Term-day and another as an Aegyptian day to be Vacation or Nefastus Seldom two Fasti or Law-days together yea they sometimes divided one and the same day in this manner Qui modo Fastus erat manè Nefastus erat The afternoon was Term the m●rning Holy-day Nor were all their Fasti applyed to Judicature but some of them to other meetings and Consultations of the Commonwealth so that being divided into three sorts which they called Fastos propriè Fastos Intercisos Fastos Comitiales they contained together 184. days yet through all the Months in the year there remained not properly to the Pretor as Judicial or Triverbal Days above 28 Whereas before the abbreviation of Michaelmas Term by the Statute of 16. Car. 1. we had in our Term above 96. Days in Court and now have 86. besides the Sundays and Exempted Festivals which fall in the Terms and those are about 28. or there about Sir Thomas Smith counts it strange that three Tribunals in one City in less than a third part of the year should satisfie the wrongs of so large and populous a Nation as this of England But let us return where we left off CHAP. III. Of Law-days amongst the primitive Christians and how they used all times alike TO beat down the Roman superstition touching the observation of days against which St. Augustine and others wrote vehemently the Christians at first used all days alike for hearing of Causes not sparing as it seemeth the Sunday it self thereby falling into another extreme Yet had they some president for it from Moses and the Jews For Philo Judaeus in the life of Moses reporteth that the cause of him that gather'd sticks on the Sabbath-day was by a solemn Council of the Princes Priests and the whole Multitude examined and consulted of on the Sabbath-day And the Talmudists who were best acquainted with the Jewish Customs as also Galatinus the Hebrew do report that their Judges in the Council called Sanhedrim sate on the week-day from morning to night in the Gates of the City and on the Sabbath and on Festivals upon the Walls So the whole year then seemed a continual Term no day exempted How this stood with the Levitical Law or rather the Moral I leave to others CHAP. IV. How Sunday came to be exempted BUT for the reformation of the abuse among Christians in perverting the Lord's day to the hearing of clamorous Litigants it was ordained in the year of our Redemption 517. by the Fathers assembled in Concilio Taraconensi Cap. 4. after that in Concilio Spalensi Cap. 2. and by Adrian Bishop of Rome in the Decretal Caus. 15. quaest 4. That Nullus Episcopus vel infra positus Die Dominico causas judicare aut ventilare praesumat No Bishop or inferiour person presume to judge or try causes on the Lord's day For it appeareth by Epiphanius that in his time as also many hundred years after Bishops and Clergy-men did hear and determine Causes lest Christians against the rule of the Apostle should goe to Law under Heathens and Infidels This Canon of the Church for exempting Sunday was by Theodosius fortified with an

Judices jejuni causas audiant discernant and again in the Capitulars Caroli Lodovici nè placitum Comes habeat nisi jejunus Where the word Comes according to the phrase of that time is used for Judex as elsewhere we have it declared to the same effect in the Capitular ad Legem Salicam And out of these and such other Constitutions ariseth the rule of the Canon Law that Quae à prandio fiunt Constitutiones inter decreta non referuntur Yet I find that Causes might be heard and judged in the afternoon for in Capitulars lib. 2 33 and again lib. 4. Cau. 16. it is said Causae viduarum pupillorum pauperum audiantur definiantur ante Meridiem Regis verò Potentiorum post Meridiem This though it may seem contradictory to the Constitutions aforesaid yet I conceive them to be thus reconcilable That the Judges sitting then but seldom continued their Courts both Forenoon and Afternoon from Morning till Evening without dinner or intermission as at this day they may and often do upon great Causes though being risen and dining they might not meet again yet might they not sit at night or use candle light Quòd de nocte non est honestum judicium exercere And from these ancient Rites of the Church and Empire is our Law derived which prohibiteth our Jurours being Judices de facto to have meat drink fire or candle light till they be agreed of their verdict It may here be demanded how it cometh to pass that our Judges after dinner do take Assizes and Nisi prius in the Guild-hall of London and in their Circuits I have yet no other answer but that ancient Institutions are discontinued often by some custome grating in upon them and changed often by some later Constitution of which kind the instances aforesaid seem to be For Assizes were ordained many ages after by Henry the second as appeareth by the Charter of Beverly Glanvill and Radulphus Niger and Nisi prius by Edward the first in the Statutes of Westminster 2 though I see not but in taking of them the ancient course might have been continued if haste would suffer it CHAP. II. Why they sit not at all some days THough there be many days in the Terms which by ancient Constitutions before recited are exempted from Law-business as those of the Apostles c. and that the Statute of Ed. 6. appointed many of them to be kept Holy-days as dedicated not unto Saints but unto divine worship which we also at this day retain as Holy-days Yet do not the high Courts forbear sitting in any of them saving on the Feast of the Purification the Ascension St. John Baptist All-saints and the day after though not a Feast called All-souls When the others lost their privilege and came to be Term-days I cannot find it sufficeth that Custome hath repealed them by confession of the Canonists Yet it seemeth to me there is no provision made for it in the Constitutions of our Church under Isleep Archbishop of Canterbury in the time of Edward the third For though many ancient Laws and the Decretals of Gregory the 9th had ordained judicialem strepitum diebus conquiescere feriatis yet in a Synod then holden wherein are all the Holy-days appointed and particularly recited no restraints of Judicature or Forensis strepitus is imposed but a cessation onely ab universis servilibus operibus etiam Reipublicae utilibus Which though it be in the phrase God himself useth touching many great Feasts viz. Omne servile opus non facietis in iis yet it is not in that when he instituteth the seventh day to be the Sabbath Non facies omne opus in eo without servile Thou shalt doe no manner of work therein Now the act of Judicature and of hearing and determining Controversies is not opus servile but honoratum planè Regium and so not within the prohibition of this our Canon which being the latter seemeth to qualifie the former Yea the Canonists and Casuists themselves not onely expound opus servile of corporeal and mechanical labour but admit 26 several cases where even in that very kind dispensation lieth against the Canons and by much more reason then with this in question It may be said that this Canon consequently giveth liberty to hold plea and Courts upon their Festivals in the Vacations I confess that so it seemeth but this Canon hath no power to alter the bounds and course of the Terms which before were setled by the Statutes of the Land so that in that point it prevaileth not Why but there ariseth another question how it comes to pass that the Courts sit in Easter-Term upon the Rogation days it being forbidden by the Council of Medard and by the intention of divers other Constitutions It seemeth that it never was so used in England or at least not for many ages especially since Gregory the ninth insomuch that among the days wherein he prohibiteth Forensem strepitum clamorous pleading c. he nameth them not And though he did the Glossographers say that a Nation may by Custome erect a Feast that is not commanded by the Canons of the Church Et eodem modo posset ex consuetudine introduci quòd aliqua quae sunt de praecepto non essent de praecepto sicut de tribus diebus Rogationum c. To be short I find no such privilege for them in our Courts though we admit them other Church rites and ceremonies We must now shew if we can why the Courts sitting upon so many Ferial and Holy-days do forbear to sit upon some others which before I mention'd the Purification Ascension St. John Baptist All-Saints c. For in the Synod under Isleep before mention'd no prerogative is given to them above the rest that fall in the Terms as namely St. Mark and St. Philip and Jacob when they do fall in Easter Term St. Peter in Trinity-Term St. Luke before the late abbreviation by 16. Car. 1. did fall and St. Simon and Jude doth always fall in Michaelmas-Term It may be said that although the Synod did prohibit onely Opera Servilia to be done on Festival-days as the offence most in use at that time yet did it not give licence to doe any Act that was formerly prohibited by any Law or Laudable Custome And therefore if by colour thereof or any former use which is like enough the Courts did sit on lesser Festivals yet they never did it on the greater among which majoris cautelae gratiâ those Opera Servilia are there also prohibited to be done on Easter-day Pentecost and the Sunday it self Let us then see which are the greater Feasts and by what merit they obtain their privilege that the Courts of Justice sit not on them As for Sunday we shall not need to speak of it being canonized by God himself As for Easter and Whitsunday we shall not need to speak of them