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cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	roman_a	1,391	5	8.0518	4	false

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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

Imperial Constitution whilst we Britains were yet under the Roman Government Solis die quem dominicum certe dicere solebant majores omnium omnino litium negotiorum quiescat intentio Thus was Sunday redeemed from being part of the Term but all other days by express words of the Canon were left to be Dies Juridici whether they were mean or great Festivals For it thus followeth in the same place of the Decretals Caeteris verò diebus convenientibus personis illa quae justa sunt habent licentiam judicandi excepto criminali or as another Edition reads it exceptis criminalibus negotiis The whole Canon is verbatim also decreed in the Capitulars of the Emperours Carolus Ludovicus CHAP. V. How other Fastival and Vacation Days were exempted LET us now see how other Festivals and parts of the year were taken from the Courts of Justice The first Canon of note that I meet with to this purpose is that in Concilio Triburiensi Ca. 35. in or about the year 895. Nullus Comes nullúsque omnino secularis Diebus Dominicis vel Sanctorum in Festis seu Quadragessimae aut jejuniorum placitum habere sed nec populum praesumat illo coercere After this manner the Council of Meldis Ca. 77. took Easter-week commonly called the Octaves from Law-business Paschae hebdomade feriandum forensia negotia prohibentur By this example came the Octaves of Pentecost St. Michael the Epiphany c. to be exempted and principal Feasts to be honoured with Octaves The next memorable Council to that of Tribury was the Council of Ertford in Germany in the year 932. which though it were then but Provincial yet being afterwards taken by Gratian into the Body of the Canon Law it became General and was imposed upon the whole Church I will recite it at large as it stands in Binius for I take it to be one of the foundation-stones to our Terms Placita secularia Dominicis vel aliis Festis diebus seu etiam in quibus legitima Jejunia celebrantur secundum Canonicam institutionem minimè fieri volumus In super quoque Gloriosissimus Rex Francorum Henricus ad augmentum Christianae Religionis concessit or as Gratian hath it Sancta Synodus decrevit ut nulla judiciaria potest as licentiam habeat Christianos suâ authoritate ad placitum bannire septem diebus ante Natalem Domini à Quinquagessima usque ad Octavas Paschae septem diebus ante Natalem Sancti Johannis Baptistae quatenus adeundi Ecclesiam orationibúsque vacandi liberiùs habeatur facultas But the Council of St. Medard extant first in Burchard and then in Gratian enlargeth these vacations in this manner Decrevit Sancta Synodus ut a Quadragessima usque in Octavam Paschae ab Adventu Domini usque in Octavam Epiphaniae necnon in Jejuniis quatuor temporum in Litaniis Majoribus in diebus Dominicis in diebus Rogationum nisi de concordia pacificatione nullus supra sacra Evangelia jurare praesumat The word jurare here implyeth Law causes or hold Plea on these days as by the same phrase in other Laws shall by and by appear which the Gloss also upon this Canon maketh manifest saying in his etiam diebus causae exerceri non debent citing the other Canon here next before recited but adding withall that the Court and Custome of Rome it self doth not keep Vacation from Septuagessima nor as it seemeth on some other of the days And this president we follow when Septuagessima and Sexagessima fall in the compass of Hilary-Term CHAP. VI. That our Terms take their Original from the Canon Law THUS we leave the Canon Law and come home to our own Country which out of these and such other foreign Constitutions for many more there are has framed our Terms not by chusing any set portion of the year for them but by taking up such times for that purpose as the Church and common Necessity for collecting the fruits of the Earth left undisposed of as in that which followeth plainly shall appear CHAP. VII The Constitutions of our Saxon Kings in this matter IN AS one of our ancient Saxon Kings made a very strict Law against working on Sunday Gif þeoƿ mon ƿyrce on sunnan daeg be his hlafordes haese sy he freo If a Servant work on Sunday by his Master's command let him be made free c. And Alured prohibited many Festivals but the first that prohibited Juridical proceedings upon such days was Edward the Elder and Guthurne the Dane who in the League between them made about ten years before the Council of Ertford that it may appear we took not all our light from thence did thus ordain Ordel aþas syndon tocƿedene Freols dagum riht faesten dagum We forbid that Ordel and Oaths So they called Law-tryals at that time be used upon Festival and Lawfull fasting Days c. How far this Law extended appeareth not particularly no doubt to all Festival and Fasting-days then imposed by the Roman Church and such other Provincial as by our Kings and Clergy here were instituted Those which by Alured were appointed to be Festivals are now by this Law made also days of Vacation from Judicial Trials yet seem they for the most part to be but Semi-Festivals as appointed onely to freemen not to bondmen for so this Law declareth viz. The 12. days of Christmas the day wherein Christ overcame the Devil the Anniversary of St. Gregory the 7. days afore Easter and the seven days after the day of St. Peter and St. Paul and the whole Week before St. Mary in the harvest and the Feast-day of All-Saints But the four Wednesdays in the four Ember Weeks are remitted to Bondmen to bestow their work in them as they think good To come to that which is more perspicuous I find about Sixty years after a Canon in our Synod of Eanham under King Ethelred in these words First touching Sunday Dominicae solennia diei cum summo honore magnopere celebranda sunt nec quicquam in eadem operis agatur servilis Negotia quoque secularia quaestionésque publicae in eadem deponantur die Then commanding the Feast-days of the B. Virgin and of all the Apostles the Fast of the Ember days and of the Fryday in every Week to be duely kept it proceedeth thus Judicium quippe quod Anglicè Ordel dicitur juramenta vulgaria festivis temporibus legitimis jejuniis sed ab Adventu Domini usque post Octabas Epiphaniae à Septuagesima usque 15. dies post Pascha minime exerceantur Sed sit his temporibus summa pax concordia inter Christianos sicut fieri oportet It is like there were some former Constitutions of our Church to this purpose but either mine eye hath not lighted on them or my memory hath deceived me