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christian_n	day_n	law_n	sabbath_n	2,914	5	9.8028	5	true

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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-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

OF THE Law-Terms A DISCOURSE Written by The Learned ANTIQUARY Sir HENRY SPELMAN Kt. WHEREIN The Laws of the Jews Grecians Romans Saxons and Normans relating to this Subject are fully explained LONDON Printed for Matthew Gillyflower in Westminster-Hall 1684. SECT I. Of the Terms in general AS our Law-books have nothing to my knowledge of the Terms so were it much better if our Chronicles had as little For though it be little they have in that kind yet is that little very untrue affirming that William the Conquerour did first institute them It is not worth the examining who was authour of this errour but it seemeth that Polydore Virgil an alien in our Commonwealth and not well endenized in our Antiquities spread it first in print I purpose not to take it upon any man's word but searching for the fountain will if I can deduce them from thence beginning with their definition The Terms are certain portions of the year in which onely the King's Justices hold plea in the high Temporal Courts of Causes belonging to their Jurisdiction in the place thereto assigned according to the ancient Rites and Customs of the Kingdom The definition divides it self and offers these parts to be consider'd 1. The names they bear 2. The original they come of 3. The time they continue 4. The persons they are held by 5. The causes they deal with 6. The place they are kept in 7. The rites they are performed with These parts minister matter for a Book at large but my purpose upon the occasion imposed being to deal onely with the institution of the Terms I will travel no farther than the three first stages of my division that is touching their Name their Original and their Time of continuance SECT II. Of the Names of the Terms THE word Terminus is of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth the Bound End or Limit of a thing here particularly of the time for Law-matters In the Civil-Law it also signifieth a day set to the Defendant and in that sense doth Bracton and others sometimes use it Mat. Paris calleth the Sheriff's Turn Terminum Vicecomitis and in the addition to the M SS Laws of King Inas Terminus is applied to the Hundred-Court as also in a Charter of Hen. 1. prescribing the time of holding the Court. And we ordinarily use it for any set portion of time as of Life Years Lease c. The space between the Terms is named Vacation à Vacando as being Leasure from Law-business by Latinists Justitium à jure stando because the Law is now at a stop or stand The Civilians and Canonists call Term-time Dies Juridicos Vacation Dies Feriales Days of leasure or intermission Festival-days as being indeed sequester'd from troublesome affairs of humane business and devoted properly to the service of God and his Church According to this our Saxon and Norman Ancestours divided the year also between God and the King calling those days and parts that were assigned to God Dies pacis Ecclesiae the residue allotted to the King Dies or tempus Pacis Regis Divisum Imperium cum Jove Caesar habet Other names I find none anciently among us nor the word Terminus to be frequent till the time of Hen. 2. wherein Gervascius Tilburiensis and Ranulphus de Glanvilla if those books be theirs do continually use it for Dies pacis Regis The ancient Romans in like manner divided their Year between their Gods and their Commonwealth naming their Law-days or Term-time Fastos because their Praetor or Judge might then Fari that is speak freely their Vacation or days of Intermission as appointed to the service of their Gods they called Nefastos for that the Praetor might ne fari not speak in them judicially Ovid Fastorum lib. 1. Ille Nefastus erat per quem tria verba silentur Fastus erat per quem lege licebat agi When that the three Judicial words The Pretor might not use It was Nefastus Fastus then When each man freely sues The three Judicial words were Do Dico Abdico by the first he gave licence Citare partem ream to Cite the Defendant by the 2d he pronounced sentence and by the 3d. he granted execution This obiter The word Term hath also other considerations sometimes it is used for the whole space from the first Return to the end of the Term including the day of Return Essoine Exception Retorn Brev. Sometimes and most commonly excluding these from the first sitting of the Judges in full Court which is the first day for appearance and this is called full-Term by the Statute of 32. of Hen. 8. Cap. 21. as though the part precedent were but Semi-Term Puisne-Term or Introitus Termini The words of the Stat. are these That Trinity-Term shall begin the Munday next after Trinity-Sunday for keeping the Essoines Returns Proffers and other ceremonies heretofore used c. And that the full term of the said Trinity-Term shall yearly for ever begin the Fryday next after Corpus Christi Day Here the particulars I speak of are apparently set forth and the Term declared to begin at the first Return By which reason it falleth out that the eight days wherein the Court of the Exchequer sits at the beginning of Michaelmas-Terms Hilary-Term and Easter are to be accounted as parts of the Terms for that they fall within the first Return the Exchequer having one Return in every of them more than the Courts of Common-Law have viz. Crastino Sancti Michaelis Octabis Hilarii and Octabis or Clausum Paschae And it seemeth that Trinity-Term had Crastino Trinitatis in the self-same manner before this Statute alter'd it SECT III. Of the Original of Terms or Law-days LAW-days or Dies Juridici which we call Terms are upon the matters as ancient as offences and controversies God himself held a kind of Term in Paradise when judicially he tryed and condemned Adam Eve and the Serpent In all Nations as soon as Government was setled some time was appointed for punishing offences redressing of wrongs and determining of controversies and this time to every of those Nations was their Term. The Original therefore of the Terms or Law-days and the time appointed to them are like the Signs of Oblique Ascention in Astronomy that rise together I shall not need to speak any more particularly of this point but shew it as it farther offereth it self in our passage when we treat of the time appointed to Term or Law-days which is the next and longest part of this our Discourse SECT IV. Of the Times assigned to Law-matters called the Terms WE are now come to the great Arm of our Division which spreads it self into many branches in handling whereof we shall fall either necessarily or accidentally upon these points viz. 1. Of law-Law-days among the Ancients Jews and Greeks 2. Of those among the Romans using choice days 3. Of those among the Primitive Christians using all alike 4. How Sunday came to be exempted

of them CHAP. VIII CAnutus succeeding shortly after by his Danish sword in our English Kingdome not onely retained but revived this former Constitution adding after the manner of his zeal two new Festival and Vacation days And ƿe forbeodað ordal að●s freols dagum ymbren dagum len●●en dagum riht faesten dagum fram Adventum domini eþ se eah to þa dag And we forbid Ordal and Oaths on Feast-days and Ember days and Lent and set fasting days and from the Advent of our Lord till eight days after the twelve days be past And from Septuagessima till fifteen nights after Easter And the Sages have ordained that St. Edward's day shall be Festival over all England on the 15. of the Kalends of April and St. Dunstan's on the 14. of the Kalends of June and that all Christians as right it is should keep them hallowed and in peace Canutus following the example of the Synod of Eanham setteth down in the Paragraph next before this recited which shall be Festival and which Fasting-days appointing both to be days of Vacation Among the Fasting days he nameth the Saints Eves and the Frydays but excepteth the Frydays when they happen to be Festival days and those which come between Easter and Pentecost as also those between Midwinter so they called the Nativity of our Lord and Octabis Epiphaniae So that at this time some Frydays were Law-days and some were not Those in Easter Term with the Eve of Philip and Jacob were and the rest were not The reason of this partiality as I take it was they fasted not at Christmas for joy of Christ's nativity nor between Easter and Whitsontide for that Christ continued upon the Earth from his Resurrection till his Ascension And the Children of the wedding may not fast so long as the Bridegroom is with them Nor at Whitsuntide for joy of the coming of the Holy Ghost CHAP. IX The Constitution of Edward the Confessour most material SAint Edward the Confessour drew this Constitution of Canutus nearer to the course of our time as a Law in these words Ab Adventu Domini usque ad Octabas Epiphaniae pax Dei sanctae Ecclesiae per omne Regnum similiter à Septuagessima usque ad Octabas Paschae item ab Ascensione Domini usque ad Octabas Pentecostes item omnibus diebus quatuor temporum item omnibus Sabbatis ab hora nona totâ die sequenti usque ad diem Lunae item Vigiliis Sanctae Mariae Sancti Michaelis Sancti Johannis Baptistae Apostolorum omnium Sanctorum quorum solennitates a Sacerdotibus Dominicis annunciantur diebus omnium Sanctorum in Kalendis Novembris ab hora nona Vigiliarum subsequenti solennitate Item in Parochiis in quibus dedicationis dies observatur item Parochiis Ecclesiarum ubi propria festivitas Sancti celebratur c. The Rubrick of this Law is De temporibus diebus pacis Regis intimating Term-time and here in the Text the Vacations are called Dies pacis Dei sanctae Ecclesiae as I said in the beginning But pax Dei pax Ecclesiae pax Regis in other Laws of Edward the Confessour and elsewhere have other significations also more particular Hora nona is here as in all Authours of that time intended for three of the Clock in the after-noon being the ninth hour of the artificial day wherein the Saxons as other Nations of Europe and our ancestours of much later time followed the Judaical computation perhaps till the invention and use of Clocks gave a just occasion to alter it for that they could not dayly tarry for the unequal hours CHAP. X. The Constitution of William the Conquerour THIS Constitution of Edward the Confessour was amongst his other Laws confirm'd by William the Conquerour as not onely Hoveden and those ancient Authours testify but by the Decree of the Conquerour himself in these words Hoc quoque praecipio ut omnes habeant teneant Leges Edwardi in omnibus rebus adauctis his quae constituimus ad utilitatem Anglorum And in those Auctions nothing is added alter'd or spoken concerning any part of that Constitution Neither is it likely that the Conquerour did much innovate the course of our Terms or Law-days seeing he held them in his own Dutchy of Normandy not far differing from the same manner having received the Customs of that his Country from this of ours by the hand of Edward the Confessour as in the beginning of their old Customary themselves do acknowledge The words touching their Law-days or Trials are these under the Title De Temporibus quibus leges non debent fieri Notandum autem est quod quaedam sunt tempora in quibus leges non debent fieri nec simplices nec apertae viz. omnia tempora in quibus matrimonia non possunt celebrari Ecclesia autem legibus apparentibus omnes dies Festivos perhibet defendit viz. ab hora nona die Jovis usque ad ortum Solis die Lunae sequenti omnes dies solennes novem lectionum solennium jejuniorum dedicationis Ecclesiae in qua duellum est deducendum This Law doth generally inhibit all Judicial proceedings during the time wherein Marriage is forbidden and particularly all trials by Battail which the French and our Glanvill call Leges apparentes alias Apparibiles vulgarly Loix Apparisans during the other times therein mention'd And it is to be noted that the Emperour Frederick the Second in his Neapolitan Constitutions includeth the Trials by Ordeal under Leges paribiles But touching the times wherein Marriage was forbidden it agreed for the most part with the Vacations prescribed by Edward the Confessour especially touching the beginning of them Of Dies novem lectionum we shall find occasion to speak hereafter CHAP. XI What done by William Rufus Hen. 1. K. Stephen and Hen. 2. AS for William Rufus we reade that he pulled many lands from the Church but not that he abridged the Vacation Times assigned to it Henry the 1. upon view of former Constitutions composed this Law under the Title De observatione Legis faciendi viz Ab adventu Domini usque ad Octabas Ep●●haniae à Septuagessima usque ad 15 dies post Pascham Festis diebus quatuor Temporum diebus Quadragessimalibus aliis legitimis Jejuniis in diebus Veneris vigiliis Sanctorum Apostolorum non est tempus leges faciendi vel jusjurandum nisi primo fidelitate domini vel concordia vel bellum vel ferri vel aquae vel leges exactiones tractari sed sit in omnibus vera pax beata charitas ad honorem omnipotentis Dei c. The Copy of these Laws is much corrupted and it appeareth by Florence Wigorn's Continuer that the Londoners refused them and put Maud the Empress to an ignominious flight when she pressed the observation of them But in