be liable to the same punishment as any other of her Majesty's subjects are or may be liable upon conviction for such felony, any law or usage to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding."] Bible-See Church. Bier-See Church. Bigamy. BIGAMI are they who have married two wives or more sucsessively, or one window (g). Bigami are properly they who have successively married two wives; but Lindwood reckons up seven constructive sorts of bigamy (r). By the canon law, a bigamist, and he who marries a widow, or a woman divorced from her husband, or a prostitute, or two sisters, or his first cousin, was incapable of filling the sacerdotal office (s). At last, Gregory the Tenth, in the council of Lyons, declared bigamists ipso facto stripped of their privilege of clergy, and subject to the secular authority (t). Hence bigamy became no uncommon counterplea to the claim of clergy, and the law concerning it was fixed by act of parliament (u). 4 Ed. 1, st. c. 5, "Concerning men twice married, called bigami, whom the bishop of Rome by a constitution made at the council of Lyons, hath excluded from all clerks privilege, whereupon certain prelates (when such persons have been attainted for felony) have prayed for to have them delivered as clerks, which were made bigami before the same constitution; it is agreed and declared before the king and his council, that the same constitution shall be understood in this wise, that whether they were bigami before the same constitution or after, they shall not be delivered to the prelates, but justice shall be executed upon them, as upon other lay people." This statute was passed two years after the council of Lyons, viz. in 1276, and is a parliamentary declaration of the consti (q) 2 Inst. 273; Gibs. 423. (r) P. 129. (s) Can. Sanct. Apost. 16, 17, 18; Dist. 55, c. 1 & 2; X. 1, 21; De Bi gamis non ordinandis, Lindw. 128. (t) 6° 1, 12. (u) 4 Bl. Com. 163, in the note. tution there made. This, Lord Coke says, the judges required, because that constitution took from bigamists their clergy, and therefore their lives (x). 18 Ed. 3, st. 3, c. 2, "If any clerk be arraigned before our justices at our suit, or at the suit of the party, and the clerk holdeth him to his clergy, alleging that he ought not before them thereupon to answer; and if any man for us or for the same party will suggest, that he hath married two wives or one widow, that upon the same the justices shall not have the cognizance or power to try the bigamy by inquest or in other manner; but it shall be sent to the spiritual court, as hath been done in times past in case of bastardy. And till the certificate be made by the ordinary, the party in whom the bigamy is alleged shall abide in prison if he be not mainpernable." 1 Ed. 6, c. 12, s. 16, "Every person who by any statute or law of this realm ought to have the benefit of clergy, shall be allowed the same although he hath been divers time married to any single woman or single women, or to any widow or widows, or to two wives or more." [The last statute on this subject is 9 G. 4, c. 31.-ED.] Bishops. [194] of Bishops. [Van Espen, pars 1, lit. 13, de Elect. et Nomin. Episcoporum ; Thomassini Vet. et Nova Eccles. Disciplina, vol. ii. p. 313, de Episcop. Elect. et Confirmatione; Giannone, lib. 1 et 2, Istoria Civile di Napoli; Bingham's Eccles. Antiq.; Stillingfleet's Orig. Brit.; Hooker's Eccles. Polity, 6, 7 and 8th books. [THE great authorities cited above should be consulted by Early History those who wish to be thoroughly conversant with a detailed history of the origin and continuance of the order of Bishops in the Christian Church, throughout every country where that church has been permitted to flourish, as well as in our own Islands. The history of Episcopacy in the latter is sketched with much spirit and fidelity by the Rev. W. Palmer, in his Antiquities of the English Ritual (y); but even this condensed account exceeds the very narrow limits which can be allotted to it in a work of a strictly legal character. "The Church (says Giannone), even during the three first centuries, knew no other hierarchy, no other orders than those of Bishops, Priests and Deacons (z)." But this assertion, though generally true, requires some qualification; for the language of the Council of Nice (A. D. 325) renders it quite clear that certain Bishops had a pre-eminence and dignity above the rest. "Let those (x) 2 Inst. 274. (y) [Vol. ii. p. 246.] (z) [L. 1, c. xi. s. 4, Ist. Civil, di Napoli.] of Bishops. Origin of Metropolitans and Arch bishops. Early History customs remain in force which have been of old the customs (agxaix on) of Egypt, and Lybia, and Pentopolis; by which customs the Bishop of Alexandria hath authority over all these, and the rather, that this hath also been the use of the Bishops of Rome, and the same hath been observed in Antioch and in other provinces." The first Council of Constantinople, held eighty years after the Nicene Synod, added the Bishop of Constantinople to the number of these Primates or Metropolitans of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome, assigning him a place second in dignity to the latter (m). But it was not till after Constantine had publicly embraced Christianity that the dignities of Metropolitans, Archbishops, Primates, Exarchs or Patriarchs, were so established in the Church, as to correspond with the secular magistracies of the State; and from this period these titles seem to have been bestowed (n) with reference to the greater or less extent of the provinces over which they held spiritual sway (o). The Metropolitans were so called because they presided over the Churches of the principal cities of the province. It was their duty to ordain the Bishops of their province, to convoke provincial councils, and to exercise a general superintendence over the doctrine and discipline of the Bishops and clergy within the provinces. These are the functions ascribed to them by the Council of Nice (A.D. 325), by the councils which followed soon afterwards, by the ecclesiastical writers of the fourth and fifth century, and by the edicts of Justinian (p). The title of Archbishop was one of honour, but brought with it no authority, and was at first very rarely bestowed, and only on the most distinguished Bishops. The name is not to be met with during the three first centuries. It occurs for the first time in the fourth century, and St. Athanasius appears to have been among the earliest who were distinguished by this title (q). In the fifth century it was conferred on the Bishops of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Ephesus, and Thessalonica. Gregory the Great extended it much farther. In the eighth century it became still more common, and in later times was bestowed upon all Metropolitans, and occasionally, as in the Neapolitan dominions, upon simple Bishops (r). The Exarch or Patriarch presided over the be heard in the court of the diocese at the Hellespont, and not in the chief or metropolitan court of the province, i. e. Ephesus.-ED.] (m) [So Cyprian (A. D. 280) was Metropolitan of Carthage, and Archbishop Usher and others conceive that the Bishops of the Seven Churches in Asia were Metropolitans.-ED.] (n) [The word diocese was borrowed from the Roman government, who had adopted it from the Greeks. "Si quid habebis cum aliquo Hellespontio controversiæ ut in illam din rejicias." Cic. fam. ep. 53, 1. 13. For a province was parcelled out into dioceses; and Cicero here requests the Proprætor that his friend's cause may (o) [L. 2, c. viii.] (9) [He was elevated from the humble rank of Deacon to the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt, and filled that eminent station above forty-six years, A. D. 326-373.] (r) Like the title Primus in the early Scotch Church. See Church in Scotland. whole Diocese, and therefore over all the Metropolitans of the Election of different provinces which composed it. Thomassin establishes Bishops. three propositions with respect to the election of the Bishops during the first centuries. These propositions, the fruit of a very long and learned inquiry, are, 1, that the Bishops exercised the chief influence in the election of another Bishop (electores primarios fuisse episcopos): 2, that though the people were always among the electors, their voice carried with it less weight than that of the clergy (clero plus tributum quam populo): 3, that the consent of the prince was an indispensable preliminary to the consecration of the Bishop by the Metropolitan (consensum regis necessarium). The part which the people took in the election of the early Bishops rests on indubitable proofs. Theodoretus' complaint against Lucius the Arian is, that he was chosen "non episcoporum orthodoxorum synodo, non clericorum virorum suffragio, non petitione populorum, ut ecclesiæ leges præcipiunt." And on the other hand, St. Athanasius, desiring to justify himself from the aspersions of his calumniators, asserts, "omnia canonicè inquiri et peragi decebat, præsentibus populis et clericis." There is also a very remarkable letter of Gregory VII., cited by Van Espen, in which that pontiff charges the "episcopum Aurelianensem," amongst other offences, "sine idoneâ cleri et populi electione ecclesiam invassisse.' Van Espen seems to estimate the influence of the people in these elections more highly than Thomassin, especially in the Latin Church. Certain it is, however, that as the numbers of the clergy increased, they gradually excluded the people altogether. But before the thirteenth Origin of century, their own influence was transferred to the cathedral Chapters and chapters, "quasi clerum representantia," who became and are of the College nominally to this day the sole electors of the Bishop (r). The origin of this now universal practice is traced by Van Espen (citing Onuphrius) to the long schism which occurred about the election of Alexander III. to the papacy, which led to the transference of this right to the College of Cardinals, as the representatives of the Roman clergy. It is remarkable that no mention of this privilege of cardinals and chapters is to be found in the older canons, or the "Decretum" of Gratian. In these the right of election is simply alleged as belonging to the clergy; with whom the Bishop is desired to transact "majora ecclesiæ negotia." It would seem that towards the beginning of the thirteenth century this right of the chapters to elect bishops was established, which Van Espen condemns as a manifest departure from the spirit of the ancient canons (s). [The consent of the prince seems to have been invariably Consent of (r) [About the time of Innocent III. ED.] (s) ["Quid enim propriè est Synodus Diocesana, nisi conventus VOL. I. constans ex Episcopo et clero suæ T Cathedral of Cardinals. the Prince. Consent of the Prince. considered as necessary for the due election of the bishop [The earliest account of English bishops is the record of (u) [See King's Rites of the Greek (v) [See Bede's account of Alfred's nomination of Wilfred, 1. 50, c. 20.] (w) [Stillingfleet's Origines Brit. ch. 2, 3, 4.] (x) [L. 2, c. 2.] |