ORDER 



ORDERS 



629 



On the Continent it was, generally speaking, 

 abolished rather earlier, although as late as 1498 

 we find the truth of Savonarola's doctrine put to 

 the test by a challenge between one of his disciples 

 and a Franciscan friar to walk through a burning 

 pile. In Scotland in 1180 we lino David I. 

 enacting, in one of the assemblies of the frank 

 tenantry of the kingdom, which were the germ of 

 parliaments, that no one was to hold an ordinary 

 court of justice, or a court of ordeal, whether of 

 battle, iron, or water, except in presence of the 

 sheriff or one of his sergeants ; though, if that 

 official failed to attend after being duly summoned, 

 the court might be held in his absence. The first 

 step towards the abolition of this form of trial in 

 Saxon and Celtic countries seems to have been the 

 Mibstitution of compurgation by witnesses for com- 

 pnrgation by ordeal. The near relatives of an 

 accused party were expected to come forward to 

 swear to his innocence. The number of compur- 

 gators varied according to the importance of the 

 case ; and judgment went against the party whose 

 kin refused to come forward, or who failed to 

 obtain the necessary number of compurgators. To 

 repel an accusation it was often held necessary to 

 have double the number of compurgators who sup- 

 ported it, till at length the most numerous body of 

 compurgators carried the day. 



See the articles BATTLE ( WAGER OF ), DIVINATIOH, and 

 MAGIC; also the works of Bastian, Grimm, Tylor, and 

 1Vaitz pattim ; Tyler's article, ' Ordeals and Oaths,' in 

 Macmillait's Magazine for 1876 ; H. C. Lea's Super- 

 ttitioii and Force (1'liila. 1866; new. ed. 1878); and 

 George Neilson'g Trial by Combat (1890). 



Order, in Natural History, a group inferior to 

 chins and sub-clogs, but superior to family, genus, 

 &c. The term NATURAL ORDER is used in 

 Botany to express genuine relationship in con- 

 trast to purely artificial grouping, but all orders 

 now recognised are supposed to oe more or less 

 'natural. See GENTS, SPECIES. 



Orderfeiis Vitalis. a mediaeval historian, 

 born at Atchiim near Shrewsbury in 1075. He 

 was the son of Odeler of Orleans, who in Roger 

 de Montgomery's train had accompanied the 

 Conqueror to England, and from childhood was 

 dedicated to God. At ten he was sent to Nor- 

 mandy to be educated for the monastic life in 

 the abbey of St Evroul. Here he spent all 

 his life, although he made several visits to 

 England to collect historical materials. He 

 became a priest in 1107, and died most probably 

 aliout 1143. Between the years 1130 and 1141 

 Orderic compiled his llistorice Ecclesiastics, an 

 elalx>rate work on the history of Normandy 

 and England, preceded by a brief chronicle of 

 events from the birth of Christ down to his own 

 time. The work is a singular mixture of important 

 history and trivial gossip, marred by alisolute Inck 

 of order, grotesque style, and laUmred grandilo- 

 quence ; but its writer possessed the seeing eye and 

 the sympathetic heart, and the result is that his 

 confused book remains a precious storehouse to 

 the historian, abounding in those truthful photo- 

 graphic glimpses of reality which are beyond the 

 reach of all the laliorious erudition of a later age. 

 With the Conquest it becomes of great value as an 

 honest and trustworthy contemporary source. 



The first edition of the Hintorife Ecclesiastical was pub- 

 lished by J)iichene, in bin Hut. Norm. Scrip. (1619). 

 It has al:*o been printed by the French Historical Society 

 (1840), and wax translated into English by T. Forester 

 (4vols. 1853 flCi) in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. The 

 best edition is that by A. I.- Provost (5 vols. Paris, 1838- 

 36). See chap. vi. of Dean Church's St Antetm ( 1870). 



Orderlies are non-commissioned officers or 

 soldiers employed as messengers or attendants. 

 Thus, in the British army, each general or com- 



manding officer has an orderly always at his dis- 

 posal ; a Post-office Orderly fetches the letters of 

 each corps ; and when a court-martial or board of 

 officers is convened, a non-commissioned officer is 

 appointed as Court-orderly to attend upon it. The 

 men of the medical staff corps, when on duty with 

 the sick, are also called Hospital-orderlies. The 

 Orderly-officer is the officer on duty for the day 

 in each corps. He attends all parades, inspects 

 rations, visits the barrack-rooms at the dinner- 

 hour, hospital, cells, guardroom, &c., remaining 

 in uniform and on duty in barracks the whole day. 

 Similarly, an Orderly Non-commissioned Officer 

 of each corps is on duty for the week, calls the 

 roll, warns men for parade, copies orders, &a 

 The regimental Orderly-room is the office where the 

 lieutenant-colonel, assisted by the adjutant and 

 a staff of clerks, transacts his business and sees 

 prisoners daily. Each troop, battery, or company 

 has a similar Orderly-room for the use of its com- 

 mander. The Orderly-book or Order-book contains 

 the general or regimental orders, which are copied 

 into it as they are issued. 



Orders, HOLY, an institution, regarded in the 

 Greek and Koman churches as a sacrament, by 

 which ministers are specially set apart for the 

 service of religion. While some of the reformed 

 churches altogether deny the distinction of ranks 

 in the ministry, none of them admits more than 

 three ranks, of bishop, priest, and deacon. But in 

 the Roman and Greek churches a distinction is 

 made lietween the major or holy orders and the 

 minor orders. The major orders are those of 

 bishop, priest, and deacon (see the articles under 

 those heads). A fourth rank of sub-deacons is 

 generally regarded as one of the major orders, but 

 its functions closely resemble in their nature and 

 their degree those of the deacon. Some theologians, 

 it should be noted, regard the episcopate not as a 

 separate order, but as the completion and exten- 

 sion of the priesthood. The minor orders in the 

 Roman Church are four in number those of door- 

 keeper, reader, exorcist, and acolyte. To none 

 of these orders is any vow of celibacy annexed. 

 Some of their functions had their origin in the 

 peculiar religious condition of the early church. Pre- 

 paratory to the receiving of these orders candidates 

 are initiated in the Tonsure (q.v. ). In the Koman 

 Church the sacrament of holy orders is held to 

 produce an indelible character, and therefore to be 

 incapable of being forfeited and of being validly 

 repeated. The Greek Church has also the distinc- 

 tion of major and minor orders ; but all the func- 

 tions of the four minor orders of the Roman Church 

 are united by the Greeks in one single order, that 

 of reader (anagnostes). 



In the Anglican and other Reformed Episcopal 

 churches the three higher orders of bishop, priest, 

 and deacon are alone retained. An Anglican 

 clergyman may be deprived of his benefice, or 

 suspended by his bishop for various ecclesiastical 

 offences. But, in the usual case of deprivation, 

 the clergyman does not forfeit his status of priest 

 or deacon, which can only be lost by deposition or 

 degradation. A bishop may be depnved of his see 

 by his metropolitan, with or without the co-opera- 

 tion of a synod of the bishops of the province, but 

 it has been questioned whether he can be lawfully 

 deprived of his orders as bishop. Till 1870 a clergy- 

 man of the Church of England could not become 

 a member of the House of Commons ( see CLERGY). 

 In the Presbyterian and othernon-episcopal churches 

 the ceremony of ordination is not held to impart 

 any indelible character. A minister found guilty 

 of heresy or immorality is deprived of his office by 

 deposition, by which his clerical status is forfeited. 

 A minister deposed ceases altogether to be a 

 minister, and ia no more capable of any of the 



