KOMAV CATHOLICS. 





146 



upon this order, M the Greeks UaJ done 



Roman building! adapted to particular 

 to the article* Aiirn, Tim MJ-HAI. ; 

 .\ r.i-uu.i; BATIM; FORUM; MAUSO- 



1 , THEATRE, *c, 



HUMAN CATHOLICS. I c VIIK.I.U- Cin'Hi-ii ; RECVSAJJTS.] 



M) .IKWS. By the act 9 ft H> Vi. (.. 



cap. 5, paatirt August 18, 1846, intituled "An Act to relieve her 

 *i subject* from certain penalties and liabilitiee in regard to 

 opinion! ;" all the previous Act* and parU of AcU imposing 

 ei on the proteanc* of the Roman Catholic or Jewish religions 

 wen replied, of which a portion, a* far as Roman Catholics were 

 cwooenwd. had been indirectly removed by the Roman Catholic IMu-f 

 Act, On August 1, 1851, howerer, wai passed an Act 14 A 15 Viet., 

 cap. 60, " To prevent the aamimption of certain Ecclesiastical Titles m 

 respect of place* in the United Kingdom," by which a penalty of 1 OO/. 

 was impoaed on any one assuming the title of archbishop, bishop, or 

 dean of any province, place, or district in the United Kingdom ; and 

 which declared any such creation by the see of Rome to be illegal and 

 void. It also made illegal and void, punishable with the like pecuniary 

 penalty . the publication of any bull, brief, rescript, letters apostolical, 

 or any other instrument or writing constituting such province or dis- 

 trict. whether nich district be or be not the see or diocese, or deanery, 

 of the established church. On July 23, 1858, likewise was passed the 

 81 A 28 Viet., cap. 19, intituled " An Act to provide for the relief of 

 her Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion," by which Jews 

 on ''Vi-g the oath before sitting in parliament, may be relieved, 

 by a resolution of the house, from making the declaration*, " I make 

 this declaration on the true faith of a Christian ; " and these words are 

 to be omitted in every other oath, except on making presentation to 

 an ecclesiastical benefice. Jews are also declared incapable of holding 

 the office of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, lord chancellor of Great Britain 

 or Ireland, or high commissioner of the general assembly of the church 

 of Scotland. The right of presentations to ecclesiastical benefices, 

 veiled in Jews, is devolved in the archbishop of Canterbury, nor are 

 Jews to advise in the disposal of such matters; a contravention of 

 these provisions to be deemed a misdemeanour, and a conviction 

 enUiU a disability of sen-ing the crown in any office, civil or military, 

 whatever. 



ROMAN LAW. The historical origin of the Roman law is unknown, 

 and its fundamental principles, some of which even survived the 

 legislation of Justinian, are older than the oldest records of Italian 

 history. The foundation of the strict rules of the Roman law as to 

 familia, agnatio, marriage, testaments, succession to intestates, and 

 ownership, wai no doubt custom, which, being recognised by the 

 sovereign power, became law. As in many other states of antiquity, 

 the connection of the civil with the ecclesiastical or sacred law wa ; 

 most mtimate ; or rather, we may consider the law of religion as 

 originally comprehending all other law, and its interpretation as belong- 

 ing to the priests and the king exclusively. There was, however, 

 direct legislation even in the period of the kings. These lawn, which 

 are mentioned under the name of Leges Kegiic, were proposed by the 

 king, with the approbation of the senate, and confirmed by the 

 populus in the Comitia Curiata, and, after the constitution of Servius 

 Tulliiis, in the Cumitia Centuriata. That there were remains of this 

 ancient legislation existing even in the Imperial period, is certain, as 

 appear* from the notice of the Jus Civile Papirianum or Papisianum, 

 which the Pontifex Maximus Papiriua is said to have compiled from 

 thine source*, about or immediately after the expulsion of Tarquinius 

 Suparbua (' Dig.,' L, tit 2), and from the distinct references to these 

 . Leges made by late writers. Still there is great uncertainty as to the 

 exact date of the compilation of Papirius, and its real character. Even 

 his name in not quite certain, as he is variously called Cains, Sextus, 

 and Pul.liu. (Dion. Hal., iii. 36 ; ' Dig.,' i., tit. 2.) 



But the earliest legislation of which we have any important i 

 is the cotnpiUUun of the code called the Twelve Tables. The original 

 bronze tables indeed are said to have perished in the conflagration of 

 the city after it* capture by the Oauls, but they were satisfactorily 

 restored from copies and from memory, for no ancient writer who 

 cites them ever expresses; a doubt as to the genuineness of their con 

 Unts. It is the tradition that a commission was sent to Athens and 

 the Greek states of Itily. for tliu purpose of examining into and collect- 

 ing what was most useful in their codes ; and it is also said that Her- 

 modorus of Ephesus, then an exile in Rome, gave his assistance in the 

 compilation of the code. There is nothing improbable in this story, 

 and yet it is undeniable that the laws of the Tables were based on 

 Roman and nut on Greek or Athenian law. Their object was to con- 

 firm and define perhaps rather than to enlarge or alter the Roman law; 

 and it is probable that the laws of Solon and those of other Greek 

 Utm, if they had any eSect on the legislation of the Decemviri, 

 served rather as models of form than as sources of positive rules. 

 Trn tables were completed and made public by the Decemviri, in 



:<.wing year two other tables wen 



compilation is quoted by the ancient writers by various titles: Lex 



i ibularum, Leges XII., sometimes XII. simply (Cic., ' Legg.,' ii. 



28), Lex Decemviraliii, and other*. The rules contained in these 



blei long continued to be the foundation of Roman law, and they 



were never formally repealed. The laws themselves were considered 

 as a text-book, and they were commented on by the jurists as late as 

 the age of the Antonines, when (tains wrote a comment u 'y " '' 

 six books ('Ad Legem XII. Tabularuin ' i. The action* of the old 

 Roman law, called Lcgitiimc, or Legis Actiones, were founded on the 

 provisions of the Twelve Tables, and the demand of the complainant 

 could only be made iu the precise terms which were used in the 'I 

 (Gains, iv. 11.) The rights of action were consequently very limited, 

 and they were only subsequently extended by the edicts of the 

 pnctors. The brevity and obscurity of this ancient legislation ren 

 interpretation necessary in order to give the laws any application : 

 l>oth the interpretation of the laws and the framing of the proper 

 forms of action belonged to the College of Pontifices, who ;. 

 appointed a member of their own body to decide in all doubtful cases. 

 The civil law was thus still inseparably connected with that of religion 

 (Jus Pontificium), and its interpretation and the knowledge of the 

 forms of procedure were still the exclusive possession of the patricians. 

 The scanty fragments of the Twelve Tables hardly enable us to 

 form a judgment of their character or a p oate of the com- 



mendation bestowed on them by Cicero ( De Or.,' i. 43). It seems to 

 have been the object of the compilers to make a complete Bet of 

 both as to religious and civil matters ; ami they did not confine theiu- 

 selves to what the Romans called private law, but they comprised a!-> 

 public law. ('Fons public! privatique juris,' Liv., iii. "I.) They 

 contained provisions as to testaments, successions to intestate 

 core of persons of -unsound mind, theft, homicide, interments, Ac. 

 They also comprised enactments which affected a man's stati; 

 for instance, the law contained in one of the two lost Tables, which 

 did not allow to a marriage contracted between a patrician and a 

 plebeian the character of a legal Roman marriage, or, in other words, 

 declared that between patricians and plebeians there could be no Con 

 nubium. Though great changes were made iu the Jus Publieum by 

 the various enactments which gave to the plebeians the same rights MI 

 the patricians, and by those which concerned public administration, 

 the fundamental principles of the Jus Privatuui, which were contained 

 in the T.ibl'ii, remained unchanged, and are referred to by jurists as 

 late as the time of Ulpian. 



The old Leges Regiso, which were collected into one body by Papirius, 

 were commented on by Granius Flaccus in the time of Julius 

 (' Dig.,' 50, tit. 16, s. 144), and thus they were probably prc.-' 

 The fragments of these laws have been often collected, but the best 

 essay upon them is by Dirksen, ' Versuehen zur Kritik und Auslegung 

 der Quellen des Romischen Rechts,' Leipzig, 1823. The fragments of 

 the Twelve Tables also have been often collected. The best work on 

 the subject is that by James Godefroy (Jac. Gothofredus), which, with 

 the more recent work of Dirksen, ' Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche 

 zur Kritik uiid Herstelluug des Textes der Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente,' 

 Leipzig, 1824, seems to have exhausted the subject. 



For about one hundred years after the legislation of the Decemviri, 

 the patricians retained their exclusive possession of the forms of pro- 

 cedure. Appius Claudius Ctccus drew up a book of the forms of 

 action's, which it is said that his clerk, discus Flavius, stole and pub- 

 lished; the fact of the theft may be doubted, though that of the 

 publication of the forms of procedure, and of a list of the Dies 

 Fasti and Ncfasti, rests on sufficient evidence. The book thus made 

 public by Flavius was called Jus Civile Flavianum ; but like that of 

 Papirius it was only a compilation. The publication of these forms 

 must have had a great effect on the practice of the law : it was in 

 reality equivalent to an -extension of the privileges of the plebeians. 

 Subsequently Sextus ^Elius published another work, called ' Jus 

 .Kliaiium,' which was more complete than that of Flavius. This work, 

 which was extant in the time of Pomponius (' Dig.,' i.,tit 2, s. 2, 39), 

 was also called ' Tripertita,' from the circumstance of its containing 

 the laws of the Twelve Tables, a commentary upon them (interpretatio), 

 and the Legis Actiones. This work of Julius appears to have been 

 considered iu later times as one of the chief sources of the civil law 

 (veluti cunabula juris) ; and he received from his contemporary Ennuis 

 the name of " wise " : 



" Egrcgic Cordatus homo Caius .Klius Sexlm." 



.Klius was Curulo -Edilo, B.C. 200, and Consul, B.C. 198. 

 In the Republican period new laws (leges) were enacted both in the 

 Comitia Centuriata and in the Comitia Tributa. The Leges CV 

 which were enacted by the curia;, were limited to cases of abrogation 

 and the conferring of the impcrium. The Comitia Centuriata were 

 mode independent of the senate by the Lex Publilia (Liv., viii. 12), 

 which declared that the leges passed in these Comitia should not 

 require the confirmation of the senate. The leges passed in the 

 ( 'cimilia Tributa were properly called Leges Tribute or Plebiscite, and 

 originally they were merely proposals for a law which wet 

 the senate and confirmed by the curia;. But the Lex Publilia (11 c. 

 Hid subsequently the Lex Hortensia (B.C. 286), gave to the 

 I'lebiscita the full force of leges without the consent of the senate 

 (Liv., viii. 12; Gains, i. 8; Gell., xv. 27); and a Plebiscitum was 

 accordingly sometimes called a lex. Tho leges generally took their 

 name from the gentile name of the magistrate who proposed them 

 (rogavit), or, if he was a consul, from the name of both consuls, aa 

 Lex ^Elia or ^Elia Sentia, Pnpia or Papia Poppowi, If the proposer of 



