II'IN. 



BRE'VIARY. 



Henry VIII. to inquire late the abuses of tho IrUh nobility in 1537. 

 The faUowbic M ui abstract of some ot UM most remarkable com 



, (ad with comas* and eei-vice in general 

 Lady Catherina POST not only required eoyne MM! livery for their own 

 horses and boys, but also for those of all their gueste, English or Irish, 

 particularly when UMV kept Batter or Christmas. Wh*u either he 

 (Kitdare) or Poer, or Ossory, hunted, their dogi were (applied with 

 brsad, milk, or butter. When the deputy or any great man came to 

 Lady Poer, she levied a subsidy at her pleasure for meat, drink, and 

 candle, under the name of ' wurlyagk.' When Ossory or Poer married 

 a daughter, the former demanded a sheep from every husbandman, 

 and a eow from every Tillage ; and when their eons were sent to 

 Y^p""*. a tribute wia levied on every village or plough-land. Lady 

 Poer took of a tenant who had hi* hone or cattle stolen, 6 marks for 

 hi* want of vigilance. Sir Thomas Butler exacted 10 mark* at Barter, 

 if his subjects had passe it the year without galenglass or spearsmen. 

 William Bermyngham required 16 quart* to the gallon, in payments 

 by liquid measure. Some lords took the tenants' produce at prices 

 fixed by themselves, and thereby were enabled to forestall the markets. 

 The brehun, who was kept by Lady Catherina Poer, took for his 

 judgment, called ' sylogag, 16o, of every mark sterling, both of the 

 plaintiff and defendant, Ac., Ac." By these tyrannical practices, re- 

 sulting from the union of the worst parts of both systems, the brehon 

 law fell into extreme odium, but they are chiefly the exorbitancies and 

 malpractices of the class which have been quoted by English writers 

 who censure it ; so that if the views here taken be correct, that odium 

 has been in great measure undeserved. Indeed the nobles of the 

 pale seem to have established a separate code of laws for their own 

 government, known as the Statute* of Kileath ; and we find them, in 

 the reign of Henry VIII., inflicting a penalty of five marks on the 

 individual who would sue by any other law. If these statutes be the 

 index to such practices as those quoted above, it is little to be 

 wondered at that the brehon law, which bore the blame of all, should 

 have been denounced as it was. Great efforts were accordingly made, 

 both in this reign and in Elizabeth's, to supplant the brehon law ; the 

 3rd and 4th Philip and Mary, c. v. is also directed against some of its 

 effects ; but it was not till the 3rd of James that the final extirpation 

 of the old law was effected. The whole kingdom being then divided 

 into counties, with their several sheriffs and circuits of assize, the 

 brehon law became a mere subject of inquiry to the antiquary, and as 

 snob, at the present day, possesses perhaps greater interest than any 

 other branch of Irish or Celtic arciueology. We may now hope ere 

 long to see a full and perfect translation, which cannot fail to throw 

 much light on the accounts of the early state of civilisation in 

 Ireland. 



BREIDIK. A crystallisable substance, found in the resin of the 

 Canariom albm. 



BREIN. A fusible, crysUlliaable, neutral body, existing in the resin 

 of the OmanW aUnm. 



BREVE, in Music, a note doable the length of a semibreve, and 

 thus formed, I ol, or II = II. The brect (from brevu, short), which in 

 duration takes twice the time of the longest note now in ordinary use, 

 was a short, brief note, three centuries ago, as the term clearly proves. 

 Musicians have proceeded by degrees till the quarter-demisemiquaver 

 is become our mimnwm, being ,1, of the breve. Indeed some have 

 gone so far as to introduce the naif -quarter-demuemiquaver ; among 

 whom U Beethoven. 



BREVET, in Prance, denotes any warrant granted by the sovereign 

 to an individual, in order to entitle him to perform the duty to which 

 it refers. 



In the British service, the term is applied to a commission conferring 

 on an officer any degree of rank in Ike army above that which he holds 

 in his particular regiment ; which, however, does not carry with it tho 

 corresponding pay. Brevet rank does not exist in the royal nary, and 

 in the army it neither descends lower than that of captain, nor 

 ascends above that of lieutenant-colonel. It is generally given as the 

 reward of some particular service, though it used to be the custom to 

 give periodical brevet*, by which all officers of a certain standing 

 received a step of brevet rank. 



Brevet rank does not promote an officer over the heads of those in 

 Us own regiment; but when serving on courts-martial formed of 

 officers drawn from different regiments, or when in garrison, or when 

 joined to a detachment composed of different corps, he takes pre- 

 cedence according to the rank given him in his brevet, or according to 

 the date of any former commission; but while serving on courta- 

 martial, or with a detachment composed only of his own regiment, he 

 does duty and takes rank according to the date of his commission in 

 that regiment. Brevet rank, therefore, is to be considered effectual for 

 very military purpose in the army generally, but of no avail in the 

 regiment to which the officer holding it belongs, unless it be wholly or 

 in part united for a temporary purpose with some other corns. (See 

 Samuel'. ' Historical Account of the British Army,' p. 615.) 



Something similar to the brevet rank above described must have 

 existed in the French service under the old monarchy; for, according 

 to Pen Daniel (torn. U. pp. 217 and 227), the coloncl-gcneral of the 



Swiss troops had UM power of nominating subaltern officers to the 

 rank of captains by a certificate, which enabled them to hold that rank 

 without the regular commission The same author states also that if 

 any captain transferred himself from one regiment to another, whatever 

 illicit be the date of his commission, he was placed at the bottom of 

 the list in the regiment which he entered, without, however, losing his 

 right of seniority when employed in a detachment composed of troops 

 drawn from several different regiments. 



The introduction of brevet rank into the British army, as well as 

 that of the half-pay allowance to officers on retiring from regimental 

 duty, probably took place soon after the revolution in 1688. but the 

 practice of granting, when officers from different regiments are united 

 for particular purposes, a nominal rank higher than that whi. h is 

 actually held, appears to have been of older date : for in the ' Soldier's 

 Grammar,' which was written in the time of James I., it is stated that 

 the lieutenants of colonels are captains by courtesy, and may sit in a 

 court of war (court-martial) as junior captains of the regiments in 

 which they command. (Grose, ' Military Antiquities,' vol. ii.) It was 

 originally supposed that both officers holding commissions by brevet 

 and those on half-pay were subject to military law ; but, in 1748, when 

 the inclusion of half-pay officers within the sphere of it* control was 

 objected to as an unnecessary extension of that law, the clause refer- 

 ring to them in the Mutiny Act was omitted, and it has never since 

 been inserted. In 1786 it was decided in Parliament that brevet 

 officers were subject to the Mutiny Act or Articles of War, but that 

 half-pay officers were not. (Lord Woodhouselee, ' Essay on Military 

 Law,' p. 112.) Brevet command, or rather local rank, a species of 

 brevet rank extending only to a particular country during the con- 

 tinuance of war, was frequently conferred on officers during the Pen- 

 insular and Crimean wars. 



BRKVIA'RIUM was used among the Roman writers to denote a 

 book introduced by Augustus, containing the accounts of the empire, 

 the enumeration of the military, Ac. (Sueton. ' Aug.' c. 28.) The 

 design of this breviarium was to explain to the Roman people the 

 manner in which the monies levied upon them were applied, not to the 

 emperor's private use, but for public purposes. Tiberius laid aside 

 the breviariiun, but it was resumed by Caligula, (Sueton. ' Calig.' 

 c. 16.) 



BREVIA'RIUM ALARICIA'NUM is now the usual name of the 

 code which was compiled at the command of Alarie II., king of the 

 Visigoths, from the Roman law and the Roman jurist*. It was com- 

 pleted A. D. 506, in the twenty-second year of his reign. The code was 

 confirmed by the nobles and bishops, and signed by Anianus, the 

 referendarius of Alarie ; a circumstance from which the erroneous 

 inference has sometimes been made that he was the compiler of it. 

 The title Breviarium Alaricianum was only introduced in the 16th 

 century ; it was sometimes called Lex Romana, and somctinv 

 Theodosii, in respect of the most important part of its contents. 



The contents of the Breviarium are formed of abbreviations or com- 

 pilations from the following sources : 1. Codex Theodosianus, 16 books ; 

 2. Novelise of Theodoaius II., Valentiuianus III., Marcian, Majorian, 

 Severus; 3. The Institutions of Gains ; 4. The Recepto Sentential of 

 Paulus ; 6. Codex Gregorianus ; 6. Codex Hermogenianus ; 7. Papi- 

 nianus, lib. 1. Reeponsonim. Accordingly the code was composed of 

 Imperial Constitutions, or Legee, as they are properly termed in (he 

 Breviarium, and of the writings of Roman jurists, which in the 1' 

 rium are termed Jus. 



This Code is of some value for the history of the Roman law, as it 

 contains extracts from portions of the Roman laW which are wholly or 

 partially lost, as the work of Paulus, and from the first five books of 

 the Thecxlosian Code, which however, owing to recent discoveries, are 

 less imperfect than they were. The discovery of the Institutions of 

 Gaius [UAH'S, P. C.] has rendered that port of the Breviarium in w liirh 

 Goius was epitomised, of small value. The lacuna: in Gaius cannot be 

 filled up from the Epitome, because the compiler paid little at)' 

 to retaining the words of the original, but the Epitome shows what 

 matters were discussed in those parts of Gaius where the ' 

 defective. The whole of the Breviarium is contained in the 'Jus 

 Civile Antejustinianeum,' Berlin, 1815. For full information on thm 

 subject, the reader is referred to Savigny's celebrated work, ' Qeachichtn 

 des Romischen Rechts im Mittelalter,' v. ii. c. 8 ; or to the French 

 translation by Monsieur Guenoux, v. ii. c. 8. 



I'.KK'VIARY, or canonical hours, the name of the daily service-book 

 of the Church of Rome, consisting of the offices of matins, prime, third, 

 sixth, nones, vespers, and the complines ; that is, of seven hours, accord- 

 ing with the saying of David, Ps. cxix. 164 : " Seven times a day do I 

 praise thee." 



The origin of tho name is variously accounted for : sonic deriving it 

 from the little books of psalms and lessons read in the choir, collected 

 out of large volume*, which the old monks carried with them in (ln-ir 

 journeys ; others from the shortened service which was used in the 

 papal palace of the Lateran, afterwards brought into general use. 

 Granoolas, in his ' Commentarius Historicus in Romanuin Breviarium,' 

 4to, Ven., 1784, says, " Breviarium dictum est quasi Breve Orarium, 

 sivc Prccum Epitumo ; " an explanation countenanced by the cirnmi 

 stance that the name of breviary U not older than the year 1080, 

 :l..ptvd after the offices which it contains had been revised and 

 contracted. 



