': 



KKANKIXl'llNSK 



FRAUDS, STATUTE OF. 



aoo 



moigmi, and the change U by general consent by authority of parlia 

 nxnt, whereunto every mm is party, the tenure remains as it was 



The statute 12 Charles II., which abolished military tenures, ez 

 pressly except* tenures in rrankalmoigne. 



Those who hold lands in frankahnoigne must do the services for 

 which these lands were given. These services are now determined, as 

 Coke says, by the book of Common Prayer. The mode of compiling 

 these tenant* to do their duty is thus described by Littleton ( 136) 

 " And if they which hold their tenement* in fraukaliuoigne will not, or 

 fail to do such divine service (as is said), the lord may not distrain them 

 for not doing this, ic., because it is not put to certainty what services 

 they ought to do. But the lord may complain of this to their ordinary 

 or visitor, praying him that he will lay some punishment and correction 

 for this, and also provide that such negligence be no more done, Ac 

 And the ordinary or visitor of right ought to do this/'.&c. 



by which almost all the ancient monasteries and religious houses held 

 their lands ; and by which the parochial clergy and very many eccle- 

 siastical and eleemosynary foundations hold them at this day, the 

 nature of the service being upon the Reformation altered, and made 

 conformable to the purer doctrine of the Church of England." 



FRANKINCENSE, Common, obtained from Abie* cjccelta (Dec.), 

 the Piitm alitt of Linn., consist* of two kinds of resin mixed with oil 

 of turpentine. By melting it in water, and straining it through strong 

 cloths, it is deprived of much of its oil, when it is termed pix arida, or 

 Burgundy pitch, and also white resin. 



It is scarcely now used internally, but is irritant and diuretic. Ex- 

 ternally it is rubefacient, and consequently enters into the composition 

 of many plasters. 



FRANKLIN. In the reign of Elizabeth a franklin was a freeholder, 

 or yeoman, a man above a vassal or villain, but not a gentleman. He 

 is mentioned as of this description in several passages of Shakspere'a 

 plays. In earlier times he was a personage of much more dignity, and 

 seems to have been distinguished from a common freeholder by the 

 greatness of his possessions. Chaucer's franklin (Introduction to 

 ' Canterbury Tales ') was a rich and luxurious gentleman, a chief man 

 at the sessions, and had been sheriff, and frequently knight of the 

 shire. 



Fortescue, 'De Legibus Anglite,' c. 29, describes the franklin as 

 " Pater familias magnis ditatus possessionibus." 



FRANKPLEDGE. [LEET.] 



FRATRICELLI, or Little Brethren, (an Italian translation of 

 Fratres minores, or Friars Minors as the Franciscans called themselves) 

 also called Fratra de paupere ritd, a religious sect which arose in 

 Italy towards the end of the thirteenth century. They were Francis- 

 can monks who separated themselves from the grand community of 

 St. Francis with the intention of obeying the laws of their founder 

 in a more rigorous manner than they were observed by the other 

 Franciscans. . They accordingly renounced every kind of property, 

 both common and individual, and begged from door to door their daily 

 subsistence, alleging that neither Christ nor his Apostles had any 

 possessions, either individual or in common ; and that these were the 

 models which St. Francis had commanded them to imitate. They 

 went about clothed in rags declaiming against the vices of the pope 

 and the bishops, thus preparing the way for the Reformation, 

 and foretold the purification of the church and the restoration of the 

 true gospel of Christ by the* real followers of St. Francis. As the 

 Franciscan order acknowledges for its companions a set of men who 

 observe the third rule prescribed by St. Francis, and were therefore 

 commonly called Tertiarii; the order of the Fratricelli had a great 

 number of Tertiarii attached to their cause. These tertiarii, or half 

 monks, were called in Italy Jihoc/ii or Boccaoi, in France fleguim, in 

 Germany Btgtcardt or tlfjkantt. The Tertiarii differed from the 

 Kratricclli, not in their opinions, but only in their manner of living. 

 The Fratricelli were real monks, subject to the rule of St. Francis, 

 whilst the Bizochi or Beghards, as well as the Franciscan Tertiarii, 

 excepting their dirty habit and certain maxims and observances which 

 they followed in compliance with the rules of their patron saint, lived 

 after the manner of other men, and were therefore considered as 

 laymen; but the denomination was ultimately applied to a great 

 number of other orders and sects, whose followers, female as well as 

 male, pursued a somewhat similar course of life. None of these, how- 

 ever, must be confounded with the true Franciscan Beguines who 

 grew into importance about the same time, but whose origin dates from 

 the llth century, and whose docrines gave rise to the Lollards. The 

 Beghards were divided into two classes, the perfect and the imperfect. 

 The finit lived on alms, abstained from marriage, and had no fixed 

 dwellings; the second had houses, wives, and possessions, and were 

 engaged in the common avocations of life like other people. Pope 

 Celestiu V. was favourably disposed to the Fratricelli, and permitted 

 them to constitute themselves into a separate order. They were sub- 

 missive to that pope, but they violently opposed his successor, 

 Boniface VIII., and subsequent popes who persecuted their sect. The 

 Kratricelli were accused of great enormities in the beginning of the 

 Hth century, and persecuted by the court of Rome, but they found 



protection from princes, nobles, and towns, who respected them on 

 account of the austerity of their devotion. In 1317 Pope John XXII. 

 ordered their abolition by a bull, and on their refusal to submit, they 

 were declared heretics. The Fratrioelli did not always submit with 

 the meekness of the first Christian martyrs to their persecutors, but 

 frequently opposed force to force, and even put to death some 

 inquisitors in Italy. This sect continued during the 14th century, 

 and spread as far as Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland. The members of it 

 were most severely persecuted in the 15th century, and many of them 

 fled from France to England and Ireland. All the persecutions 

 directed against the sect did not however extinguish it, and some 

 remnants of it existed till the reformation of Luther, whose doctrines 

 they embraced. 



FRAUDS, STATUTE OF. [STATUTK OF FRAUDS.] 



FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCE. [CONSIDKBATIOX.] 



FRAXININ. [MAN.MTK.J 



FREE BENCH is the widow's share of her husband's copyhold 

 lands, according to the custom of the particular manor of which tin- 

 lands are holdeu. [COPYHOLD.] As dower is not an incident to copy- 

 hold tenure the quantity and duration of the widow's interest are 

 regulated by the custom; it is generally a third for her life, )<ut in 

 some manors it is a fourth part, and sometimes only a portion of the 

 rent. By other customs she takes the whole for her life, and in the 

 manor of Taunton Deane, in Somersetshire, the wife takes the inheri- 

 tance. In some manors the widow has only a right to Free iVu. h 

 out of the lands of which her husband died seised ; in others, her right 

 attaches upon all the lands held of the manor of which he was seised 

 during the coverture. Frequently her estate is during widowhood 

 only, and sometimes during chaste widowhood. In the manors of 

 East and West Enborne in Berkshire, and Torre in Devonshire, aud in 

 some other parts of the West of England, there is the ludicrous custom 

 that where a widow has forfeited her Free Bench for incontinuncy, if 

 she will come into court riding backwards on a black ram with his tail 

 in her hand, and repeating certain verses more significant than decent, 

 ending with " Therefore pray, Mr. Steward, let me have my l.unl 

 again," the steward is bound to re-admit her to her 1 

 (Cowel's ' Interp.' ; Scriven ' on Copyholds.') 



FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, the name adopted by a large 

 body of clergy and laity who seceded from the Church of Scotland in 

 1843. The history of this secession is as follows. It was part of the 

 policy of the Harley ministry, in Queen Anne's reign, to encourage the 

 Episcopal party and the landed gentry of Scotland, and to depress the 

 Presbyterian. In 1/12 they accordingly passed an act (10 Anne, c. 12) 

 restoring to its full vigour the right of lay patronage, which had been 

 virtually abolished in 16UO. The church became thenceforward divided 

 into two parties, the supporters of patronage, or the " Moderates," and 

 the anti-patronage men, or, as they were more lately termed, " Nmi- 

 intrusionists." In 1834 the latter party obtained the majority in the 

 General Assembly, and on the 31st of May of that year the Assembly 

 passed an " Overture and Interim Act on Calls," a measure generally 

 known by the name of the " Veto Act" 



To understand the character of this measure, it is necessary to keep 

 in view the method of collating a qualified person to a benefice in 

 Scotland. The licensing of a clergyman, and his ordination .mil 

 induction to a benefice, are distinct acts. Many clergymen are 

 licensed to preach who never obtain benefices, and in this position 

 they ore called " probationers." When a licentiate receives a presenta- 

 tion to a benefice, he presents it, along with on acceptance, to the presby- 

 tery within the bounds of which it lies, aud they pronounce a sentence 

 sustaining the presentation, and appointing such formalities as the laws 

 of the church sanction, before the presentee is finally ordained and 

 Inducted to the benefice. The object of the Veto Act was to moke it 

 a law of the church that no presentee was to be held fit to be ordained 

 as minister of a parish unless he were acceptable to the majority .<t tin: 

 parishioners. Accordingly, by the Veto Act and other rul< 

 carrying out its principles, presbyteries were directed, when a prc 

 [aid his presentation before them, to appoint him to preach t , 

 the church, and also to appoint a day for " moderating in a call," or 

 receiving dissents. If a majority of the male heads of families in the 

 parish in communion with the church dissented, the presentee was to 

 jo rejected as an unfit person. There was no doubt that it was 

 within the power of the General Assembly to settle what qualifications 

 should be required, in the way of education, character, &c., of every 

 iresentee; but the question came to be, whether the church was 

 entitled to require such an external test as the acceptability to the 

 wrishioners, and thus virtually counteract on act of parliament under 

 which important civil rights were held. 



On the 14th of September, 1834, Lord Kinnoul, patron of the parish 

 of Auchterardcr in Perthshire, issued a presentation to that parish in 

 avoiir of Mr. Young. The presbytery applied the Veto Act to this 

 iresentation, and it was found that in a roll of 330 male heads of 

 amilies, 287 dissented and objected to the presentee's ordination. The 

 >resbytery accordingly rejected the presentee. An appeal against 

 hese proceedings was taken to the immediately superior ecclesiastical 

 court, the Synod, and thence to the General Assembly, but the acts of 

 the presbytery were confirmed in both these courts. The next step 

 was to call in question the proceedings of these ecclesiastical tribunals 

 n the civil courts. Accordingly an action of declarator was raised in 



