[1] The rules were drawn up in French. The author of this article is
responsible for the translation of them.
IMOLA (anc. _Forum Cornelii_), a town and episcopal see of Emilia,
Italy, in the province of Bologna, from which it is 21 m. S.E. by rail,
140 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 12,058 (town); 33,144 (commune).
The cathedral of S. Cassiano has been modernized; it possesses
interesting reliquaries, and contains the tomb of Petrus Chrysologus,
archbishop of Ravenna (d. 451), a native of Imola. S. Domenico has a
fine Gothic portal and S. Maria in Regola an old campanile. The town
also contains some fine palaces. The communal library has some MSS.,
including a psalter with miniatures, that once belonged to Sir Thomas
More. The citadel is square with round towers at the angles; it dates
from 1304, and is now used as a prison. Imola has a large lunatic asylum
with over 1200 inmates. Innocenzo Francucci (Innocenzo da Imola), a
painter of the Bolognese school (1494-1549), was a native of Imola, and
two of his works are preserved in the Palazzo del Comune. The Madonna
del Piratello, 2 m. outside the town to the N.W., is in the early
Renaissance style (1488); the campanile was probably built from
Bramante's plans in 1506.
The ancient Forum Cornelii, a station on the Via Aemilia, is said by
Prudentius, writing in the 5th century A.D., to have been founded by
Sulla; but the fact that it belonged to the _Tribus Pollia_ shows that
it already possessed Roman citizenship before the Social war. In later
times we hear little of it; Martial published his third book of epigrams
while he was there. In the Lombard period the name Imolas begins to
appear. In 1480, after a chequered history, the town came into the
possession of Girolamo Riario, lord of Forli, as the dowry of his wife
Caterina Sforza, and was incorporated with the States of the Church by
Caesar Borgia in 1500.
IMP (O. Eng. _impa_, a graft, shoot; the verb _impian_ is cognate with
Ger. _impfen_, to graft, inoculate, and the Fr. _enter_; the ultimate
origin is probably the Gr. [Greek: emphyein], to implant, cf. [Greek:
emphytos], engrafted), originally a slip or shoot of a plant or tree
used for grafting. This use is seen in Chaucer (_Prologue to the Monk's
Tale_, 68) "Of fieble trees ther comen wrecched ympes." The verb "to
imp" in the sense of "to graft" was especially used of the grafting of
feathers on to the wing of a falcon or hawk to replace broken or damaged
plumage, and is frequently used metaphorically. Like "scion," "imp" was
till the 17th century used of a member of a family, especially of high
rank, hence often used as equivalent to "child." The _New English
Dictionary_ quotes an epitaph (1584) in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick,
"Heere resteth the body of the noble Impe Robert of Dudley ... sonne of
Robert Erle of Leycester." The current use of the word for a small devil
or mischievous sprite is due to the expressions "imp of Satan, or of the
devil or of hell," in the sense of "child of evil." It was thus
particularly applied to the demons supposed to be the "familiar" spirits
of witches.
IMPATIENS, in botany, a genus of annual or biennial herbs, sometimes
becoming shrubby, chiefly natives of the mountains of tropical Asia and
Africa, but also found widely distributed in the north temperate zone
and in South Africa. The flowers, which are purple, yellow, pink or
white and often showy, are spurred and irregular in form and borne in
the leaf-axils. The name is derived from the fact that the seed-pod when
ripe discharges the seeds by the elastic separation and coiling of the
valves. _Impatiens Noli-me-tangere,_ touch-me-not, an annual succulent
herb with yellow flowers, is probably wild in moist mountainous
districts in north Wales, Lancashire and Westmorland. _I. Roylei,_ a
tall hardy succulent annual with rose-purple flowers, a Himalayan
species, is common in England as a self-sown garden plant or garden
escape. _I. Balsamina,_ the common balsam of gardens, a well-known
annual, is a native of India; it is one of the showiest of summer and
autumn flowers and of comparatively easy cultivation. _I. Sultani,_ a
handsome plant, with scarlet flowers, a native of Zanzibar, is easily
grown in a greenhouse throughout the summer, but requires warmth in
winter.
IMPEACHMENT (O. Fr. _empechement, empeschement,_ from _empecher_ or
_empescher,_ to hinder, Late Lat. _impedicare,_ to entangle, _pedica,_
fetter, _pes_, foot), the English form of judicial parliamentary
procedure against criminals, in which the House of Commons are the
prosecutors and the House of Lords the judges. It differs from bills of
attainder (q.v.) in being strictly judicial. When the House of Commons
has accepted a motion for impeachment, the mover is ordered to proceed
to the bar of the House of Lords, and there impeach the accused "in the
name of the House of Commons, and of all the Commons of the United
Kingdom." The charges are formulated in articles, to each of which the
accused may deliver a written answer. The prosecution must confine
itself to the charges contained in the articles, though further articles
may be adhibited from time to time. The Commons appoint managers to
conduct the prosecution, but the whole House in committee attends the
trial. The defendant may appear by counsel. The president of the House
of Lords is the lord high steward, in the case of peers impeached for
high treason; in other cases the lord chancellor. The hearing takes
place as in an ordinary trial, the defence being allowed to call
witnesses if necessary, and the prosecution having a right of reply. At
the end of the case the president "puts to each peer, beginning with the
junior baron, the questions upon the first article, whether the accused
be guilty of the crimes charged therein. Each peer in succession rises
in his place when the question is put, and standing uncovered, and
laying his right hand upon his breast, answers, 'Guilty' or 'Not
guilty,' as the case may be, 'upon my honour.' Each article is proceeded
with separately in the same manner, the lord high steward giving his own
opinion the last" (May's _Parliamentary Practice,_ c. xxiii.). Should
the accused be found guilty, judgment follows if the Commons move for
it, but not otherwise. The Commons thus retain the power of pardon in
their own hands, and this right they have in several cases expressly
claimed by resolution, declaring that it is not parliamentary for their
lordships to give judgment "until the same be first demanded by this
House." Spiritual peers occupy an anomalous position in the trial of
peers, as not being themselves ennobled in blood; on the impeachment of
Danby it was declared by the Lords that Spiritual peers have the right
to stay and sit during proceedings for impeachment, but it is customary
for them to withdraw before judgment is given, entering a protest
"saving to themselves and their successors all such rights in judicature
as they have by law, and by right ought to have." An impeachment, unlike
other parliamentary proceedings, is not interrupted by prorogation, nor
even by dissolution. Proceedings in the House of Commons preliminary to
an impeachment are subject to the ordinary rules, and in the Warren
Hastings case an act was passed to prevent the preliminary proceedings
from discontinuance by prorogation and dissolution. A royal pardon
cannot be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, though it is within the
royal prerogative to pardon after the lords have pronounced judgment.
The point was raised in the case of the earl of Danby in 1679, and the
rule was finally settled by the Act of Settlement. Persons found guilty
on impeachment may be reprieved or pardoned like other convicts.
Impeachment will lie against all kinds of crimes and misdemeanours, and
against offenders of all ranks. In the case of Simon de Beresford, tried
before the House of Lords in 1330, the House declared "that the judgment
be not drawn into example or consequence in time to come, whereby the
said peers may be charged hereafter to judge others than their peers,"
from which Blackstone and others have inferred that "a commoner cannot
be impeached before the Lords for any capital offence, but only for high
misdemeanours." In the case of Edward Fitzharris in 1681, the House of
Commons in answer to a resolution of the Lords suspending the
impeachment, declared it to be their undoubted right "to impeach any
peer or commoner for treason or any other crime or misdemeanour." And
the House of Lords has in practice recognized the right of the Commons
to impeach whomsoever they will. The procedure has, however, been
reserved for great political offenders whom the ordinary powers of the
law might fail to reach. It has now fallen into desuetude. The last
impeachments were those of Warren Hastings (1788-1795) and Lord Melville
(1806), but an unsuccessful attempt was made by Thomas C. Anstey to
impeach Lord Palmerston in 1848. The earliest recorded instances of
impeachment are those of Lord Latimer in 1376 and of Pole, earl of
Suffolk, in 1386. From the time of Edward IV. to Elizabeth it fell into
disuse, "partly," says Hallam, "from the loss of that control which the
Commons had obtained under Richard II. and the Lancastrian kings, and
partly from the preference the Tudor princes had given to bills of
attainder or pains and penalties when they wished to turn the arm of
parliament against an obnoxious subject." Revived in the reign of James
I., it became an instrument of parliamentary resistance to the crown,
and it was not unfrequently resorted to in the first three reigns after
the Revolution.
In the United States the procedure of impeachment both in the national
and in almost all of the state governments is very similar to that
described above. The national constitution prescribes that the House of
Representatives "shall have the sole power of impeachment" and that "the
Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." The House
appoints managers to conduct the prosecution at the bar of the Senate,
and the vote of the Senate is taken by putting the question separately
to each member, who, during the trial, must be on oath or affirmation.
In ordinary cases the president or president _pro tempore_ of the Senate
presides, but when the president of the United States is on trial the
presiding officer must be the chief justice of the United States Supreme
Court. A two-thirds vote is necessary for conviction. The president,
vice-president or any civil officer of the United States may be
impeached for "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours,"
and if convicted, is removed from office and may be disqualified for
holding any office under the government in future. The officer after
removal is also "liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and
punishment, according to law." The term "civil officers of the United
States" has been construed as being inapplicable to members of the
Senate and the House of Representatives. The president's pardoning power
does not extend to officers convicted, on impeachment, of offences
against the United States. Since the organization of the Federal
government there have been only eight impeachment trials before the
United States Senate, and of these only two--the trials of Judge John
Pickering, a Federal District judge for the District of New Hampshire,
in 1803, on a charge of making decisions contrary to law and of
drunkenness and profanity on the bench, and of Judge W. H. Humphreys,
Judge of the Federal District Court of Tennessee, in 1863, on a charge
of making a secession speech and of accepting a judicial position under
the Confederate Government--resulted in convictions. The two most famous
cases are those of Justice Samuel Chase of the United States Supreme
Court in 1805, and of President Andrew Johnson, the only chief of the
executive who has been impeached, in 1868. There is a conflict of
opinion with regard to the power of the House to impeach a Federal
officer who has resigned his office, and also with regard to the kind of
offences for which an officer can be impeached, some authorities
maintaining that only indictable offences warrant impeachment, and
others that impeachment is warranted by any act highly prejudicial to
the public welfare or subversive of any essential principle of
government. The latter view was adopted by the House of Representatives
when it impeached President Johnson.
IMPERIAL CHAMBER (_Reichskammergericht_), the supreme judicial court of
the Holy Roman Empire, during the period between 1495 and the
dissolution of the Empire in 1806. From the early middle ages there had
been a supreme court of justice for the Empire--the _Hofgericht_ (or
_curia imperatoris_, as it were), in which the emperor himself presided.
By his side sat a body of assessors (_Urtheilsfinder_), who must be at
least seven in number, and who might, in solemn cases, be far more
numerous,[1] the assessors who acted varying from time to time and from
case to case. The Hofgericht was connected with the person of the
emperor; it ceased to act when he was abroad; it died with his death.
Upon him it depended for its efficiency; and when, in the 15th century,
the emperor ceased to command respect, his court lost the confidence of
his subjects. The dreary reign of Frederick III. administered its
deathblow and after 1450 it ceased to sit. Its place was taken by the
_Kammergericht_, which appeared side by side with the Hofgericht from
1415, and after 1450 replaced it altogether. The king (or his deputy)
still presided in the Kammergericht and it was still his personal court;
but the members of the court were now officials--the _consiliarii_ of
the imperial _aula_ (or _Kammer_, whence the name of the court). It was
generally the legal members of the council who sat in the Kammergericht
(see under AULIC COUNCIL); and as they were generally doctors of civil
law, the court which they composed tended to act according to that law,
and thus contributed to the "Reception" of Roman law into Germany
towards the end of the 15th century. The old Hofgericht had been filled,
as it were, by amateurs (provided they knew some law, and were peers of
the person under trial), and it had acted by old customary law; the
Kammergericht, on the contrary, was composed of lawyers, and it acted by
the written law of Rome. Even the Kammergericht, however, fell into
disuse in the later years of the reign of Frederick III.; and the
creation of a new and efficient court became a matter of pressing
necessity, and was one of the most urgent of the reforms which were
mooted in the reign of Maximilian I.
This new court was eventually created in 1495; and it bore the name of
_Reichskammergericht_, or Imperial Chamber. It was distinguished from
the old Kammergericht by the essential fact that it was not the personal
court of the emperor, but the official court of the Empire (or
_Reich_--whence its name). This change was a natural result of the
peculiar character of the movement of reform which was at this time
attempted by the electors, under the guidance of Bertold, elector of
Mainz. Their aim was to substitute for the old and personal council and
court appointed and controlled by the emperor a new and official
council, and a new and official court, appointed and controlled by the
diet (or rather, in the ultimate resort, by the electors). The members
of the Imperial Chamber, which was created by the diet in 1495 in order
to serve as such a court,[2] were therefore the agents of the Empire,
and not of the emperor. The emperor appointed the president; the Empire
nominated the assessors, or judges.[3] There were originally sixteen
assessors (afterwards, as a rule, eighteen): half of these were to be
doctors of Roman law, while half were to be knights; but after 1555 it
became necessary that the latter should be learned in Roman law, even if
they had not actually taken their doctorate.
Thus the Empire at last was possessed of a court, a court resting on the
enactment of the diet, and not on the emperor's will; a court paid by
the Empire, and not by the emperor; a court resident in a fixed place
(until 1693, Spires, and afterwards, from 1693 to 1806, Wetzlar), and
not attached to the emperor's person. The original intention of the
court was that it should repress private war (_Fehde_), and maintain the
public peace (_Landfriede_). The great result which in the issue it
served to achieve was the final "Reception" of Roman law as the common
law of Germany. That the Imperial Chamber should itself administer Roman
law was an inevitable result of its composition; and it was equally
inevitable that the composition and procedure of the supreme imperial
court should be imitated in the various states which composed the
Empire, and that Roman law should thus become the local, as it was
already the central, law of the land.
The province of the Imperial Chamber, as it came to be gradually defined
by statute and use, extended to breaches of the public peace, cases of
arbitrary distraint or imprisonment, pleas which concerned the treasury,
violations of the emperor's decrees or the laws passed by the diet,
disputes about property between immediate tenants of the Empire or the
subjects of different rulers, and finally suits against immediate
tenants of the Empire (with the exception of criminal charges and
matters relating to imperial fiefs, which went to the Aulic Council). It
had also cognizance in cases of refusal to do justice; and it acted as
a court of appeal from territorial courts in civil and, to a small
extent, in criminal cases, though it lost its competence as a court of
appeal in all territories which enjoyed a _privilegium de non
appellando_ (such as, e.g. the territories of the electors). The
business of the court was, however, badly done; the delay was
interminable, thanks, in large measure, to the want of funds, which
prevented the maintenance of the proper number of judges. In all its
business it suffered from the competition of the Aulic Council (q.v.);
for that body, having lost all executive competence after the 16th
century, had also devoted itself exclusively to judicial work. Composed
of the personal advisers of the emperor, the Aulic Council did justice
on his behalf (the erection of a court to do justice for the Empire
having left the emperor still possessed of the right to do justice for
himself through his _consiliarii_); and it may thus be said to be the
descendant of the old Kammergericht. The competition between the Aulic
Council and the Imperial Chamber was finally regulated by the treaty of
Westphalia, which laid it down that the court which first dealt with a
case should alone have competence to pursue it.
See R. Schröder, _Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte_ (Leipzig,
1904); J. N. Harpprecht, _Staatsarchiv des Reichskammergerichts_
(1757-1785); and G. Stobbe, _Reichshofgericht und Reichskammergericht_
(Leipzig, 1878). (E. Br.)