laws of succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and wives.”
“Du Cange, in his Glossary, _voc Casia Christianitatis_, has collected
most of the causes with respect to which the clergy arrogated an
exclusive jurisdiction, and Giannone, in the _Civil History of Naples_,
lib. 19, sec. 3, has arranged these under proper heads scrutinizing the
pretensions of the church.”
[9] “Canons were made from time to time to supply the defects of the
common law of the church; so were statutes added to enforce both
Common and Canon Law. The greater part of the statutes made before the
Reformation, which concerns the church and clergy, are directly leveled
against violence committed against the possession of persons by the
minister or the king, and against the encroachments of the Temporal
Courts upon the spiritual jurisdiction.”
[10] “Phantastic romanticists and calculating persons have endeavored
to represent this period as the age of morality and sincere reverence
for woman.... The ‘Service of Love’ preached by French, German, and
Italian knights, was supposed to prove the high respect paid to
the women of that day. On the contrary, this period succeeded in
destroying the little respect for the female sex which existed at its
commencement. The knights both in town and country were mostly coarse,
licentious men.... The chronicles of the times swarm with tales of
rape and violence on the part of nobles in the country, and still
more in the towns where they were exclusive rulers up to the XIII.
and XIV. centuries, while those subjected to this degraded treatment
were powerless to obtain redress. In the towns the nobles sat on the
magistrates bench, and in the country criminal jurisdiction was in the
hands of the lord of the manor, squire or bishop.”
[11] The first article of the famous Code of Love was “Marriage is not
a legitimate excuse against love.”
[12] This was Christine’s first work. Her success was so great that she
supported a family of six persons by her pen.
[13] Wright. _Womankind in Europe._
[14] “The Fathers seem to have thought dissolution of marriage was not
lawful on account of the adultery of the husband, but that it was not
absolutely unlawful for a husband whose wife had committed adultery to
re-marry.”
[15] The preference of males over females in succession was totally
unknown to the laws of Rome. Brothers and sisters were entitled to
equal parts of the inheritance. Blackstone.—_Commentaries._
[16] No marriage could take place after 12 M., which is even now the
rule of the English Established Church. The decrees of the Plenary
Council, Baltimore 1884, tend to the establishment of similar
regulations in our own country.
[17] The New Testaments of sixty years since, contained a list of
relatives commencing with grandfather and grandmother, whom a man and
woman might not marry.
[18] The policy of the church was to persuade mankind that the
cohabitation of a man and woman was in itself unholy, and that nothing
but a religious bond or sacrament could render it inoffensive in the
eyes of God. Pike.—_History of Crime in England_, I, 90.
[19] This law held good in Protestant England until within the last
decade.
[20] The church visited its penalties upon the innocent as well as
guilty; when any man remained under excommunication two months, his
wife and children were interdicted and deprived of all doctrines of the
church but baptism and repentance. Lea.—_Studies in Church History._
[21] In England, until the reign of William and Mary, women were
refused the benefit of clergy.
[22] In the hands of such able politicians it (marriage), soon became
an engine of great importance to the papal scheme of an universal
monarchy over Christendom. The innumerable canonical impediments that
were invented and occasionally dispensed with by the Holy See, not
only enriched the coffers of the church, but give it a vast ascendant
over persons of all denominations, whose marriages were sanctioned or
repudiated, their issue legitimated or bastardized ... according to the
humor or interest of the reigning pontiff.—_Commentaries_ 3, 92.
[23] The word Liber, free, the solar _Phre_ of Egypt, and Liber, a
book, being as has been shown, closely connected, the bookish men of
Bac, Boc, Bacchus, were comparatively free from the rule of the warrior
class, both in civil and military point of view, and thence arises our
_benefit of clergy_. If the benefit of clergy depends upon a statute,
it had probably been obtained by the priests to put their privilege out
of doubt. It has been a declaratory statute, although, perhaps, every
man who was initiated could not read and write, yet I believe every man
who could read and write was initiated, these arts being taught to the
initiated only in very early times. It has been said that the privilege
of clergy was granted to encourage learning. I believe it was used as
a test, as a proof that a man was of, or immediately belonging to, the
sacred tribe, and therefore exempt from the jurisdiction of the court
in which he had been tried. If he were accused he said nothing; if
found guilty he pleaded his orders and his reading. I have little doubt
that the knowledge of reading and letters were a masonic secret for
many generations, and that it formed part of the mysterious knowledge
of Eleusis and other temples.—_Anacalypsis_, 2, 271-2.
[24] Woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all
human ills. She should be ashamed of the very thought that she is a
woman. She should live in continual penance on account of the curses
she had brought upon the world. She should be ashamed of her dress, for
it is the memorial of her fall. She should especially be ashamed of her
beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the demon.... Women
were even forbidden by a provincial council, in the sixth century,
on account of their impurity, to receive the eucharist in their
naked hands. Their essentially subordinate position was continually
maintained. Lecky.—_Hist. European Morals._
[25] No woman can witness a will in the State of Louisiana today.
[26] Blackstone says whosoever wishes to form a correct idea
of Canon Law can do so by examining it in regard to married
women.—_Commentaries._
[27] Blondell, a learned Protestant who died in 1659, fully proved
Isidore’s collection of the Decretal Epistles of the popes of the first
three centuries, to be all forged and a shameless imposture, _says
Collier_.
[28] The famous law of Constantine, attached to the Theodosian Code, by
virtue of which a prodigious and monstrous jurisdiction was formerly
attributed to bishops, or to the hieratic order, though in reality that
law was never a part of the aforesaid code, at the end of which it is
found. Seldon.—_Dissertation on Fleta_, p. 101.
At time of Valentinian neither bishops nor the Consistories could,
without the consent of the contracting lay parties, take cognizance of
their causes.... Because, says that emperor, it is evident that bishops
and priests have no court to determine the laws in, neither can they
according to the imperial constitutions of Arcadius and Honorius, as
is manifest from the Theodosian body, judge of any other matters than
those relating to religion. Thus the aforesaid Emperor Valentinian.
Neither do I think that the above sanction as extravagant, obtained
a place at the end of the Theodosian Code, or was under the title of
Episcopis, by any other manner posted into my manuscript, than by the
frauds and deceits, constantly, under various pretenses, made use of
by the hieratical orders, who endeavored to shape right or wrong,
according to the custom of those ages, not to mention others, sovereign
princes and republics of their authority and legal power, by this means
under the cloak of religion, its constant pretext, most strenuously
serving their own ends and ambition.—_Ibid_, 107.
[29] See Reeves.—_History of English Law._
[30] Draper.—_Conflict of Science and Religion._
[31] Reeves.
[32] Declaration of judges in the famous case of Evans and Ascuith.
Vaughn said in a later case of the same kind, “If Canon Law be made
part of the law of this land, then it is as much a law of the land and
as well, and by the same authority as any other part of the law of the
land.”
[33] Gibson was archdeacon of Surrey, Rector of Lambeth, and Chaplain
of his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Primate of all
England and Metropolitan) to whom the Jurus was dedicated. The work
said: “The foreign is what we commonly call the body of Canon Law,
consisting of the Canons of Councils, Decrees of Popes and the like,
which obtained in England by virtue of their own authority (in like
manner as they did in other parts of the Western Church), till the
time of the Reformation, and from that time have continued upon the
foot of consent, usage and custom. For which distinction we have no
less warrant than an act of Parliament, made at the very time when
those foreign laws were declared to be no longer binding by their own
authority.... We have a plain declaration that foreign laws became part
of the law of England by long use and consent.” Gibson.—_Codex Jurus
Ecclesiasticum Anglican._
[34] English _Common Law Reports_, Hill vs. Gould, _Vaughn_, p. 327,
says: “What ever is declared by an Act of Parliament to be against
God’s law must be so admitted by us, because it is so declared by an
Act of Parliament.”
[35] Under Catholic form the bride promises to consecrate her body to
the marital rite.
[36] Chiniquy.—_The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional._
[37] “The clergy formerly, and to this very day, declare those women
evil who desire to limit self-indulgence and procreation.”
[38] See Lecky.—_Hist. European Morals._
[39] In a sermon laudatory of the preacher’s office, delivered in the
May Memorial Unitarian Church, in Syracuse, N.Y., Sunday, Nov. 27,
1887, Rev. Mr. Calthrop, the pastor, said: “Noble words are your chief
weapons of offense and defense. But remember it is not you that speak
when you utter them, but the Holy Ghost.” From _Report of Sermon_,
published in the “Daily Standard,” November 28th.
[40] Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great institution, Common
Law, can do so most efficiently by studying Canon Law in regard to
married women. _Commentaries._
[41] Distinction of class appears most prominently in all the criminal
laws for which the clergy are responsible. It was for the man of low
estate, the slave, and for women, that the greatest atrocities were
reserved. If the thief was a free woman she was to be thrown down a
precipice or drowned (a precedent without doubt for dragging a witch
through a pond). If the thief was a female slave, and had stolen
from any but her own lord, eighty female slaves were to attend, each
bearing a log of wood to pile the fire and burn the offender to death.
Pike.—_Hist. of Crime in England_, 49-51.
[42] A correspondent of “The London Times” writes from Rome that he
has not heard a single doubt expressed as to the paternity of the
Countess Lambertini, and the line adopted by the Antonelli heirs
tacitly confirms it. They strenuously oppose the production of any of
the evidence the plaintiff has offered. They object to the depositions
of the witnesses being heard and tested, and they have declared their
intention of impugning as forgeries the documentary proofs tendered.
These documents consist of some letters written by Antonietta Marconi
to the Archpriest Vendetta, and particularly one dated April 1, 1857,
wherein, asking him to prepare a draught of a letter to the Cardinal,
she says that “Giacomo” does not send her money, although he knows that
he has a daughter to support, and that Loretina is a cause of great
expense. “Write to him forcibly,” she says, “or I shall do something
disagreeable.” The extent of the scandal in Rome does not consist so
much in the fact of a Cardinal in Antonelli’s position having had
one or more children, as in the law-suit which has brought all the
intimate details connected with the affair before the public. Antonelli
was to all intents and purposes a layman, filling one of those civil
departments of an ecclesiastical temporal Government to qualify for
which it was indispensably requisite to assume the ecclesiastical
habit. He accepted early in life those obligations without which no
career would have been open to him, and, like many others, he regarded
them as mere matters of form, for under the imperturbable mask of the
ecclesiastical diplomat beat a heart filled with the warmest domestic
affections and instincts; and how strong those feelings were in him was
fully demonstrated in his will, and is clearly shown in every incident
of the story now revealed.
Dame Gervasi has been subjected to a rigid cross-examination by the
counsel of the brothers Antonelli. The proceedings were conducted with
closed doors, but a Roman correspondent of “The Daily News” seems in
some manner to have wormed out the essential facts. When the mysterious
“foreign young lady” went to lodge at Dame Gervasi’s, Cardinal
Antonelli—so the gossip runs—paid several visits to his protege. “I
remember,” says the Dame, “that when I went to open the door to them I
held in my hand a bowl of beef tea, which I was taking to the patient.
Dr. Lucchini was the first to enter, and I soon recognized the second
visitor to be Cardinal Antonelli, who wore a long redingote and a
tall hat. He took the bowl, which I held in my hand. ‘This is for the
patient,’ he said inquiringly, but before I had time to reply he had
swallowed part of its contents.” Dame Gervasi then proceeded to relate
how Dr. Lucchini left the Cardinal alone with the foreign young lady.
The witness put her ear to the keyhole, and heard distinctly the sound
of kisses alternating, with sobs between the two. His Eminence, to
console the patient, told her he had taken every precaution against
the matter becoming known. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “nobody will be
a bit the wiser. You will be able to marry. As for the baby, that’s
my affair. I will take care of her, and I swear to you that she will
never know the name of her mother.” Dame Gervasi gave the names of the
persons who had come to her on behalf of the brothers Antonelli, and
these emissaries, she said, tried to make her disclose all she knew,
and promised her large sums of money to bind her to silence as to the
clandestine part played by Signora Marconi, and as to the Cardinal’s
relations with the “foreign lady.”—_N.Y. Tribune, July 5, 1878._
[43] See Reeves.—_Early English Law._
[44] _Hollingshed’s Chronicles._
The foundation of old common law seems traceable to Martia, the widow
of Guilliame, left regent of her husband’s kingdom, comprising a part
of Britain, two hundred years prior to the christian era. This queen
directed her attention to framing a system of laws which acquired for
her the surname of “Proba,” or “The Just.” They were evidently one of
the three parts under which the common law is divided, although under
canon law the entire property of the wife became that of the husband
upon marriage.
[45] In England, in 1538, or even earlier, it was calculated that
besides the tithes, one-third of the kingdom was ecclesiastical
property, and that these vast possessions were devoted to the support
of a body of men who found their whole serious occupation in destroying
the virtue of women. Lea.—_Sacerdotal Celibacy._
[46] The pagan laws during the Empire had been continually repealing
the old disabilities of women; and the legislative movement in their
favor continued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian,
and appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. But,
in the whole feudal legislation, women were placed in a much lower
legal position than in the Pagan Empire. In addition to the personal
restrictions which grew necessarily out of the Catholic Christian
doctrines concerning divorce, and the subordination of the weaker sex,
we find numerous and stringent enactments, which rendered it impossible
for women to succeed to any considerable amount of property, and which
almost reduced them to the alternative of marriage or a nunnery. The
complete inferiority of the sex was continually maintained by law; and
that generous public opinion which in Rome had frequently revolted
against the injustice done to girls, in depriving them of the greater
part of the inheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared. Wherever
the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of
succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and of wives, and a
state of public opinion which has been formed and regulated by these
laws; nor was any serious attempt made to abolish them till the close
of the last century. The French Revolutionists, though rejecting the
proposal of Sieyes and Condorcet to accord political emancipation to
women, established at least an equal succession of sons and daughters,
and thus initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion, which
sooner or later must traverse the world. Lecky.—_Hist. Morals_, Vol.
II, pp. 357-359.
[47] Sheldon Amos.—_Science of Law._
[48] _Ibid._
[49] Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man’s rights. Society
exists for man only; for women merely as they are represented by some
man; are in the _mundt_ or keeping of some man.—_Descriptive Sociology
of England._
[50] This slavish condition of the wife yet prevails in over one-half
the states of the union.
[51] The relations in respect to property which exist between husband
and wife in England, is solely grounded on her not being assumed at
common law to have sufficient command of her purse or of her future
actions wherewith to procure the materials for making a contract. The
legal presumption then is, that she did not intend to make one, and
therefore the allegation that she did make a contract would simply on
the face of it be a fraud. Amos.—_Science of Law._
[52] The jurisconsults had evidently at this time assumed the equality
of the sexes as a principle to the code of equity. The situation of the
Roman woman, whether married or single, became one of great personal
and proprietary independence; but Christianity tended somewhat from the
very first to narrow this remarkable liberty. The prevailing state of
religious sentiment may explain why modern jurisprudence has adopted
those rules concerning the position of woman, which belong peculiarly
to an imperfect civilization. No society which preserves any tincture
of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the
personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman law. Canon law has
deeply injured civilization.—Sir Henry Maine.
[53] Under the Commonwealth, society assumed a new and stern aspect.
Women were in disgrace; it was everywhere declared from the pulpit that
woman caused man’s expulsion from Paradise, and ought to be shunned
by Christians as one of the greatest temptations of Satan. “Man,”
said they, “is conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity; it was
his complacency to woman that caused his first debasement; let man
not therefore glory in his shame; let him not worship the fountain of
his corruption.” Learning and accomplishments were alike discouraged,
and women confined to a knowledge of cooking, family medicines and
the unintelligible theological discussions of the day. Lydia Maria
Child.—_History of Woman._
[54] Many women made their entrance into literature through the medium
of a cook book, thus virtually apologizing for the use of a pen.
[55] The slavish superstition under which church teaching still keeps
the minds of men was no less shown by the thousands who visited the
St. Anne relic in the United States. Nor are Protestants but little
less under the same superstition, accepting the teaching of the church
without investigation. An educated Protestant girl, upon her return
from Europe, recently, gravely declared that during her absence she had
seen the spear which pierced the Saviour’s side.
[56] The most interesting of all to Americans is the copy of the
American Constitution that President Cleveland sent to the Vatican by
Cardinal Gibbons. It is printed on vellum in richly illuminated English
characters, and bound in white and red. It is enclosed in a case of
purple plush with gold hinges, and bears this autographic inscription
by President Cleveland:
“Presented to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII., as an expression
of congratulation on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee,
with the profound regard of Grover Cleveland, President of the
United States, through the courtesy of his Eminence Cardinal
Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.”
Washington, D.C.
Upon the next page, beneath an American eagle printed in gold, is this
inscription:
“The Constitution of the United States. Adopted Sept. 17,
1787.”
The page bearing this inscription and all the fly leaves were of
exquisite watered silk.
[57] “Owing to the pope’s refusal to accept the gifts of the king and
queen of Italy on the occasion of his jubilee, all the members of the
House of Savoy, including the Duke d’Aosta and the Princess Clotilde,
have omitted to send offerings. This is the fly in the jubilee ointment
of Pope Leo XIII., and settles the question of concessions of temporal
power. Nevertheless, the day is passed when the claim of ‘imprisonment
in the Vatican’ will further avail the pope.”
[58] When Linnaeus published his sexual system of plants, in the
eighteenth century, he was ridiculed and shunned as one who had
degraded nature.
CHAPTER FOUR
[1] In the dominion of the Count de Foix, the lord had right once in
his lifetime to take, without payment, a certain quantity of goods from
the stores of each tenant. Cesar Cantu.—_Histoire Universelle._
[2] Two women seized by German soldiers were covered with tar, rolled
in feathers, and exhibited in the camp as a new species of bird.
[3] Among the privileges always claimed, and frequently enforced by
the feudalry, was the custom of the lord of the manor to lie the first
night with the bride of his tenant.—_Sketches of Feudalism_, p. 109.
By the law of “Marquette” under the feudal system (which rested on
personal vassalage), to the “lord of the soil” belonged the privilege
of first entering the nuptial couch unless the husband had previously
paid a small sum of money, or its equivalent, for the ransom of his
bride; and we read that these feudal lords thought it was no worse thus
to levy on a young bride than to demand half the wool of each flock of
sheep. _Article on Relation of the Sexes_.—Westminster Review.
[4] The custom of Borough-English is said to have arisen out of the
Marchetta or plebeian’s first born son being considered his lord’s
progeny.—_Dr. Tusler._
[5] “It is not very likely that Louis XIV thought the time would ever
come when the peasant’s bride might not be claimed in the chamber of
his seigneur on her bridal night. Those base laws, their revocation has
been written in the blood of successive generations.”
[6] See _Feudal Dictionary_.
[7] The interests of ecclesiastics as feudal nobles were in some
respects identical with those of the barons, but the clergy also
constituted a party with interests of its own.
[8] M. Gerun, as quoted by Grimm, gives curious information upon this
subject.
[9] Par example, dans quelques seigneuries, où le seigneur passent
trois nuits avec les nouvelles marriees, il fut convenu qu’il n’en
passant qu’une. Dans d’autres, ou le seigneur avant le premiere nuit
seulment, on ne lui accordes plus qu’une heure.
[10] _Collins de Plancy._
[11] _Feudal Dictionary_, p. 179.
[12] Claiming the right of the first night with each new spouse.—_Boems
Decisions_ 297, I-17.
[13] _Raepsaet_, p. 179.
[14] The popes anciently had universal power over the pleasures of
marriage.—_Feudal Dictionary_, 174.
[15] In the transaction the alternative was with the husband; it was
he who might submit, or pay the fine, as he preferred or could afford.
_Relation of the Sexes._—Westminster Review.