Research Results For 'Pope'

ALLITERATION

Alliteration is the repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals; as many men many minds; death defies the doctor. 'Apt alliteration's artful aid.' Churchhill. 'Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.' Pope. In the ancient German and Scandinavian and in early English poetry alliteration took the place of terminal rhymes, the alliterative syllables being made to recur with a certain regularity in the same position in successive verses. In the Vision of William Concerning Piers the Ploughman, for instance, it is regularly employed as in
the following lines: -
Hire robe was ful riche of red scarlet engreyned, With ribanes of red gold and of riche stones;
Hire arraye me ravysshed such ricchesse saw I
neyere;
I had wondre what she was and whas wyf she
were.
In the hands of some English poets and prose writers of later times alliteration became a mere conceit. It is still employed in Icelandic poetry, and also in Finnish poetry. So far has alliteration sometimes been carried that long compositions have been written every word of which commenced with the same letter.
Research Alliteration

ANTIPOPE

Antipope is the name applied to those who at different periods have produced a schism in the Roman Catholic Church by opposing the authority of the pope, under the pretence that they were themselves popes. The Roman Church cannot admit that there ever existed two popes; but the fact is, that in several cases both competitors for the papal chair (sometimes there were three or even four) were equally popes; that is to say, the claims of all were equally good. Each was frequently supported by whole nations, and the schism was nothing but the struggle of political interests.
Research Antipope

AURICULAS CONFESSION

Auriculas Confession, in the strictest sense, is the disclosure of sins to the priest at the confessional, with a view to obtain absolution for them. The person confessing is allowed to conceal no sin of consequence which he remembers to have committed, and the father confessor is bound to perpetual secrecy. The practice of a public acknowledgment of great sins was altered by Pope Leo the Great, in 450, into a secret one before the priest, and the fourth general Lateran council in 1215 ordained that every one of the faithful, of both sexes, come to years of discretion, should privately confess all their sins at least once a year to their own pastor, an ordination still binding on members of the Roman Catholic Church. Confession is a part of the sacrament of penance. Some Anglican clergymen uphold it.
Research Auriculas Confession

BEATIFICATION

In the Roman Catholic Church, beatification is an act by which the pope declares a person beatified or blessed after his death. It is the first step to canonization, that is, the raising one to the honour and dignity of a saint. No person can be beatified until fifty years after his or her death. All certificates or attestations of virtues and miracles, the necessary qualifications for saintship, are examined by the Congregation of Rites. This examination often continues for several years; after which his holiness decrees the beatification, and the corpse and relics of the future saint are exposed to the veneration of all good Christians.
Research Beatification

BRIEF

In English law, a brief is a memorandum of instructions, concisely expressed, drawn up by an attorney for the guidance of the barrister, containing a statement of the facts, points of law, etc. to be developed and expanded before the court, or to be used in the cross-examination of witnesses.
A brief may also mean, in law, an order emanating from the superior courts.

A papal brief is a sort of pastoral letter in which the pope gives his decision on some matter which concerns the party to whom it is addressed. The brief is an official document, but of a less public character than the bull.

CALENDAR

A calendar (named from the Latin calendarium, from calendce, the first day of the month), is a record or marking out of time as systematically divided into years, months, weeks, and days.

The periodical occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave rise to the first division of time, the division into weeks being the only purely arbitrary partition. The year of the ancient Egyptians was based on the changes of the seasons alone, without reference to the lunar month, and contained 365 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year.

The Jewish year consisted of lunar months of which they reckoned twelve in the year, intercalating a thirteenth when necessary to maintain the correspondence of the particular months with the regular recurrence of the seasons.

The Greeks in the earliest period also reckoned by lunar and intercalary months, but after one or two changes adopted the plan of Meton and Euctemon, who took account of the fact that in a period of nineteen years, the new moons return upon the same days of the year as before. This period of nineteen years was found, however, to be about six hours too long, and subsequent calculators still failed to make the beginning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of the year. Each month was divided into three decads.

The Romans at first divided the year into ten months, but they early adopted the Greek method of lunar and intercalary months, making the lunar year consist of 354, and afterwards of 355 days, leaving ten or eleven days and a fraction to be supplied by the intercalary division. This arrangement continued until the time of Julius Caesar. The first day of the month was called the calends. In March, May, July, and October the 15th, in other months the 13th, was called the ides. The ninth day before the ides (reckoning inclusive) was called the nones, being therefore either the 7th or the 5th of the month. From the inaccuracy of the Roman method of reckoning the calendar came to represent the vernal equinox nearly two months after the event, and at the request of Julius Caesar, the Greek astronomer Sosigenes with the assistance of Marcus Fabius, contrived the so-called Julian calendar. The chief improvement consisted in restoring the equinox to its proper place by inserting two months between November and December, so that the year 707 (46 BC), called the year of confusion, contained fourteen months.

In the number of days the Greek computation was adopted, which made it 365.25. To dispose of the quarter of a day it was determined to intercalate a day every fourth year between the 23rd and 24th of February. This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom until 1582.

By this time, owing to the cumulative error of eleven minutes, the vernal equinox really took place ten days earlier than its date in the calendar, and accordingly Pope Gregory XIII issued a brief abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, the Gregorian or reformed calendar. In this way began the new style, as opposed to the other or old style. Ten days were to be dropped; every hundredth year, which by the old style was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted; and the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days, five hours, forty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds, the difference between which and subsequent observations is immaterial. The new calendar was adopted in Spain, Portugal, and France in 1582; in Catholic Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands in 1583; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587; in Protestant Germany, Holland, and Denmark in 1700; in Switzerland in 1701; in England in 1752; and in Sweden, 1753.

In the English calendar of 1752, also, the 1st of January was now adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between 1st January and 25th March, that of the old and that of the new year, as January 1752/3. Russia alone retained the old style, which by 1906 differed twelve days from the new.

In France, during the revolution, a new calendar was introduced by a decree of the rational Convention, on November the 24th, 1793. The time from which the new reckoning was to commence was the autumnal equinox of 1792, which fell upon the 22nd of September, when the first decree of the new republic had been promulgated. The year was made to consist of twelve months of three decades each, and, to complete the full number, five fete days, or sansculotides (in leap years six) were added to the end of the year. The seasons and months were as follows: Autumn; 22nd September to 22nd December Vendimiaire, vintage month; Brumaire, foggy month; Frimaire, sleet month. Winter; 22nd December to 22nd March: Nivose, snowy month; Plumose, rainy month; Ventose, windy month. Spring; 22nd March to 22nd June: Germinal, bud month; Floreal, flower month; Prairial, meadow month. Summer; 22nd June to 22nd Sept.: Messidor, harvest month; Thermidor, hot month; Fructidor, fruit month. The common Christian or Gregorian calendar was re-established in France on the 1st of January, 1806, by Napoleon.
Research Calendar

CANONIZATION

Canonization is a ceremony in the Roman Church, by which deceased persons are declared saints. The pope institutes a formal investigation of the miraculous and other qualifications of the deceased person recommended for canonization; and an advocate of the devil, as he is called, is appointed to oppose the canonization and submit evidence. If the examination is satisfactory, the pope pronounces the beatification of the candidate, the actual canonization generally taking place some years afterwards, when a day is dedicated to his honour, his name inserted in the calendar of the Saints, a solemn mass is celebrated by the pope, and his remains preserved as holy relics.
Research Canonization

CANON LAW

Canon Law is a collection of ecclesiastical constitutions for the regulation of the Church of Rome, consisting for the most part of ordinances of general and provincial councils, decrees promulgated by the popes with the sanction of the cardinals, and decretal epistles and bulls of the popes. There is also a canon law for the regulation of the Church of England, which under certain restrictions is used in ecclesiastical courts and in the courts of the two universities.

In the Roman Church these collections came into use in the 5th and 6th centuries. The chief basis of them was a translation of the decrees of the four first general councils, to which other decrees of particular synods and decretals of the popes were added. In the time of Charlemagne the collection of Dionysius the Little acquired almost the authority of laws. Equal authority, also, was allowed to the spurious 9th-century collection of decretals falsely ascribed to Isidore, Bishop of Seville. After the 10th century systematical compendiums of ecclesiastical law began to be drawn from these canons, the most important being that of the Benedictine Gratian of Chiusi, finished in 1151. Within ten years after its appearance the Universities of Bologna and Paris had their professors of canon law, who taught from Gratian's work, which superseded all former chronological collections. After the appearance of the Decretum Gratiani, new decrees of councils and new decretals were promulgated, which were collected by Raymond of Pennaforte under the name of Decretales Gregorii Noni (1234); and the later decretals, etc, collected by Boniface VIII, were published as the sixth book of the Gregorian Decretals in 1298, all these having the authority of laws.

Pope Clement V published a collection of his decrees in 1313. About the year 1340 the decretals of John XXII were published (Extravagantes Johannis XXII); and at a later period the subsequent decretals, to the time of Sextus IV. (Extravagantes Communes) appeared. These Extravagantes have not altogether the authority of law. Under Pope Pius IV a commission was appointed to revise the Decretum Gratiani, the work being completed under Gregory XIII, and sanctioned by bull in 1580. The authority of the canon law in England, since the Reformation, depends upon the statute 25th Henry VIII, according to which such ecclesiastical laws as were not repugnant to the laws of the realm and the king's prerogative were to remain in force until revised. This revision was never made. A body of 141 canons was drawn up for the English church in 1603-4, and these are still partially in force, so far as concerns the clergy.
Research Canon Law

CLOCK

A clock is an instrument for measuring time and indicating hours, minutes, and usually seconds, by means of hands moving on a dial-plate, and traditionally differing from a watch mainly in having the movement of its machinery regulated by a pendulum, and in not being portable. A clock also chimes, though the term clock is frequently, and incorrectly, applied to the non-chiming instruments for measuring time, which are technically known as a timepiece.

The use of a horologium, or hour-teller, was common even amongst the ancients, but their time-pieces were nothing else than sun-dials, hour-glasses, and clepsydrae. In the earlier half of our era we have accounts of several attempts at clock construction : that of Boethius in the 6th century, the clock sent by Harun al Rashid to Charlemagne in 809, that made by Pacificus, archdeacon of Verona, in the 9th century, and that of Pope Sylvester II in the 10th century. It is doubtful, however, if any of these was a wheel-and-weight clock, and it is probably to the monks that we owe the invention of clocks set in motion by wheels and weights. In the 12th century clocks were made use of in the monasteries, which announced the end of every hour by the sound of a bell put in motion by means of wheels. From this time forward the expression, 'the clock has struck,' is often met with. The hand for marking the time is also made mention of.

In the 14th century there are stronger traces of the later system of clock-work. Dante particularly mentions clocks. Richard, abbot of St Albans in England, made a clock in 1326, such as had never been heard of until then. It not only indicated the course of the sun and moon, but also the ebb and flood tide. Large clocks on steeples likewise were first made use of in the 14th century. Watches are a much later invention, although they have likewise been said to have been invented as early as the 14th century. A celebrated clock, the construction of which is well known, was set up in Paris for Charles V in 1379, the maker being Henry de Vick, a German. It probably formed a model on which clocks were constructed for nearly 300 years, and until Huyghens applied the pendulum to clock-work as the regulating power, about 1657. The great advantage of the pendulum prior to the invention of electronic oscillators is that the beats or oscillations of a pendulum all occupy substantially the same time (the time depending on its length), hence its utility in imparting regularity to a time-measurer. The mechanism by which comparative regularity was previously attained, though ingenious and simple, was far less perfect; and the first pendulum escapement that is, the contrivance by which the pendulum was connected with the clock-work, was also less perfect than others subsequently introduced, especially Graham's dead-heat escapement, invented in 1700.

In a watch, prior to the invention of electronics, the balance-wheel and spring served the same purpose as the pendulum, and the honour of being the inventor of the balance-spring was contested between Huyghens and the English pliilosopher Dr. Hooke. Various improvements followed, such as the chronometer escapement, and the addition of a compensation adjustment, by which two metals having unequal rates of expansion and contraction under variations of temperature are combined in the pendulum or the balance-wheel, so that, each metal counteracting the other, the vibrations are isochronous under any change of temperature. This arrangement was perfected by Harrison in 1726, and was especially useful in navigation.
Research Clock

CONCLAVE

A conclave is the place where the cardinals assemble for the election of the pope. The term is also applied to the electoral assembly of the cardinals themselves. Pope Gregory X, whose election had been delayed for three years, established in the council at Lyons in 1274 the regulations of the conclave. The cardinals are shut up together in a particular suite of apartments in the palace where the pontiff dies, and they are supposed to have no communication with the outside world during the period of the election. The companion, either lay or clerical, whom the cardinal is allowed to take with him into the conclave during the election of a pope is called a conclavist. The office is one of great delicacy and trust.
Research Conclave

	The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by Matt and Leela Probert ©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia Southampton, United Kingdom