Ecclesiastical

Belonging to,
or set apart for the church ; as, distin-
guished from civil or secular. Vide
Church.

Ecclesiastical courts. English
laic, are courts held by the king’s
authority as supreme governor of the
church, for matters which chiefly con-
cern religion.

2. — There arc ten courts which may
be ranged under this class; 1. The
Archdeacon’s court ; 2. The Consis-
tory court; 3. The Court of Arches;
4. The Court of Peculiars ; 5. The
Prerogative Court ; 0. The Court of
Delegates, which is the great court of
apjMjals in all ecclesiastical causes; 7.
The Court of Convocation; 8. The
Court of Audience; 9. The Court of
Faculties; 10. The Court of Commis-
sioners of Review.

Ecclesiastical law. By this
phrase it is intended to include all those
rules which govern ecclesiastical tri-
bunals. Vide Law , Canon.

ECCLESIASTICS, canon law , are
those persons who compose the. hicrar-
chial state of the church. They arc
regular and secular. Aso & Man.
Inst. B. 2, t. 5, c. 4, § I .

ECLAMPSIA PARTURIENTIUM,

me l. jur. The name of a disease ac-
companied by a|K>plectic convulsions,
and which produces aberration of mind
at child-birth.

2. — An ordinary person, it is said,
would scarcely observe it, and it re-
quires the practised and skilled eye of
a physician to discover that the patient
is ucting in total unconsciousness of
the nature and effect of her acts. There
can be but little doubt that many of the
tragical cases of infanticide proceed I

Vol. i,— 63

from this cause. The criminal judge
and lawyer cannot inquire with too
much care in order to discover the
guilt of the mother, where it exists, and
to ascertain her innocence, where it
does not. The innocent should not
suffer Ibr the guilty ; and what, in the
eye of science is a mere misfortune,
should not, when it can lx*, avoided, be
punished as a crime. Sec two well re-
ported eases of this kind in the Boston
Medical Journal, vol. 27, No. 10, p.
101.

EDICT, in some countries, is a law
ordained by the sovereign, by which
he forbids or commands something,
and extends cither to the whole coun-
try, or only to some particular pro-
vinces.

2. — Edicts are somewhat similar to
the president’s proclamations ; their dif-
ference consists in this, that the former
have authority and form of law in
themselves, whereas the latter axe only
declarations of a law, w hich has been
before enacted by Congress.

3. — Among the Romans this word
sometimes signified a citation to ap-
pcar before a judge. The edict of the
emjxjrors, also called constilutiones
principum , were new laws which they
made of their own motion, either to de-
cide cases w hich they had foreseen, or
to abolish or change some ancient laws.
They were different from their rescripts
or decrees. These edicts were the
sources which contributed to the forma-
tion of the Gregorian, Hermogenian,
Thcodosian, and Justinian codes. Vide
Dig. 1,4, 1,1; Inst. 1, 2, 7 ; Code,
1, 1 ; Nov. 139.

Edict perpetual, is the title of a
compilation of all the edicts. This col-
lection was made by Salvius Julian us,
a jurist who was selected by the em-
peror Adrian for the purpose, and who
performed his task with credit to himself.

Edicts of Justinian, are thirteen
constitutions or laws of that prince,
found, in most editions of the corpus
juris civiliSy after the Novels. Being
confined to matters of police in the
provinces of the empire, they arc of
little use.

498

EE

EJE

EE, in the termination of words, has
n passive signification, usually denoting
the person to whom an act is done ; ns
the grantee, he to whom a grant is
made; the donee, he to whom a gift is
made ; the lessee, lie to whom a lease
is made. Vide Litt. s. 57 ; 2 131. Corn.
140.