monasteries, where they practised their | rule; the secular canons were persons living indeed a religious life, or one according to some prescribed Christian form and order, but who nevertheless mixed more or less with the world, and discharged the various offices of Christianity for the edification of the laity. This was the species of canons that are found in the cathedral churches, or in other churches called conventual, as at Southwell in Nottinghamshire, which were all churches of very antient foundation, the centres of Christianity throughout an extensive district. There they lived a kind of monastic life under the presidency generally of a bishop; but went out occasionally to introduce Christian truth into districts into which it had not before penetrated, or to instruct the persons lately received into the church, and to perform for them the various ordinances of Christianity. As parish churches arose, the necessity for such visits from the canons in the cathedral churches was diminished. But the institution remained: it was spared at the Reformation, and continues to the present day. These canons are sometimes called prebendaries, a name derived from their being endowed with land or tithe, as many of them are to a greater or less extent, which endowment is called a prebend. [PREBEND.] The canons have stalls in the cathedral churches, which are generally called prebendal stalls. They form the chapter in the expression the dean and chapter, and are still nominally what they actually once were, the council of the bishop for the administration of the affairs of his diocese.

The act 3 & 4 Vict. c. 113, enacted that henceforth all the members of chapter, except the dean, in every collegiate church in England, and in the cathedral churches of St. David and Llandaff, should be styled canons. By this act the term canon is to be applied to every residentiary member of chapter except the dean, heretofore styled either prebendary, canon, canonresidentiary, or residentiary; and the term "minor canon" includes every vicar, vicar-choral, priest-vicar, and senior vicar, being a member of the choir in any cathedral or collegiate church. A canonry,

except it is attached to any university office, cannot be held by a person who has not been six years in priest's orders. The term of residence fixed by the act for each canon is three months in the year at the least. The act suspends a great number of canonries, and limits the number to be held in future. The number suspended in the chapters of Canterbury, Durham, Worcester, and Westminster, is six each; Windsor, eight; Winchester, seven; Exeter, three; Hereford, one; and two each in the other cathedral chapters. The profits of the suspended canonries are vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The suspension of a canonry may be removed under special circumstances, and in the manner provided by the act. The future number of canonries is fixed at six each for the chapters of Canterbury, Durham, Ely, and Westminster; five each for Winchester and Exeter; and four each for the other cathedral or collegiate churches of England; and two each for St. David's and Llandaff. The act increased the canonries of the chapters of Lincoln, and St. Paul's, London, to four. The number of minor canonries is not to exceed four, nor be less than two, for each cathedral or collegiate church, and the salaries are to be not less than 150l. Minor canons are not to hold any benefice beyond six miles from their cathedral church. The canonries are in the gift of the archbishops and bishops respectively, but the three canons of St. Paul's, London, are appointed by the crown. The minor canons are appointed by the respective chapters. In some cases it is provided that archdeaconries shall be annexed to canonries. The act also provided for the annexing of two canonries of Christchurch, Oxford, to two new professorships in the university; for annexing two of the canonries of Ely to the regius professorships of Hebrew and Greek at Cambridge; for annexing two canonries of Westminster to the rectories of St. Margaret's and St. John's, in the city of Westminster; and for founding honorary canonries in every cathedral church in England, in which there were not already founded any nonresidentiary prebends, dignities, or offices. The honorary canons are entitled to stalls,

and their number in each cathedral church is limited to twenty-four, who are appointed by the archbishops and bishops respectively. This honorary preferment may be held with two benefices. Doubts having been entertained as to the cathedral churches in which honorary canonries were to be founded, it was enacted in 4 & 5 Vict. c. 39, that such cathedral churches were to be those of Canterbury, Bristol, Carlisle, Chester, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Ripon, Rochester, Winchester, and Worcester; and the collegiate church of Manchester, so soon as the same should become a cathedral church. The honorary canons have no emolument, nor any place in the chapter; but the patronage of chapters is restricted, and the canons, minor canons, and honorary canons are included amongst the persons to whom vacant benefices in the gift of the chapter must be presented.

From canon is formea canonical, which occurs in many ecclesiastical terms, as canonical hours, canonical sins, canonical punishment, canonical letters, canonical obedience, and canonical scriptures. The canonical scriptures are the usually received books of the Old and New Testa

ment.

CANON LAW, 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. The origin of the canon law is said to be coeval with the establishment of Christianity under the apostles and their immediate successors, who are supposed to have framed certain rules or canons for the government of the church. These are called the apostolical canons; and though the fact of their being the work of the apostles does not admit of proof, there is no doubt that they belong to a very early period of ecclesiastical history. These rules were subsequently enlarged and explained by general councils of the church. The canons of the four councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon (which were held at different times in the fourth and fifth centuries), |

received the sanction of the Emperor Justinian, A.D. 545. (Novel. 131, cap. 1.) The chapter referred to, after confirming the decrees of the four councils, adds, "we receive the doctrines of the aforesaid holy synods (i. e. councils) as the divine Scriptures, and their canons we observe as laws." Collections of these canons were made at an early period. The most remarkable of these collections, and that which seems to have been most generally received, is the Codex Canonum, which was compiled by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman monk, A.D. 520. This body of constitutions, together with the capitularies of Charlemagne and the decrees of the popes from Siricius (A.D. 398) to Anastasius IV. (A.D. 1154), formed the principal part of the canon law until the twelfth century. The power of the popes was then rapidly increasing, and a uniform system of law was required for the regulation of ecclesiastical matters

This necessity excited the activity of the ecclesiastic lawyers. After some minor compilations had appeared, a collection of the decrees made by the popes and cardinals was begun by Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, A.D. 1114, and perfected by Gratian, a Benedictine monk, in the year 1150, who first reduced these ecclesiastical constitutions into method. The work of Gratian is in three books, arranged and digested into titles and chapters in imitation of the Pandects of Justinian, and is entitled 'Concordia discordantium Canonum,' but is commonly known by the name of Decretum Gratiani.' It comprises a series of canons and other ecclesiastical constitutions from the time of Constantine the Great, at the beginning of the fourth, to that of Pope Alexander III., at the end of the twelfth century. The decretals, which were rescripts or letters of the popes in answer to questions of ecclesiastical matters submitted to them by private persons, and which had obtained the authority of laws, were first published A.D. 1234, in five books, by Raimond de Renafort, chaplain to Pope Gregory IX. This work, which consists almost entirely of rescripts issued by the later popes, especially Alexander III, Innocent III., Honorius III., and Gre

Law, Preface.)

With respect to these canons it was, at the time of the Reformation, provided by stat. 25 Henry VIII. c. 19 (afterwards repealed by 1 Philip and Mary, c. 8, but revived by 1 Eliz. c. 1), that they should be reviewed by the king and certain commissioners to be appointed under the act, but that, till such review should be made, all canons, constitutions, ordinances, and synodals provincial, being then already made and not repugnant to the law of the land or the king's prerogative, should still be used and executed. No such review took place in Henry's time; but the project for the reformation of the canons was revived under Edward VI., | and a new code of ecclesiastical law was drawn up under a commission appointed by the crown under the stat. 3 & 4 Edward VI. c. 11, and received the name of Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. The confirmation of this was prevented by the death of the king, and though the project for a review of the old canons was renewed in the reign of Elizabeth, it was soon dropped, and has not been revived.

The result is, that so much of the English canons made previously to the stat. of Henry VIII. as are not repugnant to the common or statute law, is still in force in this country. It has, however, been decided by the Court of King's | Bench that the canons of the convocation of Canterbury, in 1603 (which, though confirmed by King James I., never received the sanction of parliament), do not (except so far as they are declaratory of the antient canon law) bind the laity of these realms. (Middleton v. Croft; Strange's Reports, 1056.) It was, however, admitted by Lord Hardwicke, in delivering judgment in this case, that the clergy are bound by all canons which are confirmed by the king. [CONSTITUTIONS, ECCLESIASTICAL.] There are two kinds of courts in England, in which the canon law is under certain restrictions used. 1. The courts of the archbishops and bishops and their officers, usually called in our law Courts Christian, Curiæ Christianitatis, or ecclesiastical courts. 2. The courts of the two universities. In the first of these, the reception of the canon law is grounded

the case of the universities derives additional support from the acts of parliament which confirm the charters of those bodies. They are all subject to the control of the courts of common law, which assume the exclusive right of expounding all statutes relating to the ecclesiastical courts, and will prohibit them from going beyond the limits of their respective jurisdictions; and from all of them an appeal lies to the king in the last resort.

Before the Reformation, degrees were as frequent in the canon law as in the civil law. Many persons became graduates in both, or juris utriusque doctores: and this degree is still common in foreign universities. But Henry VIII., in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, issued a mandate to the university of Cambridge, to the effect that no lectures on canon law should be read, and no degrees whatever in that faculty conferred in the university for the future. (Stat. Acad. Cantab., p. 137.) It is probable that Oxford received a similar prohibition about the same time, as degrees in canon law have ever since been discontinued in England.

The decree of Gratian and the Decretals are usually cited not according to book and title, but by reference to the first word of the canon, which renders it necessary for the reader to consult the alphabetical list of the canons, in order to find out the book, title, and chapter, under which the canon he wishes to consult is to be found.

CAPACITY, LEGAL. [AGE; INSANITY.]

CAPITAL is a term used in commerce to express the stock of the merchant, manufacturer, or trader, used in carrying on his business, in the purchase or manufacture of commodities, and in the payment of the wages of labour; and is understood not only of money, but of buildings, machinery, and all other material objects which facilitate his operations in trade. The term itself and the praetical qualities and uses of capital are sufficiently understood in this its commercial sense; but it is the object of the present article to treat of capital in a more extended form, as within the province of political economy, and embracing

not only the capital of particular individuals, but the entire capital of a country. In this latter sense, capital may be defined as the products of industry possessed by the community, and still available for use only, or for further production.

To consider capital in all its relations to the material interests of man, to the increase of population, the employment and wages of labourers, to profits and rent, it would be necessary to travel over the entire range of political economy; but this article will be confined to the following points.-I. The origin and growth of capital. II. Its application and uses.

I. Capital is first called into existence by the natural foresight of man, who even in a savage state discerns the advantage of not immediately consuming the whole produce of his exertions in present gratification, and stores up a part for his future subsistence. The greater proportion of mankind possess this quality, and those who do not possess it are admonished of its value by privation. In civilized life there are many concurrent inducements to accumulate savings; of which the most general are the anxiety of men to provide for their families and for themselves in old age; social emulation, or their desire to substitute the manual labour of others for their own, and of advancing themselves from one grade to another in society; and a love of ease and luxury, which can only be purchased by present sacrifices.

A desire to accumulate some portion of the produce of industry being thus natural to mankind and nearly universal, the growth of capital may be expected wherever the means of accumulation exist; or, in other words, wherever men are not obliged to consume the whole products of their labour in their own subsistence. From the moment at which a man produces more than he consumes, he is creating a capital; and the accumulated surplus of production over the consumption of the whole community is the capital of a country.

Thus far the origin and growth of capital are perfectly intelligible; but in order to understand completely the progress of accumulation, it will be necessary to advert to certain matters which inter

fere with its apparent simplicity. As yet no distinction has been noticed, either in the original definition of capital or in the succeeding explanation of its causes, between those parts of the products of labour which are reserved for the reproduction of other commodities, and those parts which are intended solely for use or consumption. These two classes of products have been divided by Adam Smith and others into capital and revenue; by which division all products are excluded from the definition of capital unless they be designed for aiding in further production. The impropriety of this distinction, however, has been pointed out by Mr. M'Culloch (Principles of Political Economy,' p. 97), and it does not appear that any such division of the stock of a country is founded on a proper distinction. How can its future application be predicated? The fund exists, and so long as it is not sent abroad or consumed it must be regarded as capital. The whole of it may be made available for further production, or the whole may be consumed in present enjoyment; but no part is separable from the rest by an arbitrary classification. A man may choose, hereafter, to spend all his savings in drinking spirits and frequenting the theatres; or he may carefully lay them aside for the employment of a labourer in some profitable work: but in either case the stock has the same capacity for production while in the possession of the owner.

These different modes of expending capital produce very distinct results, both as regards the interests of the individual and of society, which will be examined under the second division of this article, where the application and uses of capital are considered; but here it must be observed that the accumulation of capital proceeds slowly or rapidly in proportion as one or other of these modes of expenditure is most prevalent. men habitually consumed or wasted all the results of their industry, it is obvious that the effect of such conduct would be precisely the same to themselves, in preventing accumulation, as if they were unable to earn anything more than was absolutely necessary for their support. It is true that

If