or Acephalites, a term applied to several sects who refused to follow some noted leader. Thus the persons who refused to follow either John of Antioch, or St Cyril, in a dispute that happened in the council of Ephesus, were termed Acephali, without a head or leader. Such bishops, also, as were exempt from the jurisdiction and discipline of their patriarch, were styled Acephali.

levellers in the reign of king Henry I. who acknowledged no head or superior. They were reckoned so poor, that they had not a tenement by which they might acknowledge a superior lord.