in our law-books called disgradation and deposition, the act of depriving or stripping a person for ever of a dignity or degree of honour, and taking away the title, badge, and privileges thereof.
The degradations of a peer, a priest, a knight, a gentleman, an officer, &c. are performed with divers ceremonies. That which anciently obtained in degrading a person from his nobility is very curious. It was practised in the time of Francis I. upon Captain Fangel.
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(b) Optimus hic et formosissimus idem Gentis Patriciae rapitur miser extinguendus Messalinae oculis. —— Juv. Sat. x.
(c) Hunc optent generum Rex et Regina: puellae Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat: At ego nutrici non mando vota; negato
Jupiter hæc illi —— Perf. Sat. ii.
(d) Quid prospuit olim Hippolyto grave propositum? Quid Bellerophonti Erubuit nempe hæc, fætitudita repulsa? Nec Sthenoboea minus quam Creusa excanduit, et se Concussere ambæ. —— Juv. Sat. x. Fangel, who had in a cowardly manner given up Fon- tarabia, whereof he was governor. On this occasion, 20 or 30 cavaliers, without blemish or reproach, were assembled; before whom the gentleman was accused of treason and breach of faith by a king at arms. Two scaffolds were erected; the one for the judges, he- rals, and pursuivants; and the other for the guilty cavalier, who was armed at all points, and his shield placed on a stake before him, reversed with the point upwards. On one side affixed 12 priests in surplices, who sung the vigils of the dead. At the close of each psalm they made a pause, during which the officers of arms stripped the condemned of some piece of his ar- mour, beginning with the helmet, and proceeding thus till he was quite disarmed; which done, they broke his shield in three pieces with a hammer. Then the king at arms emptied a basin of hot water on the criminal's head; and the judges, putting on mourning habits, went to the church. This done, the degraded was drawn from off the scaffold with a rope tied under his arm-pits, laid on a bier, and covered with mortu- ary clothes; the priest singing some of the prayers for the dead; and then he was delivered to the civil judge and the executioner of justice.
For a more domestic instance: Sir Andrew Harcla, earl of Carlisle, being attainted and convicted of trea- son, 18 Edw. II. coron regis; after judgment was pro- nounced on him, his sword was broken over his head, and his spurs hewn off his heels; Sir Anthony Lucy the judge saying to him, "Andrew, now thou art no knight, but a knave." By stat. 13 Car. II. William Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mildmay, and others, were degraded from all titles of honour, dignities, and pre- eminences, and prohibited to bear or use the title of lord, knight, esquire, or gentleman, or any coat of arms, for ever afterwards. It has been maintained that the king may degrade a peer; but it appears from later authorities, that he cannot be degraded but by act of parliament.
As to ecclesiastics, we have an instance of degrada- tion before condemnation to death, in the eighth cen- tury, at Constantinople. It is in the person of the patriarch Constantine, whom Constantine Copronymus caused to be executed. He was made to ascend the ambo; and the patriarch Nicetas sent some of his bi- shops to strip him of the pallium, and anathematized him; then they made him go out of the church back- wards.
But we have a much later instance in our own histo- ry: When Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, was degraded by order of Queen Mary, they dressed him in episcopal robes, made only of canvas, put the mitre on his head and the pastoral staff in his hand; and in this attire showed him to the people. Which done, they stripped him again piece by piece. At present they do not stand so much on the ceremony of degra- dation in order to the putting a priest to death; by reason of the delays and difficulties that it would oc- casion. Pope Boniface pronounced that five bishops were required to degrade a priest; but the difficulty of assembling so many bishops rendered the punishment frequently impracticable. In England, a priest, after hav- ing been delivered to his ordinary, if he cannot purge himself of the crime laid at his door, his gown and other robes are stripped over his ears by the common hangman; by which he is declared divested of his or- ders.
It is decided, however, that degradation does not efface the priestly character. Degradation only seems to differ from deposition in a few ignominious ceremo- nies which custom has added thereto. Accordingly, in the business of Arnoul archbishop of Rheims, sen- tenced in the council of Orleans in 991, it was deli- berated what form they should follow in the deposition; whether that of the canons, that is, simple deposition; or that of custom, viz. degradation. And it was declared, that he should surrender the ring, pastoral staff, and pallium; but that his robes should not be torn off. In effect, the canons prescribe no more than a mere read- ing of the sentence. It is the rest, therefore, added thereto by custom, viz. the stripping off the ornaments and the tearing the pontifical vestments, that properly constitutes degradation.
painting, expresses the lessening the appearance of distant objects in a landscape, in the same manner as they would appear to an eye placed at that distance from them.