Imatges de pàgina
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confidered as dead in law; but he had a politic capacity as fovereign of the house, by which he might fue and be sued, infeoff, give, demise, and leafe to others, and purchase and take from others, and which was admitted by the policy of the law, that thofe, who had a right againft the house, might know how they were to fue, and that the rights of the house itself might be recovered in the name of the abbot (a).

THERE is one general divifion of corporations, whether fole or aggregate, into ecclefiaftical, and lay. Ecclefiaftical corporations are those of which not only the members are spiritual perfons, but of which the object of the inftitution is also spiritual; fuch are bishops; fome deans and prebendaries; all archdeacons, parfons and vicars; and formerly chauntry priests, which are fole corporations; deans and chapters at prefent, and formerly prior and convent, abbot and monks, which are corporations aggregate.

AND ecclefiaftical corporations were formerly fubdivided into regular and fecular; the regular were compofed of thofe ecclefiaftical perfons who lived under fome rule, had a common dormitory and refectory, and were obliged to observe the ftatutes of their order; of this class were the mo

(a) Vid. 22 H. 6, 4. Co. Lit. 346, b. 347, a.

nafteries,

nafteries, priories, and fome canonries. The fecular were fo called because they conversed in feculo, performed fpiritual offices to the laity, and took upon them the cure of fouls: fuch are, at this day, all the ecclefiaftical corporations. known to the law, and fuch were formerly fome canons (a).

It is not the description of the perfons who are the members of a corporation, but the purpose of its inftitution which characterifes it to be a lay or a fpiritual foundation; and for this reason, though the greater part of the members of the colleges in the universities be clerical, yet they are, in general, to be confidered as lay corporations (b): they are not within the jurisdiction of the ecclefiaftical courts; their members have no admiffion or inftitution from the ordinary; they are merely private focieties to be governed by their own ftatutes and orders (c): most of them were founded ad ftudendum et orandum: the object of their studies is human learning, in its various branches, as logic, philofophy, mathematics. Camden (d), defcribing the univerfity of Oxford, fays, that the places of learning were, in ancient times, called Studia, for that they were defigned

(a) Vid. Burn's Ecclefiaftical Law, Monasteries, f. 3.
(b) Per Holt, Carth. 93. Vid. 1 Lord Raym. 6.
(c) Skinner, 494.

(d) Britannia 381, cited Raym. 107.

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pro bonarum literarum ftudiofis: and in his description of Cambridge, after having enumerated all the colleges in the univerfity, he adds, "I will let pafs little monafteries and religious houfes;" fo that he makes a plain diftinction between the colleges and religious houfes: and Stow (a), enumerating all the colleges of both univerfities, and their foundations, and fhewing fome originally founded for grammar, fome for logic, and others, for other sciences, reckons none of them barely for ecclefiaftical matters. Lindwood (b) defines a college to be only habitaculum fcholarium: and if we observe the foundation of all religious and ecclefiaftical corporations and focieties, not one will be found whofe object was ad fludendum. Their design was either to pray pro animabus, or to observe such and fuch canonical hours, according to fuch and fuch an order, their matins, vefpers, and other ceremonies belonging to divine worship, which were prepared by the church to their hands, and were fuch as men of little learning might perform; they might contemplate on what was already prescribed to them, but not excogitate new matters in religion: They went on in a circle, and where they left off at night they began in the morning: They were not enjoined

(a) Fol. 450, &c. cited Raym. 108.

(b) 155 K. cap. de Magiftris, cited Raym. ibid.

ad

ad fludendum, but ad celebrandum divina. It is true there have been fome members of fuch foundations, who have made proficiency in arts, have written learned tracts, and improved human knowledge; but this was not the purpose of their inftitution, for it is not study, but celebratio divinorum, which makes an ecclefiaftical corporation; nor does the injunction to pray conftitute an ecclefiaftical foundation; for that was implied as concomitant to all ftudies: if the injunction of faying their prayers were to make a corporation fpiritual, there was hardly any one of thofe which, beyond all doubt, were lay hofpitals, but would have been fpiritual (a).

THE knights of St. John of Jerufalem, though religious, were not ecclefiaftical, but lay corporations (b).

LAY Corporations are again fubdivided into two claffes, eleemofynary and civil. Eleemofynary corporations are fuch as are conftituted for the perpetual distribution of the free alms, or bounty of the founder of them, to fuch perfons as he has directed (c). Thefe are of two general defcriptions: hospitals for the maintenance and relief of poor and impotent perfons; and colleges for the promotion of learning, and the support of perfons

(a) Vid. Raym. 108, 109. (c) 1 Bl. Comment. 471.

(b) Goldb. 393. et feq.

engaged

engaged in literary pursuits, of which the greater number are within the universities, and form component parts of these larger corporations; and others are out of the universities, and not neceffarily connected with them.

"Or hofpitals," fays Sir Edward Coke, "fome are corporations aggregate of many, as of master, or warden, and his confreres; fome, where the mafter or warden hath alone the eftate of inheritance in him, and the brethren or fifters power to confent, having a college or common feal" (a).

BETWEEN fuch hofpitals as thefe, and colleges either in the univerfities or out of them, there is no difference in legal confideration; the difference is only in degree; for, where, in an hospital, the master and poor are incorporated, it is a college, having a common feal by which it acts, although it have not the name of a college (b). But there are other hospitals "where the mafter or warden hath the estate in him, but where there is no college or common feal," and which, therefore, cannot properly be confidered as corporations, the master or warden being merely a trustee for the house.

THERE are other hofpitals, where the poor, who are the objects of the founder's bounty, are not (b) Per Holt. Skinner, 484. themselves

(a) Co. Lit. 342, a.

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