we, willing to provide as well for the bishop as the church, decree, that you shall associate to him as coadjutor, a provident and honest man, who may act with advantage both for the bishop and the people (z).”

Blasphemy-see Profaneness.

Bon Notabilia-see Wills.

Bond of Resignation-see Simony.

Books belonging to the Church—see Church.

Books belonging to Parochial Libraries-see
Library.

Boscage.

BOSCAGE (perhaps from Borxw, to feed,) seemeth to be that food which wood and trees do yield unto cattle, as of the leaves and croppings; and herein differeth from pannage, which consisteth of the fruit of such trees, as acorns, crabs, or mast, which, as yielding a tithe, are treated of under the title Tithes.

Boundaries of Parishes-see Parish.

Brawling in the Church or Church-yard-see
Church.

Briefs.

1. BY the 4 Anne, c. 14, when letters-patent, commonly called briefs, shall be issued out of chancery, copies thereof to the number required by the petitioners, and no more, shall be printed by the printer of the queen, her heirs or successors, at the usual rates for printing.

2. The printer shall deliver the same to such persons only,

(*) X. 3, 6, 5. See also tit. Coadjutor,

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as shall by the consent of a majority of the petitioners undertake the laying or disposing of them.

3. The undertaker shall give to the printer a receipt for the same, expressing therein the number of copies; which printer shall forthwith deliver the receipt, or an attested copy thereof, to the register of the Court of Chancery, to be filed there.

4. The undertaker shall next cause all the printed copies to be indorsed, or marked, in some convenient part, with the name of one trustee (or more), written with his own hand, and the time of signing.

5. And he shall also cause them to be stamped with a proper stamp, to be made for that purpose, and kept by the register of the Court of Chancery. And if any person shall counterfeit the stamp, he shall be set in the pillory for an hour.

6. This done, he shall with all convenient speed send or deliver them to the churchwardens or chapelwardens, and to the teachers and preachers of every separate congregation, and to any person who hath taught or preached among Quakers.

7. Which persons, immediately after receipt, shall indorse the time of receiving, and set their names.

8. Then the churchwardens or chapelwardens shall forthwith deliver them to the minister.

9. And the ministers, on receipt shall indorse the time, and set their names.

10. Then the ministers (and teachers respectively), in two months after receipt, shall on some Sunday, immediately before sermon, openly read or cause them to be read to the congregation.

11. Then the churchwardens and chapelwardens (and teachers and others to whom they were delivered) shall collect the money that shall be freely given, either in the assembly, or by going from house to house, as the briefs require.

12. Next, the sum collected, the place where, and time when, shall be indorsed, fairly written in words at length, according to the form to be printed on the back of each brief, and signed by the minister and churchwardens, or by the teacher and two elders or two other substantial persons of such separate congregation.

13. Afterwards, on request of the undertaker (or other person by him lawfully authorized), which he is required to make within six months after the briefs were first delivered into the respective parishes, on pain of 20l. to be recovered by action at law, the churchwardens and teachers shall deliver to him the briefs so indorsed, and the money thereon collected, taking his receipt for the same in some book to be kept for that pur

pose.

14. Every minister, curate, teacher, preacher, churchwarden, chapelwarden, and Quaker, refusing or neglecting to do any thing above required, shall forfeit 201.; to be recovered by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information.

15. And in every parish or chapelry, and separate congregation, a register shall be kept by the minister or teacher, oall monies collected by virtue of such briefs, therein also inserting the occasion of the brief, and the time when collected, to which all persons at all times may resort without fee.

16. And the undertaker shall enter in a book the number of briefs, when signed, and sent, and whither, and when received back.

17. And the briefs so received back shall be deposited by him with the register of the Court of Chancery. And if the whole number shall not be returned, the undertaker for every one not returned (through default of him or his agents) shall forfeit 501.; unless he shall prove that it was lost or destroyed by inevitable accident; and shall pay the money collected thereon.

18. And the undertaker in two months after he has received the money, and after notice thereof to the sufferers, shall account before a master in chancery, and shall be allowed all just charges.

19. And if any shall purchase or farm charity money on briefs, such contract shall be void, and the purchaser shall forfeit 500l. to be recovered by action at law; the same to be applied (as also the other penalties) to the use of the sufferers.

The usual charges of suing out a brief, with the collections thereupon, may be best understood from an instance given.

For the Parish Church of Ravenstondale, in the County of [253] Westmoreland.

BRUERA, in the French, bruyere, in Domesday Book called bruæria, is an unprofitable kind of ground, but not wholly barren, for thereon sheep and beasts will browse, and some poor people apply the flags and turfs thereof for fuel. And this kind of heath ground cannot, without great skill, charge [254] and industry, be converted to tillage; and therefore by the statute of the 2 & 3 Edw. 6, c. 13, it is discharged from the payment of hay and corn tithes for seven years after the improvement. It sendeth a flower in autumn (when all others cease), which bees do exceedingly covet. Some say it is a kind of wild tamarisk. And in Lincolnshire, a religious house was called Temple bruer, because it was seated in the heath. And this is no other than what in the northern parts of England is called ling.

BULL, bulla, was a brief or mandate of the pope or bishop of Rome, so called from the seal of lead, or sometimes of gold, affixed to it. To procure, publish, or put in ure any of these, is by act of parliament made high treason.

Bulla is said by some to mean a little bladder, whence it was applied to any tumour, as the boss of a nail and a button or ornament to unite the different parts of a garment, and thence transferred to that seal, which was affixed in a somewhat similar shape to these mandates of the popes (a). Others, with greater probability, derive the word from the Greek Bean, concilium (b).

(a) God. Can. Rep. 341:

(b) Spelm. in Verb.

1. As to the original of burying places, many writers have Original of observed, that at the first erection of churches, no part of the Places. adjacent ground was allotted for interment of the dead, but some place for this purpose was appointed at a farther distance; especially in cities and populous towns, where agreeably to the old Roman law of the Twelve Tables, the place of inhumation was without the wall, first indefinitely by the way side, then in some peculiar inclosure assigned to that use. Therefore the Roman pontifical, amongst other inventions, is in this matter convicted of error, that it makes Pope Marcellus, under the [ 256 ] tyrant Maxentius, appoint twenty-five churches in Rome to bury martyrs in; when at that time laws and customs did forbid all burial within the city. Hence the Augustine monastery was built without the walls of Canterbury (as Ethelbert and Augustine in both their charters intimate), that it might be a dormitory to them and their successors, the kings and archbishops for ever. This practice of remoter burials continued to the age of Gregory the Great, when the monks and priests beginning to offer for souls departed, procured leave, for their greater ease and profit, that a liberty of sepulture might be in churches or in places adjoining to them. This mercenary reason seems to be acknowledged by Pope Gregory himself, whilst he allows that when the parties deceasing are not burthened with heavy sins, it may then be a benefit to them to be buried. in churches, because their friends and relations, as often as they come to these sacred places, seeing their graves, may remember them and pray to God for them. After this, Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury, brought over from Rome this practice into England about the year 750, from which time they date the original of churchyards in this island. This was a sufficient argument of the learned Sir Henry Spelman, to prove an inscription at Glastonbury to be a later forgery, because it pretends dominus ecclesiam ipsam comiterio dedicarat, whereas there was no cemetery in England till above 700 years after the date of that fiction. The practices of burying within the churches, did indeed (though more rarely) obtain before the use of churchyards, but was by authority restrained when churchyards were frequent and appropriated to that use. among those canons which seem to have been made before

For