Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/142

ACTON  in the thirteenth century, and contemporary lawyers must have found his notes both full and learned, for many manuscript copies of them are said by Maitland to be still extant at Oxford. They were first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in his edition of William Lyndewood's "Provinciale" (1496) and partly translated in Johnson's "Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws" (London, 1720: cf. the English translation of Otho's "Ecclesiastical Laws", by J. W. White, 1844). The printed copies must be received with caution, for they contain references to books that were not written until after the death of Acton. His canonical doctrine lends no support to the thesis of a medieval Anglican independence of the papal decretal legislation. "I have been unable", says Dr. F. W. Maitland in the work quoted below (p. 8), "to find any passage in which either John of Ayton or Lyndewood denies, disputes, or debates the binding force of any decretal" (cf. ib., pp. 11–14). Of Acton the same writer says (pp. 7, 8) that he was "a little too human to be strictly scientific. His gloss often becomes a growl against the bad world in which he lives, the greedy prelates, the hypocritical friars, the rapacious officials."

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Acton, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, 1895–1902, born at Naples, 10 January, 1834, where his father, Sir Richard Acton, held an important diplomatic appointment; died at Tegernsee, Bavaria, 19 June, 1902. His mother was the heiress of a distinguished Bavarian family, the Dalbergs. The Actons, though of an old English Catholic stock, had long been naturalized in Naples, where Lord Acton's grandfather had been prime minister. The future historian was thus in an extraordinary degree cosmopolitan, and much of his exceptional mastery of historical literature may be ascribed to the fact that the principal languages of Europe were as familiar to him as his native tongue. In 1843 the boy was sent to Oscott College, Birmingham, were Doctor, afterwards Cardinal, Nicholas Wiseman was then president. After five years spent at Oscott, Acton complete his education at Munich, as the pupil of the celebrated historian Döllinger. With Döllinger he visited France, and both there and in Germany lived on terms of intimacy with the most eminent historical scholars of the day. Returning to England, however, in 1859, to settle upon the family estate of Aldenham in Shropshire, he entered parliament as member for an Irish constituency, and retained his seat for six years, voting with the Liberals, but taking little part in the debates. In the meantime he devoted himself to literary work, and upon Newman's retirement, in 1859, succeeded him in the editorship of a Catholic periodical called "The Rambler", which, after 1862, was transformed into a quarterly under the title of "The Home and Foreign Review". The ultra liberal tone of this journal gave offence to ecclesiastical authorities, and Acton eventually judged it necessary to discontinue its publication, in April, 1864, when he wrote, concerning certain tenets of his which had been disapproved of, that "the principles had not ceased to be true, nor the authority which censured them to be legitimate, because the two were in contradiction." The publication of the "Syllabus" by Pius IX in 1864 tended to alienate Acton still further from Ultramontane counsels. He had in the meantime become very intimate with Mr. Gladstone, by whom he was recommended for a peerage in 1869, and at the time of the Vatican Council Lord Acton went to Rome with the express object of organizing a party of resistance to the proposed definition of papal infallibility. The decree, when it came, seems to have had the effect of permanently embittering Acton's feelings towards Roman authority, but he did not, like his friend Döllinger, formally sever his connection with the Church. Indeed in his later years at Cambridge he regularly attended Mass, and he received the last sacraments, at Tegernsee, on his death-bed. The Cambridge Professorship of Modern History was offered to him by Lord Rosebery in 1895, and, besides the lectures which he delivered there, he conceived and partly organized the "Cambridge Modern History", the first volume of which was only to see the light after his death. Lord Acton never produced anything which deserves to be called a book, but he wrote a good many reviews and occasionally an article or a lecture. As an historian he was probably more remarkable for knowledge of detail than for judgment or intuition. The "Letters of Quirinus," published in the Allgemeine Zeitung", at the time of the Vatican Council, and attributed to Lord Acton, as well as other letters addressed to the "Times", in November, 1874, show a mind much warped against the Roman system. The "Letters to Mrs. Drew" (Mr. Gladstone's daughter), which were printed by Mr. Herbert Paul in 1903, are brilliant but often bitter. A pleasanter impression is given by another collection of Lord Acton's private letters (published 1906) under the editorship of Abbot Gasquet. Some of Acton's best work was contributed to the "English Historical Review". His article on "German Schools of History", in the first volume, and on "Döllinger's Historical Work", in the fifth, deserve particular mention.

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Acton, sixth Baronet of the name, son of a Shropshire physician, born at Besançon, 3 June, 1736; died at Palermo, 12 August, 1811. He entered the military service of the Duke of Tuscany, and distinguished himself in the Algerine war in 1775, during which he rescued 4,000 Spaniards from the Corsairs. Since 1779 he was engaged in the reorganization of the Neapolitan navy. He became a favourite of Queen Caroline and was made successively minister of the marine, of finance, and prime minister of the kingdom to which he rendered notable services. When the Parthenopeian Republic was established by the French at Naples in 1798, Acton fled. After the restoration of the Bourbons he was temporarily reinstated, but was removed in 1806, and retired to Palermo.

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Acts, —According to the old Roman jurisprudence, acts are the registers (acta) in which were recorded the official documents, the decisions and sentences of the judges. Acts designate in law whatever serves to prove or justify a thing. Records, decrees, reports, certificates, etc. are called acts. Canonical acts derive their name from connection with ecclesiastical procedure. Acts may be public or private, civil or ecclesiastical.

Public acts are those certified by a public notary or other person holding a public office or position. These acts may be judicial, or a part of court-procedure, or voluntary. In contentious trials to secure justice, the acts should be judicial; extrajudicial acts are not contentious but voluntary.