Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/121

 NONANTOLA

95

NONCONFORMISTS

!t is retained in the law of the Orthodox Church of Greefi', and inchided in the "Syntagma" pubhshed by Uliallis and Potlis (Athens, 1852-9). Though called the "Syntagma", the collection of ecclesiastical law of Matthew Blastares (c. 1339) is a real nomoca- non, in which the texts of the canons and of the laws are arranged in alphabetical order (P. G., loc. cit.; Bev- eridge, "Synodicon", Oxford, 1672). A remarkable noraocanon was composed by John Barhebra?us (1226- 86) for the Syrian Church of Antioch (Latin version by Asseraani in Mai, "Script, vet. nova collectio", X, 3 sqq.). Several Russian manuals published at Kiev and Moscow in the seventeenth century were also nomocanons.

Vering. Lehrb. des Kirchenrechts (Freiburg. 1S93), §§ 17-19; Schneider, Die Lehre von den Kirckenrechtsquellen (Ratisbon, 1892), 50, 199: also bibliographies of Law, C.\non; John Scholas- Ticus; Photius, etc.

A. BOUDINHON.

Nonantola, a former Benedictine monastery and prelature iiiilliiis, six miles north-east of Modena, founded in 7.')2 by St. Anselm, Duke of Friuli, and richly endowed by Aistulph, King of the Longobards. Steplien II appointed .\n.selni its tir-^t aliliot, and pre- sented the relics of St. Sylvester t(j tin- abbey, named in consequence S. Sylvester de Xunantula. After the death of Aistulph (756), Anselm was banished to Monte Cassino by the new king, Desiderius, but was restored by Charlemagne after seven years. In 883 it was chosen as the place of a conference between Charles the Fat and Marinus I. Up to 1083 it was an imperial monastery, and its discipline often suffered severely on account of imperial interference in the elec- tion of abbots. In the beginning of the Conflict of Investitures it sided with the emperor, until forced to submit to the pope by Mathilda of Tuscany in 1083. It finally declared itself openly for the pope in 1111. In that year the famous monk Placidus of Nonantola wrote his "De honore Ecclesiae", one of the most able and important defences of the papal position that were written during the Conflict of Investitures. It is printed in Fez, "Thesaurus Anecdot. noviss." (Augsburg, 1721), II, ii, 73 sq. The decline of the monastery began in 1419, whenit came under the juris- diction of commendatory abbots. In 1514 it came into the possession of the Cistercians, but continued to de- cline until it was finally suppressed by Clement XIII in 1768. Pius VII restored it 23 Jan., 1821, with the provision that the prelature nullius attached to it should belong to the Archbishop of Modena. In 1909 the exempt district comprised 42,980 inhabitants, 31 parishes, 91 churches and chapels, 62 secular priests and three religious congregations for women. The monastery itself was appropriated by the Italian Gov- ernment in l.Slil).

TlRABOscni. Sluria ddV augusta badia di S. Sihesfro di Nonan- tola (2 voLs.. Modena. 17.S4-5); Gahdenzi in Bull dell' Istituto stor. ital. XXII (1901), 77-214; Cohradi, Nonantola. abbazia imperiale in Rivista Slorica Benedettina, IV (Rome, 1909), 181-9; MuRATORi, Rer. Ital. Script., I, ii, 189-196; Notitia codicum mo- nasterii Nonantulani anni 1166 in Mai, Spicilegium Romanum (Rome, 1839-14), V, i, 218-221; Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1885), 220 sq.; Giorgi in Rivista delle Biblioteche e degli archivi, VI (Florence, 1895), 54 sq.

Michael Ott.

Nonconformists, a name which, in its most gen- eral acceptation, denotes those refusing to conform with the authorized formularies and rites of the Es- tablished Church of England. The apphcation of the term has varied somewhat with the successive phases of Anglican history. From the accession of Elizabeth to the middle of the seventeenth century it had not come into use as the name of a religious party, but the word "conform", and the appellatives "conforming" and "nonconforming", were becoming more and more common expressions to designate those members of the Puritan party who, disapproving of certain of the Anglican rites (namely, the use of the

surplice, of the sign of the cross at baptism, of the ring in marriage, of the attitude of kneeling at the reception of the sacrament) and of the episcopal nnlii- iif Church government, either resigned themsel\ cs t'j i hese usages because enjoined, or stood out agaiu,st tliein at all costs. However from 1662, when the Fourth Act of Uniformity had the effect of ejecting from their ben- efices, acquired during the Commonwealth, a large number of ministers of Puritan proclivities, and of constraining them to organize themselves as separatist sects, the term "Nonconformist" crystalhzed into the technical name for such sects.

History. — The history of this cleavage in the ranks of English Protestantism goes back to the reign of Mary Tudor, when the Protestant leaders who were victorious under Edward VI retired to Frankfort, Zurich, and other Protestant centres on the continent, and (|uarrelled among themselves, some inclining to the nidie iiKiderate Lutheran or Zwinglian positions, otlieis develiijjing into uncompromising Calvinists. When (lie accession of Elizabeth attr,acted them back tti England, the Calvinist section, which soon acquired tlie nickname of Puritans, was the more fiery, the larger in numbers and the most in favour, with the ma- jority of the Protestant laity. Elizabeth, however, who had very little personal religion, preferred an episcopal to a presbyterian system as more in har- mony with monarchism, and besides she had some taste for the ornate in public worship. Accordingly she caused the religious settlement, destined to last into our own times, to be made on the basis of episco- pacy, with the retention of the points of ritual above specified; and her favour was bespoken for prelates like Parker, who were prepared to aid her in carrying out this programme. For those who held Puritan views she had a natural dislike, to which she some- times gave forcible expression, but on the whole she saw the expediency of showing them some considera- tion, lest she should lose their support in her campaign against Catholicism.

These were the determining factors of the initial situation, out of which the subsequent history of Eng- hsh Protestantism has grown by a natural develop- ment. The result during Elizabeth's reign was a state of oscillation between phases of repression and phases of indulgence, in meeting the persistent en- deavours of the Puritans to make their own ideas dominant in the national Church. In 1559 the third Act of LTniformity was passed, by which the new edi- tion of the Prayer Book was enjoined under severe Iienalifies on all ministering as clergy in the country. In 1566, feeling that some concession to the strength of the Puritan opposition was necessary. Archbishop Parker, on an understanding with the queen, pub- lished certain Advertisements addressed to the clergy, requiring them to conform at least as regards wearing the surplice, kneeling at communion, using the font for baptism, and covering the communion table with a proper cloth. These Advertisements were partially en- forced in some dioceses, and led to some deprivations, but that their effect was small is clear from the bold- ness with which the Puritans took up a more advanced position a few years later, and demanded the substi- tution of a presbyterian regime. This was the de- mand of Thomas Cartwright in his First and Second Admonitions, published in 1572, and followed in 1580 by his Book of Discipline, in which he collaborated with Thomas Travers. In this latter book he pro- pounded an ingenious theory of cla.'ises, or boards of clergy for each district, to which the episcopal powers should be transferred, to be exercised by them on pres- byterian principles, to the bishops being reserved only the purely mechanical ceremony of ordination. So great was the influence of the Puritans in the coun- try that they were able tO~introduce for a time this strange system in one or two places. In 1588 the Marprelate tracts were published, and