Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/762

 WOOD

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WOOD-CARVING

real liturgical office, and that, therefore, women, as being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir or of the musical chapel." This does not prevent women, however, from taking part in congregational singing.

IV. Stringent regulations have been made from the earliest ages of the Church concerning the residence of women in the households of priests. It is true that St. Paul vindicated for himself and St. Barnabas the right of receiving the services of women in his mis- sionary labours like the other Apostles (I Cor., ix, 5), who according to Jewish custom (Luke, viii, 3) employed them in a domestic capacity, yet he warns St. Timothy: "the younger widows avoid" (I Tim., V, 11). If the Apostles themselves were so circum- spect, it is not surprising that the Church should make severe rules concerning the dwelling of women in the households of men consecrated to God. The first vestiges of a prohibition are found in the two epistles "Ad virgines" ascribed to St. Clement (a. d. 92-101); St. Cyprian in the third century also warns against the abuse. The Council of Elvira (a. d. 300-306) gives the first ecclesiastical law on the sub- ject: "Let a bishop or any other cleric have residing with him either a sister or a virgin daughter, but no strangers" (can. 27). The Council of Nicaea (a. d. 325) permits in a clerical dweUing "the mother, sister, aunt or such proper persons as give no ground for suspicion" (can. 3). TThis Nicene canon contains the general rule, which has since been retained as to sub- stance in all decrees of councils. According to the present discipline, it is the right of the bishop in diocesan synod, to apply this general rule for his own diocese, more accurately defining it according to circumstances of times, places, and persons. The bishop cannot, however, forbid entirely the employ- ment of women in a domestic capacity in the dwellings of clerics. He can, nevertheless, prohibit the resi- dence of women, even though relatives, in the houses of priests, if they are not of good report. If other priests, such as assistants, Uve in the parochial house, the bishop can require that the women relatives have the age prescribed by the canons, which is ordinarilv forty years. In some dioceses the custom has existed froni the Middle Ages, of requiring the permission of the bishop in writing for the employ- ment of female housekeepers, in order that he may be certain that the canonical prescriptions concerning age and reputation are fulfilled. In the Eastern Church, it is entirely forbidden to bishops to have any woman residing in their dwellings, and a series of councils from 787 to 1891 have repeated this prohibi- tion under severe penalties. Such rigour of discipline has never been received into the Western Church, though it has been considered proper that bishops should adhere to the common law of the Church in this matter even more rigorously than priests. As the Church is so .soUcitous to guard the repu- tation of clerics in the matter, so she has also enacted many laws concerning their intercourse with those of the other sex both at home and abroad. V. An antiphon in the Office of the Blessed Virgin, "Intercede pro devoto femineo sexu", has given rise to the belief that women are singled out as more devout than men. As a matter of fact, the words usually translated: "Intercede for the devout female sex" mean simply "for nuns". The antii)hcm is taken from a sermon ascribed to St. Augustine (P. L., Serm. 194) in which the author distinguishes clerics and nuns from the rest of the faithful, and employs the term "devoted (i. e. hound by vow) female sex" for the consecrated virgins, according to the ancient custom of the Church.

Taonton, Laio of the Church (I-on<lon. 1906), a. v.; Werni, Jua decret., 88 (Rome, 1899); Ferharis. Bihl. can., HI (Rome, 1880), 8, V. Femina; Aichner, Comp. juris eccl. (BrixeD, 189S).

William II. W. Fanning.

Wood, Thomas, priest and confessor, b. about 1499; d. in Wisbech Castle before 1588. After being prebendary of Canterbury (11th stall), rector of High Ongar, Essex, and rector of Harlington, Middlesex, in 1554, he was deprived of all tlu-ee benefices in 1559. He had been vicar of Walthamstow, Essex, 1537^1, Vicar of South Weald, Essex, 1545-58, vicar of Bradwell-by-the-Sea, Essex, 1554-55, rector of Dean, Hampshire, 1555-59, and had held the 10th stall in Westminster Abbey from 1554 till the Bene- dictines were restored in 1556. He had also been one of Queen Mary's chaplains, and at her death had been nominated to the Bishopric of St. Asaph's, at the same time that Bishop Goldwell of St. Asaph's had been nominated to the vacant See of Oxford.

It does not appear whence he obtained his degree of B. D. On account of his reUgion he was com- mitted to the Mar.shalsea 13 May, 1560, and on 22 April, 1561, gave evidence that he had not said or heard Ma.ss since midsummer, 1559. On 20 Nov., 1561, he was transferred to the Fleet. On 28 Nov., 1569, we find him in the Tower of London, threatened with the rack. He was still there in April, 1570. From the Tower he was removed to the Manshalsea again 14 Oct., 1571, and he was still there in 1579, then aged 80, and in July, 1580. The Thomas Woods who was in Salford Fleet in 1582 is probably a different person.

Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 2nd series (Lon- don, 1875), 239; Hardy, Le Neve's Fasti (Oxford, 1854), I, 59; III, 357; Gee, Elizabethan Clergy (Oxford, 1898), passim; Catholic Record Soc. Publ. (London, privately printed, 1905), — I, 18, 42, 52, 57, 60; V, 23; NEwconsT, Repertorium (London, 1710), passim; Dasent, Acts of Privy Council (London, 1890- 1907), Vin, 388; Sthvpe, Annals (Oxford, 1824), II, ii, 660; Bridgett and Knox, Q. Elizabeth and the Catholic Hierarchy (London, 1889), 73; Foley, Records English Province S.J. (Lon- don, 1877—), II, 137; Record Office, State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, XVI, 59; LIX, 43; LXVII, 93; CXL, 40.

John B. Wainewright.

Wood- Carving, in general, the production from wood of objects of trade or art by means of sharp instruments, as a knife, chisel, file, or drill. Here only that branch of wood-carving is dealt with which produces artistic objects, belonging either to plastic (as statues, crucifixes, and similar carvings), or to industrial art (as arabesques and rosettes), and which ser\-e mainly for the ornamentation of cabinet work. Carvings of the first class belong specifically to wood- sculpture; those of the second class to wood-carving proper; both are treated in this article. It is indeed not easy to maintain a sharp distinction between these two classes in a sketch deahng with the historical development of wood-carving, particularly as they were frequently combined in the production of artistic objects. Moreover, the lack of objects of industrial art among the remains of the first thousand years makes it necessary, in the following summary, to include also examples of wood-sculpture.

Objects carved from wood were frequently used for rehgious purposes in antiquity, especially by the Egyptians; the early statues of the gods were of wood. Wood-carving, however, did not receive its real devel- opment until the Christian era. On account of the perishable character of the material it is easy to understand that only a small amount of the wood- carving of Christian antiquity still exists. These scanty remains show that wood was then partly used for the same church purposes .as to-day. Mention should be m.ade here in p.articular of the wood-sculp- ture from Hawit in Egypt, namely the figures of two saints and consoles which were .acquired in 1S9S by the museum at Cairo, and the door of the Basilica of St. Siibina at Rome, the most important monument of early Christian wood-carving. In the early period reliquaries were frequently made of wood, as were also the episcp;d cathedra; these chairs were adorned with ivorv carved in relief, as is shown by the cele- brated cathedra of Bishop Maximianus at Itavenna.