Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/446

CORPORATION the records and accepted by the corporation, is sufficient. The corporation itself may be dissolved and in such case, at common law, debts due from a corporation were wholly extinguished ipso facto by such dissolution; and in this respect the common law concurred with the maxim of the civil law which declared that the members of a corporation in respect to its property rights and credits had no individual rights therein: "si quid universitati debetur; singulis non debetur; nec, quod debet universitas, singuli debent" (Pandeets, III, 4, 7).

The method of dissolution under the common law was (1) by an act of Parliament; (2) in the case of a corporation aggregate, by the death of all its members; (3) by surrender of its franchise into the hands of the king through voluntary action of the corporation; (4) by the forfeiture of its corporate rights through negligence or through non-user or abuse of its franchise. The franchises, as the English law termed the privileges which corporations enjoyed, were considered a trust lodged in the corporation for the general benefit of society, and to allow such privileges to be abused or to discontinue the exercise of such franchise was held to be a fault punishable according to its degree and, in extreme cases, punishable by extinction of corporate existence. The regular course adopted for the punishment of corporations or their dissolution is to proceed by what is termed a writ of quo warranto, which means that a representative of the State presents to some competent tribunal a petition reciting abuses, wrongs, or eulpable non- action of a corporate body, prays for its dissolution, and demands that a writ issue from the court requiring the corporation to show "by what warrant" it presumes to exist and to act as a corporation. Upon a proper showing by petition, the court issues its writ quo warranto; that is, the court issues a document requiring the corporation to present to such court the facts which the corporation deems sufficient to warrant its continued existence. Upon a trial of the issues involved. if it be found that the corporation is amenable to public discipline, it may be amerced or its extinction may be decreed. Proceedings by quo warranto still have a place in the law of England and also in the laws of the various American States, although such proceedings have been greatly modified by statute. Students of history will recall the great public agitation caused during the reign of King Charles II by the institution of proceedings in quo warranto against the city of London. Judgment, however, was rendered by a competent tribunal against the city of London, and it is probable that, according to a strict construction of the law, the proceedings were justified. After the English revolution which seated William and Mary upon the throne, the judgment against the city of London was reversed by an Act of Parliament. In all civilized countries bodies politic, similar in nature and quality to English and American corporations, exist. As these have many special characteristics imparted to them by the legislation of the various countries in which they exist, no attempt to describe them is made in this article.

BALDWIN, Modern Political Institutions (Boston, 1898), 141 sqq.; BLACKSTONE, Commentaries upon the Laws of England, ed. SHARSWOOD (Philadelphia, 1875), I, xviii; KENT, Common- taries upon American Law (Boston, 1884), 1, 525, and note, II, 268 sq.; MOMMSEN, History of Rome (New York, 1895), II, 65, V. 374; MACKENZIE, Roman Law (London, 1898), 160-163; SOM, Institutes of Roman Law (Oxford, 1892), 106; Decision of U. S. Supreme Court, Dartmouth College v. Woodward in IV Wheaton's Reports (New York, 1819), 518, 636; MINOR, Institutes (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1882), 1, 541; ELLIOTT, Corporations (Indianapolis, Indiana, 1900), i; SMITH, Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiq. (London, 1875).

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Corporation Act of 1661.-The Corporation Act of it belongs to the general category of test acts. designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices to members of the Church of England. Though commonly spoken of as one of the "Penal Laws", and the Laws against the Roman Catholics of England", enumerated by Butler in his "Historical Account of it was not directly aimed against them, but against the Presbyterians. It was passed in December, 1661, Charles II. Parliament was at that time entirely reactionary. The Cavaliers were in power, and they aimed at nothing short of restoring England to its state before the time of the Commonwealth. It required all the prudence of the Earl of Clarendon, the chancellor, to restrain them. The Corporation Act represents the limit to which he was prepared to go in endeavouring to restrict the power of the Presbyter- ians. They were influentially represented in the gov- crument of cities and boroughs throughout the coun- try, and this act was designed to dispossess them. It provided that no person could be legally elected to any office relating to the government of a city or cor- poration, unless he had within the previous twelve months received the sacrament of "the Lord's Sup- per" according to the rites of the Church of England. He was also commanded to take the Oaths of Allegi- ance and Supremacy, to swear belief in the Doctrine In default of these requisites the election was to be of Passive Obedience, and to renounce the Covenant. void. A somewhat similar act passed twelve years later, known as the Test Act. prescribed for all offi- cers, civil and military, further stringent conditions, including a declaration against Transubstantiation. These two acts operated very prejudicially on Catho- lics, forming an important part of the general Penal Code which kept them out of public life. In later times the number, even of non-Catholics, who quali- fied for civil and military posts in accordance with their provisions was very small, and an Act of Indemnity" used to be passed annually, to relieve those who had not done so from the penalties incurred.d There was no expression in this act limiting its operation to the case of Protestants; yet on the only occasion when a Catholic ventured to ask for a share in the Indemnity, it was refused on the ground of the act not being applicable to him. (Butler, op. cit., 19.) The Corporation Act remained nominally in force throughout the eighteenth century. It was eventually repealed in 1828, the year before Catholic Emancipation. 1em

Corpus Christi (BODY OF CHRIST), FEAST OF, is celebrated in the Latin Church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to solemnly commemorate the institu- tion of the Holy Eucharist. Of Maundy Thursday which commemorates this great event, mention is made as Natalis Calicis (Birth of the Chalice) in the Calendar of Polemius (448) for the 24th of March the 25th of March being in some places considered as the day of the death of Christ. This day, how ever, was in Holy Week, a season of sadness, during which the minds of the faithful are expected to be oc- cupied with thoughts of the Lord's Passion. More over, so many other functions took place on this day that the principal event was almost lost sight of This is mentioned as the chief reason for the introduc- tion of the new feast, in the Bull "Transiturus".

The instrument in the hand of Divine Providence was St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon, in Belgium. She was born in 1193 at Retinnes near Liège. Orphaned at an early age, she was educated by the Augustinie nuns of Mont Cornillon. Here she in time made her religious profession and later became superioress. Intrigues of various kinds several times drove her from her convent. She died 5 April, 1258, at the House of the Cistercian nuns at Fosses, and was buried at Villiers.

Juliana, from her early youth, had a great venera- tion for the Blessed Sacrament, and always longed for a special feast in its honour. This desire is said