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Rh used in the 17th century, but by the time of Johnson considered quite obsolete. “Ambassy” is from the O. Fr. ambassée, derived through such forms as the Port. ambassada, Ital. ambasciata from a lost Med. Lat. ambactiata, ambactiare, to go on a mission. (See further, and .)

EMBER DAYS and EMBER WEEKS, the four seasons set apart by the Western Church for special prayer and fasting, and the ordination of clergy, known in the medieval Church as quatuor tempora, or jejunia quatuor temporum. The Ember weeks are the complete weeks next following Holy Cross day (September 14), St Lucy’s day (December 13), the first Sunday in Lent and Whitsun day. The Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays of these weeks are the Ember days distinctively, the following Sundays being the days of ordination. These dates are given in the following memorial distich with a frank indifference to quantity and metre— The word has been derived from the A.S. ymb-ren, a circuit or revolution (from ymb, around, and rennen, to run); or by process of agglutination and phonetic decay, exemplified by the Ger. quatember, Dutch quatertemper and Dan. kvatember, from the Lat. quatuor tempora. The occurrence of the Anglo-Saxon compounds ymbren-tid, ymbren-wucan, ymbren-fæstan, ymbren-dagas for Ember tide, weeks, fasts, days, favours the former derivation, which is also confirmed by the use of the word imbren in the acts of the council of Ænham, 1009 (“jejunia quatuor tempora quae imbren vocant”). It corresponds also with Pope Leo the Great’s definition, “jejunia ecclesiastica per totius anni circulum distributa.”

The observance of the Ember days is confined to the Western Church, and had its origin as an ecclesiastical ordinance in Rome. They were probably at first merely the fasts preparatory to the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. A fourth was subsequently added, for the sake of symmetry, to make them correspond with the four seasons, and they became known as the jejunium vernum, aestivum, autumnale and hiemale, so that, to quote Pope Leo’s words, “the law of abstinence might apply to every season of the year.” An earlier mention of these fasts, as four in number—the first known—is in the writings of Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, in the middle of the 4th century. He also connects them with the great Christian festivals (De haeres. 119). In Leo’s time, 440–461, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were already the days of special observance. From Rome the Ember days gradually spread through the whole of Western Christendom. Uniformity of practice, however, was of somewhat slow growth. Neither in Gaul nor Spain do they seem to have been generally recognized much before the 8th century. Their introduction into Britain appears to have been earlier, dating from Augustine, 597, acting under the authority of Gregory the Great. The general period of the four fasts being roughly fixed, the precise date appears to have varied considerably, and in some cases to have lost its connexion with the festivals altogether. The Ordo Romanus fixes the spring fast in the first week of March (then the first month); the summer fast in the second week of June; the autumnal fast in the third week of September; and the winter fast in the complete week next before Christmas eve. Other regulations prevailed in different countries, until the inconveniences arising from the want of uniformity led to the rule now observed being laid down under Pope Urban II. as the law of the church, in the councils of Piacenza and Clermont, 1095.

The present rule which fixes the ordination of clergy in the Ember weeks cannot be traced farther back than the time of Pope Gelasius, 492–496. In the early ages of the church ordinations took place at any season of the year whenever necessity required. Gelasius is stated by ritual writers to have been the first who limited them to these particular times, the special solemnity of the season being in all probability the cause of the selection. The rule once introduced commended itself to the mind of the church, and its observance spread. We find it laid down in the pontificate of Archbishop Ecgbert of York, 732–766, and referred to as a canonical rule in a capitulary of Charlemagne, and it was finally established as a law of the church in the pontificate of Gregory VII., c. 1085.

—Muratori, ''Dissert. de jejun. quat. temp.'', c. vii., anecdot. tom. ii. p. 262; Bingham, ''Antiq. of the Christ. Church'', bk. iv. ch. vi. § 6, bk. xxi. ch. ii. §§ 1-7; Binterin, Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. v. part 2, pp. 133 ff.; Augusti, ''Handbuch der christlich. Archäol.'' vol. i. p. 465, iii. p. 486.

 EMBEZZLEMENT (A.-Fr. embesilement, from beseler or besillier, to destroy), in English law, a peculiar form of theft, which is distinguished from the ordinary crime in two points:—(1) It is committed by a person who is in the position of clerk or servant to the owner of the property stolen; and (2) the property when stolen is in the possession of such clerk or servant. The definition of embezzlement as a special form of theft arose out of the difficulties caused by the legal doctrine that to constitute larceny the property must be taken out of the possession of the owner. Servants and others were thus able to steal with impunity goods entrusted to them by their masters. A statute of Henry VIII. (1529) was passed to meet this case; and it enacted that it should be felony in servants to convert to their own use caskets, jewels, money, goods or chattels delivered to them by their masters. “This act,” says Sir J. F. Stephen (General View of the Criminal Law of England), “assisted by certain subtleties according to which the possession of the servant was taken under particular circumstances to be the possession of the master, so that the servant by converting the goods to his own use took them out of his own possession qua servant (which was his master’s possession) and put them into his own possession qua thief (which was a felony), was considered sufficient for practical purposes for more than 200 years.” In 1799 a clerk who had converted to his own use a cheque paid across the counter to him by a customer of his master was held to be not guilty of felony; and in the same year an act was passed, which, meeting the difficulty in such cases, enacted that if any clerk or servant, or any person employed as clerk or servant, should, by virtue of such employment, receive or take into his possession any money, bonds, bills, &c., for or in the name or on account of his employers, and should fraudulently embezzle the same, every such offender should be deemed to have stolen the same. The same definition is substantially repeated in a Consolidation Act passed in 1827. Numberless difficulties of interpretation arose under these acts, e.g. as to the meaning of “clerk or servant,” as to the difference between theft and embezzlement, &c.

The law now in force, or the Larceny Act 1861, defines the offence thus (section 68):—“Whosoever, being a clerk or servant, or being employed for the purpose or in the capacity of a clerk or servant, shall fraudulently embezzle any chattel, money or valuable security which shall be delivered to or received or taken into possession by him for or in the name or on the account of his master or employer, or any part thereof, shall be deemed to have feloniously stolen the same from his master or employer, although such chattel, money or security was not received into the possession of such master or employer otherwise than by the actual possession of his clerk, servant or other person so employed, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be kept in penal servitude for any time not exceeding fourteen years, and not less than three years,” or imprisonment with or without hard labour for not more than two years. To constitute the offence thus described three things must concur:—(1) The offender must be a clerk or servant; (2) he must receive into his possession some chattel on behalf of his master; and (3) he must fraudulently embezzle the same. A clerk or servant has been defined to be a person bound either by an express contract of service or by conduct implying such a contract to obey the orders and submit to the control of his master in the transaction of the business which it is his duty as such clerk or servant to transact. (Stephen’s Digest of the Criminal Law, Art. 309.)

The Larceny Act 1901, amending sections 75 and 76 of the Larceny Act 1861, also describes similar offences on the part of