Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/887

Rh O R D R E 821 &quot;major&quot; or&quot; holy&quot; orders (ordines majores, sacra?) ; the others are &quot; minor &quot; (ordines minores). Within the order of the priesthood itself there are various degrees of power and dignity : (1) that of priest, pure and simple ; (2) that of bishop ; (3) that of archbishop ; (4) that of patriarch (see BISHOP, tfec.). For a brief statement of the points of difference as to ecclesiastical orders between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Greek Churches, see vol. xi. p. 159. The Church of England expressly recognizes the diaconate and the priesthood, but no others, as distinct orders; bishops and archbishops are &quot;ordained and conse crated.&quot; In the 25th Article the name of sacrament is deliberately withheld from orders. Compare the articles CLERGY, EPISCOPACY, INDEPENDENTS, MONACHISM, PRES- BYTERIANISM. ORDERICUS VITALIS, the author of a History of con siderable value in relation to England and Normandy in the llth and 12th centuries, was born in the year 1075 at Atcham near Shrewsbury. His father, Odeler of Orleans, was one of the followers of Roger Montgomery, a powerful baron who had accompanied William the Conqueror from Normandy, and in whom that monarch reposed especial confidence. Roger had at one time cruelly despoiled the abbey of St Evroul en Ouche, and in his latter years sought to make reparation by bestowing large gifts of benefices and lands on the society. In this manner Odeler also became interested in St Evroul. He was a married priest, and Orderic, the eldest of his three sons, who had at first been sent by him to receive his education at Shrewsbury, was now at the age of ten years dedicated to the monastic life and sent to St Evroul. It was a Benedictine foundation, and at this time perhaps the most celebrated of all the schools in Normandy (Gallia Christiana, xi. 814-6). On the 21st of September 1085 the youthful Orderic received the tonsure and was admitted one of the oblates of the monastery. It was the feast of St Maurice, the commander of the legendary Theban legion, and Orderic s name, which seems to have been displeasing to the Norman ear, was now changed into that of Vitalis, one of Maurice s lieutenants. In March 1093 he was ordained a deacon, but was not admitted to priestly orders until 1107. We have it on his own testi mony that he was treated with kindness in his new home, and his uneventful life was chiefly passed in a routine of religious observances and of such studies as the Benedict ine rule was then interpreted to admit ; but from this number, he tells us, pagan history was excluded. The discipline of the society at St Evroul was well maintained, and not a few of its members were worthy representatives of that spirit of devotion to learning by which their order was long so honourably distinguished. Orderic s superiors appear to have soon discerned his aptitude for literary labours, and at the suggestion of two of their number (Roger and Guerin) he first commenced to write the history of the foundation. Among his fellow-monks were men who had taken part in the expeditions of the Normans in Italy and Sicily, in the Crusades, and in the wars waged by William the Conqueror and his sons, and to such associations, as well as to the advantages which a resident at St Evroul would enjoy owing to its being a great centre of intercommunication, we must attribute much of the remarkably varied and minute information with which the Historia abounds. Travel, again, appears to have had for Orderic a special charm ; and, notwith standing the difficulties interposed by his monastic vow, he twice revisited his native country, Croyland and Worcester having been his principal places of sojourn. We also find him at Cambrai, and in 1132 at Cluny at a great gathering of its celebrated order. In the year 1141, being, as he tells us, worn out with age and infirmities, he was fain to bring his historical labours to a close, and it is inferred that his death occurred soon after. Although compelled to quit his native country at so early an age, Orderic seems always to have felt himself an exile. In the title of his work he is careful to describe himself as &quot; Angligena,&quot; and throughout the narrative he gives special prominence to whatever relates to England. The Historia Ecdcsiastica is divided into three parts. Of these the first, in two books, gives an outline of the history of the church from the commencement of the Christian era to the death of Pope Leo IV. in 855, a list of the popes from that date to Innocent II. being appended. The second part the first in order of com position (see supra) is the Historia Uticensis, or history of the monastery of St Evroul from its foundation by Abbot Ebrulf in the year 560 to the narrator s own time ; it contains many interesting sketches of the abbots and other members or benefactors of the society. The third part the only genuinely historical portion of the work is in seven books, and is devoted to a general account of events in Western Christendom from Carolingian times down to the year 1141. With the year 1084 (after a considerable break in the narrative) the work begins to assume its peculiar value as a storehouse of information with respect to the history and social condition of England and Normandy in the latter part of the llth and first half of the 12th century. In striking contrast to the ordinary chroniclers of his age, Orderic collected and recorded with scrupulous care numerous facts and incidents which others would have deemed too insignificant for notice. But there is no work relating to the same period, says Guizot, which throws so much light on the political, civil, and religious aspects of society in the West, and the conditions of feudal, monastic, and ordinary life. These merits, however, are in no slight degree obscured by Orderic s singularly involved style and turgid diction, while his absolute disregard of method renders his narrative at times difficult to comprehend and follow. In addition to the Historia there exists in the library at Rouen a manuscript edition of the Norman history of William of Jumieges, which M. Leopold Delisle feels no hesitation in assigning to Orderic (see his Lettrc a J/. Jules Lair, 1873). The best edition of the Historia is that edited by M. Auguste Le Prevost, in five volumes (1838-55). In the concluding; volume (pp. i.-cvi.) there is an admirable account and criticism of Orderic by M. Leopold Delisle. The edition in Migne s Patrologia, vol. clxxxviii., though a later publication, is a reprint of the less accurate text of Duchesne. A French translation by M. Guizot, in 4 vols., 8vo, was published at Caen in 1821-27; and there is an English version (with Guizot s preface) by Thomas Forester, 4 vols., 1853-56, in Bonn s Antiijitariaii Library. ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD. See KNIGHTHOOD. ORDINARY is the legal name for a bishop or other person with original ecclesiastical jurisdiction when exercis ing the functions of his office. He is so called &quot; quia habet ordinariam jurisdictionem in jure proprio et non per depu- tationem &quot; (Coke upon Littleton, 96 a). The word is also used in a non -ecclesiastical sense. By the Divorce Act, 1857, 20 and 21 Viet. c. 85 sq., the judge appointed by that Act had the title of Judge Ordinary. This title has now, however, become obsolete owing to the incorporation of the Divorce Court with the High Court of Justice by the Judicature Act, 1873. In Scotland the judge before whom a cause depends in the Outer House is called the Lord Ordinary in that cause, and the judge who officiates in the Bill Chamber is called the Lord Ordinary on the Bills. In the United States the ordinary possesses, in the States where such an officer exists, powers vested in him by the constitution and acts of the legislature. In South Carolina he is a judicial officer. OREBRO, one of the most important cities in Sweden, the chief town of a province of its own name, lies on both _ sides of the Svarta about a mile above its entrance into Lake Hjelmar, and 160 miles by rail west of Stockholm. In great part rebuilt since the fire of 1854, it has quite a modern appearance. Besides the principal church, dating from the close of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century, but modernized in the 1 9th, the more conspicuous buildings are the castle, on an island in the middle of the stream, the new Gothic town-house, the theatre, and the hospital. In front of the town-house stands a statue by Qvarnstrom, erected in 1865, representing Engelbrecht, the nobleman who was elected administrator of the kingdom in 1435; and