Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/360

Rh 342 R E G R E G Greek manuscripts. He returned from Italy in 1471 and settled at Nuremberg, at that time one of the chief centres of German industry and literary life. Here he became associated with Bernhard Walther (1430-1504), a wealthy patrician and an enthusiastic astronomer. An observatory was erected, and the finest instruments the skilful artisans of Nuremberg could make were regularly used by the two friends for observing the heavens. Clocks driven by weights were here used for the first time for scientific purposes, the influence of refraction in altering the apparent places of the stars better appreciated, Venus substituted for the moon as a connecting link between observations of the sun and of stars, and other improve- ments introduced in practical astronomy. Regiomontanus also published a number of calendars and ephemerides, which induced Pope Sixtus IV. to summon him to Rome to assist in reforming the confused calendar. He died very shortly after his arrival in Rome, July 6, 1476. la 1464 Regiomontanus finished a work on trigonometry, which science had made considerable progress among the Arabians but had to be reinvented in Europe. The work was, however, never printed till 1533 (De Triangulis libri quinque), probably because the author, after introducing the use of tangents, had wished to re-write his book, but was prevented from doing so by his early death. In his Tabulee Directionum (Nuremberg, 1475) there is a table of tangents (tabula fecunda). His instruments and obser- vations at Nuremberg are described in a posthumous work, Scripta darissimi mathematics Joh. Regiomontani (Nuremberg, 1544). The ephemerides and calendars were published partly in German (Magister Johann von Kunsperk's teutscher Kalender), partly in Latin (Ephemerides Astronomies^, Nuremberg, 1473 or 1475, for the years 1475-1506 ; Kalcndarium Novum, Nuremberg 1474, re- issued many times and translated into German and Italian). The German geographer Martin Behem made these calendars known among the Spanish and Portuguese navigators, and they became of the greatest importance in guiding Columbus, Diaz, Vasco da Garna, and many others over the trackless ocean. The life of Regiomontanus was written by Gassendi (The Hague, 1654) ; among modern works see Regiomontanus, ein geistiger Vorlaufer des Copernicus, by Zeigler (Dresden, 1874), Die Vorgcschichte der Gregorianischen Kalenderreform, by Kaltenbrunner (Vienna, 1876), and Rudolph Wolfs Geschichte der Astronomie (Munich, 1877). REGISTRATION. In all systems of law the registra- tion of certain legal facts has been regarded as necessary, chiefly for the purpose of ensuring publicity and simplify- ing evidence. Registers, when made in performance of a public duty, are as a general rule admissible in evidence merely on the production from the proper custody of the registers themselves or (in most cases) of examined or cer- tified copies. The extent to which registration is carried varies very much in different countries. For obvious reasons judicial decisions are registered in all countries alike. In other matters no general rule can be laid down, except perhaps that on the whole registration is not as fully enforced in the United Kingdom and the United States as in Continental states. The most important uses of registration occur in the case of judicial proceedings, land, ships, bills of sale, births, marriages, and deaths, companies, friendly and other societies, newspapers, copy- rights, patents, designs, trade marks, and professions and occupations. The registration of qualified voters in par- liamentary elections in the United Kingdom is treated in a separate section below. Judicial Proceedings. In England registrars are attached to the privy council, the Supreme Court, and the county courts. In the -Queen's Bench Division (except in its bankruptcy jurisdiction) the duty of registrars is performed by the masters. Besides exercising limited judicial authority, registrars are responsible for the drawing Tip and recording of various stages of the proceedings from the petition, writ, or plaint to the final decision. 1 With them are tiled affidavits, depositions, pleadings, &c., when such filing is 1 The antiquity of registration of this kind is proved by the age of the Registrum Lrevium, or register of writs, called by Lord Coke " a most ancient book of the Common Law " (Coke upon Littleton, 159a). necessary. The difference between filing and registration is that the documents filed are filed without alteration, while only an epitome is usually registered. The Judicature Act, 1873, created district registries in the chief towns, the district registrar having an authority similar to that of a registrar of the Supreme Court. In the Admiralty Division cases of account are usually referred to the registrar and merchants. The registration in the central office of the supreme court of judgments affecting lands, writs of execution, recognizances, and lites pendentes in England, and the registration in Scotland of abbreviates of adjudications and of inhibitions, are governed by special legislation. All these are among the incum- brances for which search is made on investigating a title. Their satisfaction and discharge is also registered. The Conveyancing Act, 1882, provides for a certificate by the proper officer of the existence or non-existence of entries of judgments, deeds, and other matters or documents made in the central office. The certificate is conclusive in favour of a purchaser. Decisions of criminal courts are said to be recorded, not registered, except in the case of courts of summary jurisdiction, in which, by the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, a register of convictions is kept. Probates of wills and letters of administration, which are really judicial decisions, are registered in the principal or district registries of the Probate Division. In Scotland registration' is used for giving a summary remedy on obligations without action by means of the fiction of a judicial decision having been given establishing the obligation. A clause of registration is introduced in deeds importing obliga- tion. The various registers available for this kind of registraton will be found in Watson, Law Diet., s.v. " Registration." Land. Registration in its relation to land is either of title or of assurances. A register of title bears on the face of it the name and description of a plot of land with more or less particularity, the name of the owner, and the charges and easements to which the land is subject. No one can go behind the entry except in case of fraud. A register of assurances or deeds contains only a copy of documents affecting title, or a memorial qr other epitome of such documents, without any authentication of the title as such. Thus a register of title would show that A was owner subject to a mortgage to B, and the purchaser would purchase such a title. A register of assurances would show in the same circumstances that a conveyance had been made to A, and that subsequently A had mortgaged to B, but the purchaser would have to make sure for himself that A and B had the right to convey and mortgage. It will be obvious that the object of registration of deeds is quite different from that of registration of title. The former aims at facilitating the search for incumbrances, the latter at abolishing search by making it unnecessary. The requisites of a registry of title are thus stated by Sir H. Maine (Early Law and Custom, 353) : "The land registries which have the highest commendation from judicial writers are those of certain small Teutonic communities, e.g., the state of Iltsse- Darmstadt and the Swiss canton of Zurich. I can hers give but a brief descrip- tion of the mechanism. The land of the community is divided into a number of circumscriptions of no great area. For each of these a central office is established, with a staff of functionaries who are to some extent experts, and at eacli office a register is opened in which separate portions or groups of pages are appropriated to separate masses of land . . . When the register has once been opened, the legal history of every parcel of every area is thenceforward recorded in it, and every transfer or mortgage must be registered in it, under pain of invalidity. Whether a person wishing to sell or mortgage has the right to do so, it is the business of the staff of experts to ascertain. It is absolutely essential to the system that the register should be easily accessible, and the formalities of registration simple and cheap." It will appear on referring to REAL ESTATE that before the Conquest publicity of transfer was secured by a system of record in the shire-book or church-book. After the Conquest this pub- licity, continued for a time in the Domesday survey, from various causes gradually gave way to that secrecy of transfer which is now one of the peculiar features of English law. Publicity was to a certain extent secured by the court rolls in the case of copyhold lands, by the local statutes mentioned below, and by the Act enforcing the registration of rent charges and annuities charged on land (18 Viet. c. 15). There was a tendency in the same direction in those statutes which made the enrolment of deeds necessary for their validity. Such are the Statute of Enrolments, 27 Henry VIII. c. 16, the Mortmain Act, 9 Geo. II. c. 36, the Fines and Recoveries Act, 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 74, under which an estate tail may be barred by an enrolled deed, ard Acts affecting Queen Anne's Bounty, 1 Geo. I., st. 2, c. 10, and the Charity Commissioners, 18 & 19 Viet. c. 124. No general registry has as yet been established in England, though many attempts have been made in that direction. The question was debated as far back as the Long Parliament. General Ludlow mentions the characteristic incident "that upon the debate of ' registering deeds in each county for want of which, within a certain time fixed after the sale, such sales should be void, and, being so regarded, that lands should not be subject to any incum- brance,' this word incumbrance was so managed that it took up three months' time before it could be ascertained by the com- mittee" (Memoirs, i. 436). In the reign of Charles II. a registry of deeds was established for the Bedford Level by 15 Car. II. c. 17. In the reign of Anne registries of deeds and wills were established III