Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/148

132 foundling hopitals, though comprized in the Theodoian code, were rejected in Jutinian’s collection.

rights, of life and member, can only be determined by the death of the peron; which is either a civil or natural death. The civil death commences if any man be banihed the realm by the proces of the common law, or enters into religion; that is, goes into a monatery, and becomes there a monk profeed: in which caes he is abolutely dead in law, and his next heir hall have his etate. For, uch banihed man is entirely cut off from ociety; and uch a monk, upon his profeion, renounces olemnly all ecular concerns: and beides, as the popih clergy claimed an exemption from the duties of civil life and the commands of the temporal magitrate, the genius of the Englih law would not uffer thoe perons to enjoy the benefits of ociety, who ecluded themelves from it, and refued to ubmit to it’s regulations. A monk was therefore accounted , and when he entered into religion might, like other dying men, make his tetament and executors; or, if he made none, the ordinary might grant adminitration to his next of kin, as if he were actually dead intetate. And uch executors and adminitrators had the ame power, and might bring the ame actions for debts due to the religious, and were liable to the ame actions for thoe due from him, as if he were naturally deceaed. Nay, o far has this principle been carried, that when one was bound in a bond to an abbot and his ucceors, and afterwards made his executors and profeed himelf a monk of the ame abbey, and in proces of time was himelf made abbot thereof; here the law gave him, in the capacity of abbot, an action of debt againt his own executors to recover the money due. In hort, a monk or religious was o effectually dead in law, that a leae made even to a third peron, during the life (generally) of one who afterwards became a monk, determined by uch his entry into religion: for which