The Catholic Church claims that the penalty of excommunication is
biblical and that both
Paul of Tarsus and
John the Apostle make reference to the practice of cutting people off from the community, in order to hasten their repentance. The
Catholic Encyclopedia states that from the
earliest days of Christianity, excommunication was the chief (if not the only) ecclesiastical penalty for laymen; for guilty clerics the first punishment was deposition from their office, i.e.
reduction to the ranks of the laity. The
Catholic Encyclopedia adds that during the first centuries of Christianity, excommunication was not regarded as a simple external measure, but also as one which touched the soul and the conscience. It was not merely the severing of the outward bond which holds individual to their place in the Church; it severed also the internal bond, and the sentence pronounced on earth was understood to be ratified in
heaven. Formal acts of public excommunication were sometimes accompanied by a ceremony wherein a bell was tolled (as for the dead), the Book of the Gospels was closed, and a candle snuffed out—hence the idiom "to condemn with
bell, book, and candle." '' (1875) by
Jean-Paul Laurens. Robert was able to get his excommunication reversed following the election of the next pope. Those under excommunication were to be shunned.
Pope Gregory VII was the first to mitigate the proscription against communicating with an excommunicated person. At a
council in Rome in 1079, he made exceptions for members of the immediate family, servants, and occasions of necessity or utility. In the mid-12th century,
Pope Eugene III held a
synod in order to deal with the large number of heretical groups. Mass excommunication was used as a convenient tool to squelch heretics who belonged to groups which professed beliefs radically different than those taught by the Catholic Church.
William the Conqueror separated ecclesiastical cases from the
Hundred courts, but allowed the bishops to seek assistance from the secular authorities. Excommunications were intended to be remedial and compel the offender to return to the fold. The practice in
Normandy provided that if an
obdurate excommunicate remained so for a year and a day, his goods were subject to confiscation at the duke's pleasure. Later,
bishops were authorized to submit a writ to have the individual imprisoned. On the other hand, the bishops held
temporalities which the king could seize if the bishop refused to absolve an imprisoned excommunicate. The authority of a bishop to excommunicate someone was restricted to those persons who resided in his see. This often gave rise to jurisdictional disputes on the part of abbeys which claimed to be exempt. In 1215, the
Fourth Council of the Lateran decreed that excommunication may be imposed only after warning in the presence of suitable witnesses and for manifest and reasonable cause; and that they are to be neither imposed nor lifted for payment. In practice, excommunications with subsequent writs appear to have been used to enforce clerical discipline and functioned something like a citation for "contempt of court". By the fourteenth century, bishops were resorting to excommunication against those who defaulted in making payment of the clerical subsidy demanded by the
king of England for his
wars against France. From the middle of the fifteenth century,
dueling over questions of honor increased so greatly, that in 1551 the
Council of Trent was obliged to enact the severest penalties against it. The malice of the duel lies in the fact that it makes right depend upon the fate of arms. Dueling was forbidden; and the prohibition extended to not only the principals, but their seconds, physicians expressly brought to attend upon the scene, and all spectators not accidentally present. The excommunication was incurred, not only when the parties actually fought, but as soon as they proposed or accepted a challenge. According to the council, those who took part in a duel were
ipso facto excommunicated, and if they were killed in the duel they were to be deprived of Christian burial. These ecclesiastical penalties were at a later date repeatedly renewed and even in parts made more severe.
Benedict XIV decreed that duelists should be denied burial by the Church even if they did not die on the dueling ground and had received absolution before death. It pronounced the severest ecclesiastical penalties against those princes who should permit dueling between Christians in their territories.
Political aspects When
King John of England refused to accept
Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, he seized the lands of the archbishopric and other papal possessions.
Pope Innocent III first sent a commission to negotiate with the king, and when that failed, place the kingdom under
interdict. This prohibited the clergy from conducting religious services, with the exception of baptisms for the young, and last rites for the dying. King John responded by taking more church lands and their revenues. Innocent threatened the king with excommunication and in 1209 proceeded to excommunicate the King.
Abuses The extension of the use of excommunication led to abuses. The penalty is designed to bring the sinner back to repentance. However, it could be abused, used as a political tool and even employed for the purposes of revenge—abuses of canon law. In 1304,
John Dalderby, Bishop of Lincoln, excommunicated all those persons of
Newport Pagnell who knew the whereabouts of Sir Gerald Salvayn's wayward falcon and failed to return it.
Major and minor excommunication Until the second half of the 19th century, excommunication was of two kinds, major and minor: In the 19th century, there are four more excommunications
latæ sententiæ which were declared after the publication of
Apostolicae Sedis moderationi:
Reforms of John Paul II The
1983 Code of Canon Law entered into force in 1983. The
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches entered into force in 1991. ==Excommunicable offenses==