Abjuration is the solemn repudiation, abandonment, or renunciation by or upon oath, often the renunciation of citizenship or some other right or privilege. The term comes from the Latinabjurare, "to forswear".
Abjuration of the realm was a type of abjuration in ancient English law. The person taking the oath swore to leave the country directly and promptly, never to return to the kingdom unless by permission of the sovereign. This was often taken by fugitives who had taken sanctuary:[1]
I swear on the Holy Book that I will leave the realm of England and never return without the express permission of my Lord the King or his heirs. I will hasten by the direct road to the port allotted to me and not leave the King's highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and will seek diligently for a passage across the sea as soon as I arrive, delaying only one tide if possible. If I cannot secure such passage, I will walk into the sea up to my knees every day as a token of my desire to cross. And if I fail in all this, then peril shall be my lot.
English Commonwealth
Near the start of the English Civil War, on 18 August 1643 Parliament passed "An Ordinance for Explanation of a former Ordinance for Sequestration of Delinquents Estates with some Enlargements." The enlargements included an oath which became known as the "Oath of Abjuration":
I ..; Do abjure and renounce the Pope's Supremacy and Authority over the Catholic Church in General, and over my self in Particular; And I do believe that there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper, or in the Elements of Bread and Wine after Consecration thereof, by any Person whatsoever; And I do also believe, that there is not any Purgatory, Or that the consecrated Host, Crucifixes, or Images, ought to be worshipped, or that any worship is due unto any of them; And I also believe that Salvation cannot be Merited by Works, and all Doctrines in affirmation of the said Points; I do abjure and renounce, without any Equivocation, Mental Reservation, or secret Evasion whatsoever, taking the words by me spoken, according to the common and usual meaning of them. So help me God.[2]
In 1656–7, it was reissued in what was for Catholics an even more objectionable form. Everyone was to be "adjudged a Papist" who refused this oath, and the consequent penalties began with the confiscation of two-thirds of the recusant's goods, and went on to deprive him of almost every civic right.[3]
The Catholic Encyclopaedia makes the point that the oath and the penalties were so severe that it stopped the efforts of the Gallicanizing party among the English Catholics, who had been ready to offer forms of submission similar to the old oath of Allegiance, which was condemned anew about this time by Pope Innocent X.[3][4]
Scotland
Edinburgh May 8th 1685 Our Soveraign Lord and the Estates of Parliament, do here by Declare that the giving or taking of the National Covenant as explained in the Year 1638 or of the League and Covenant, so commonly called, or writing in defence thereof or owning them as Lawful or Obligatory on themselves or others shall infer the Crime and pains of Treason.
During The Killing Time of the 1680s an Abjuration Oath could be put to suspects where they were given the option to abjure or renounce their allegiances. The terms of the oath were deliberately designed to offend the consciences of the PresbyterianCovenanters. Those who would not swear "whether they have arms, or not" could be "immediately killed" by field trial "before two witnesses" on a charge of high treason.[6]John Brown was included among those executed in this judicial process by John Graham (Bluidy Clavers) on 1 May 1685.[7] The wives and children of such men could also be put out of their houses if they had spoken to the suspect or refused the oath themselves.
Great Britain and Ireland
In England (and after 1707 Great Britain) the Oath of Abjuration denied the royal title of James II's heirs (i.e. the direct Catholic descendant of the House of Stuart exiled after the Glorious Revolution in 1688). In England, an Oath of Abjuration was taken by Members of Parliament, clergy, and laymen, pledging to support the current British monarch and repudiated the right of the Stuarts and other claimants to the throne. This oath was imposed under William III, George I and George III. It was superseded by the oath of allegiance. In Ireland, the oath was imposed of state officeholders, teachers, lawyers, and on the clergy of the established church in from 1703, the following year it was on all Irish voters and from 1709 it could be demanded of any adult male by a magistrate.
The Bilino Polje abjuration, also known as "Confessio Christianorum bosniensis", was an act of alleged heresy abjuration by clergy of the Bosnian Church in presence of the Bosnian ruler, Ban Kulin, and Giovanni da Casamari. It affirmed the primacy of the pope and related to errors of practice, stemming from ignorance, rather than heretical doctrines. It was signed by seven Bosnian priors, on 8 April 1203 at Bilino Polje field, near today town of Zenica, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same document was brought to Buda, in 30 April by Giovanni da Casamari, Ban Kulin and two abbots, where it was examined by Emeric, King of Hungary, and the high clergy.
↑ C.H. Firth, R.S. Rait (editors (1911)). Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660, "August 1643: An Ordinance for Explanation of a former Ordinance for Sequestration of Delinquents Estates with some Enlargements", pp. 254-260. Date accessed: 16 March 2010
In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to enforce the State-decreed religious monopoly of the Church of England and, following the 1688 revolution, of Presbyterianism in Scotland, against the continued existence of illegal and underground communities of Catholics, nonjuring Anglicans, and Protestant nonconformists. The Penal laws also imposed various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon recusants from mandatory attendance at weekly Sunday services of the Established Church. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th-century due to the successful activism of Daniel O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
The words Popery and Papism are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians to label their Roman Catholic opponents, who differed from them in accepting the authority of the Pope over the Christian Church. The words were popularised during the English Reformation (1532–1559), when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and divisions emerged between those who rejected papal authority and those who continued to follow Rome. The words are recognised as pejorative; they have been in widespread use in Protestant writings until the mid-nineteenth century, including use in some laws that remain in force in the United Kingdom.
The Oath of Supremacy required any person taking public or church office in the Kingdom of England, or in its subordinate Kingdom of Ireland, to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church. Failure to do so was to be treated as treasonable. The Oath of Supremacy was originally imposed by King Henry VIII of England through the Act of Supremacy 1534, but repealed by his elder daughter, Queen Mary I of England, and reinstated under Henry's other daughter and Mary's half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England, under the Act of Supremacy 1558. The Oath was later extended to include Members of Parliament (MPs) and people studying at universities. In 1537, the Irish Supremacy Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland, establishing Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of Ireland. As in England, a commensurate Oath of Supremacy was required for admission to offices.
The Bosnian Church was a schismatic Christian church in medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina that was independent from and considered heretical by both the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches.
Kulin was the Ban of Bosnia from 1180 to 1204, first as a vassal of the Byzantine Empire and then of the Kingdom of Hungary, although his state was de facto independent. He was one of Bosnia's most prominent and notable historic rulers and had a great effect on the development of early Bosnian history. One of his most noteworthy diplomatic achievements is widely considered to have been the signing of the Charter of Ban Kulin, which encouraged trade and established peaceful relations between Dubrovnik and his realm of Bosnia. His son, Stephen Kulinić succeeded him as Bosnian Ban. Kulin founded the House of Kulinić.
The Act of Supremacy 1558, sometimes referred to as the Act of Supremacy 1559, is an act of the Parliament of England, which replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534, and passed under the auspices of Elizabeth I. The 1534 act was issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, but which had been repealed by Mary I. Along with the Act of Uniformity 1558, the act made up what is generally referred to as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.
The Oath of Allegiance is a promise to be loyal to the British monarch, and their heirs and successors, sworn by certain public servants in the United Kingdom, and also by newly naturalised subjects in citizenship ceremonies. The current standard wording of the oath of allegiance is set out in the Promissory Oaths Act 1868.
The Killing Time was a period of conflict in Scottish history between the Presbyterian Covenanter movement, based largely in the southwest of the country, and the government forces of Kings Charles II and James VII. The period, roughly from 1679 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was subsequently called The Killing Time by Robert Wodrow in his The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, published in 1721–22. It is an important episode in the martyrology of the Church of Scotland.
Stephen or StjepanBan of Bosnia, was the third Bosnian ban who ruled the banate of Bosnia recorded by name in written sources. He was in power sometime between 1204 and 1232. His rule was not popular, due to his Catholicism and allegiance to the Kingdom of Hungary. He was the last ruler of the House of Kulinić.
The Protestation of 1641 was an attempt to avert the English Civil War. Parliament passed a bill on 3 May 1641 requiring those over the age of 18 to sign the Protestation, an oath of allegiance to King Charles I and the Church of England, as a way to reduce the tensions across the realm. Signing them was a necessity in order to hold public office. Those that were not willing to sign it were also listed under it as refusing to pledge its oath.
The English Protestant Reformation was imposed by the English Crown, and submission to its essential points was exacted by the State with post-Reformation oaths. With some solemnity, by oath, test, or formal declaration, English churchmen and others were required to assent to the religious changes, starting in the sixteenth century and continuing for more than 250 years.
The papal deposing power was the most powerful tool of the political authority claimed by and on behalf of the Roman Pontiff, in medieval and early modern thought, amounting to the assertion of the Pope's power to declare a Christian monarch heretical and powerless to rule.
The Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom to remove the restrictions and prohibitions imposed on British and Irish Catholics during the English Reformation. These restrictions had been introduced to enforce the separation of the English church from the Catholic Church which began in 1529 under Henry VIII.
Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom dates back to the martyrdom of Saint Alban in Roman times. Attacks on the Church from a Protestant angle mostly began with the English and Irish Reformations which were launched by King Henry VIII and the Scottish Reformation which was led by John Knox. Within England, the Act of Supremacy 1534 declared the English crown to be "the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England" in place of the Pope. Any act of allegiance to the latter was considered treasonous because the papacy claimed both spiritual and political power over its followers. Ireland was brought under direct English control starting in 1536 during the Tudor conquest of Ireland. The Scottish Reformation in 1560 abolished Catholic ecclesiastical structures and rendered Catholic practice illegal in Scotland. Today, anti-Catholicism remains present in the United Kingdom, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Banate of Bosnia, or Bosnian Banate, was a medieval state located in what is today Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although Hungarian kings viewed Bosnia as part of Hungarian Crown Lands, the Banate of Bosnia was a de facto independent state for most of its existence. It was founded in the mid-12th century and existed until 1377 with interruptions under the Šubić family between 1299 and 1324. In 1377, it was elevated to a kingdom. The greater part of its history was marked by a religiopolitical controversy revolving around the native Christian Bosnian Church condemned as heretical by the dominant Chalcedonian Christian churches, namely the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, with the Catholic Church being particularly antagonistic and persecuting its members through the Hungarians.
The Oath of Allegiance of 1606 was an oath requiring English Catholics to swear allegiance to James I over the Pope. It was adopted by Parliament the year after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The oath was proclaimed law on 22 June 1606, it was also called the Oath of Obedience. Whatever effect it had on the loyalty of his subjects, it caused an international controversy lasting a decade and more.
Bilino Polje, is historic areal and polje, located near town of Zenica, in Bosnia and Hezegovina. Today, Bilino Polje represents an urban area of the town, and it is one of its main local communal self-governing units or Bosnian: Mjesna zajednica.
Radogost or Radigost was a Catholic clergyman who served as Bishop of Bosnia in the late 12th century. As his vernacular name suggests, he was a local cleric and was chosen by Bosnians themselves. Radogost was consecrated by Bernard, Archbishop of Ragusa, in 1189. On that occasion, Radogost brought presents for Pope Clement III from Ban Kulin, ruler of Bosnia. The historian John Van Antwerp Fine, Jr. dismisses the chronicler Mavro Orbini's date of 1171 because there is no evidence that Kulin was already Ban of Bosnia at that time.
Rastudije, also Aristodius, was a bishop of the Bosnian Church, or a djed, as the bishops as a leader of the Bosnian Christians has been originally titled. He was declared a heretic by both the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
The Bilino Polje abjuration, also known as “Confessio Christianorum bosniensis”, was an act of alleged heresy abjuration by Bosnian clergy in presence of Ban Kulin and Giovanni da Casamari. It was signed by seven priors of the Bosnian Church, on 8 April 1203 at Bilino Polje field, near today town of Zenica, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same document was brought to Buda, in 30 April by Giovanni da Casamari, Ban Kulin and two abbots, where it was examined by Emeric, King of Hungary, and the high clergy
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