INTERDICT

An ecclesiastical censure, whereby the Church of Rome forbids the administration of the sacraments and the performance of Divine service to a kingdom, province, town, . Some people pretend this custom was introduced in the fourth or fifth century; but the opinion that it began in the ninth, is much more probable: there are some instances of it since that age, and particularly Alexander III., in 1170, superciliously put the kingdom of England under an interdict, forbidding the clergy to perform any part of Divine service unle baptism to infants, taking confe ions, and giving absolutions to dying penitents, which was the usual restraint of an interdict; but the succeeding popes, for reasons best known to themselves, seldom make use of it.— Brought on.