Jubilee

(joobe-le.) [From L. jubilans, a shouting.] (Eccl. Hist.) Among the anc. Jews, a festival celebrated at the expiration of every 50 years, in commemoration of the deliverance of the race from Egyptian bondage. At this feast, which was wholly a season of rejoicing, all debts were to be cancelled; all bond-servants were granted their liberty; all slaves or captives were set free; and all estates which had been sold reverted to the original proprietors or their descendants. The observance of the J. was abandoned at the æra of the Babylonian Captivity. Among the moderns, Pope Boniface VIII. instituted ayear ofJ., 1300, in which all should receive plenary indulgence who came to pay their devotions at the tombs of the Apostles, at Rome; such festivals were then intended to be of centenary occurrence. Clement V, however, reduced the interval to 50 years, whence it derived its name of jubilee, from its correspondence in point of time to the Jewish celebration. In 1389, Urban V. diminished the term to 33 years; but it was restored by Nicholas V., to 50, as before; finally, in 1470, Paul II. fixed it at 25. It begins on Christmas Day, by the Pope opening with imposing ceremonies a door in the church of St. Peter's which is walled up at every other time. The last celebration occurred in 1850. [s. 508]