Henry Hallam

-ana

It has been said that the table-talk of Selden is worth all the ana of the Continent.

Age

Fleury . . . apologizes for these five ages.

Aid

An unconstitutional mode of obtaining aid.

Amissibility

Notions of popular rights and the amissibility of sovereign power for misconduct were alternately broached by the two great religious parties of Europe.

Ancillary

The Convocation of York seems to have been always considered as inferior, and even ancillary, to the greater province.

Assail

The papal authority . . . assailed.

Assonance

The assonance is peculiar to the Spaniard.

Below

Who thinks no fact below his regard.

Blank

From this time there ensues a long blank in the history of French legislation.

Cabalistic

The Heptarchus is a cabalistic exposition of the first chapter of Genesis.

Capitulary

Several of Charlemagne's capitularies.

Capricious

A capricious partiality to the Romish practices.

Ceremonial

Ceremonial observances and outward show.

Change

Apprehensions of a change of dynasty.

Chicanery

Irritated by perpetual chicanery.

Circular

A proclamation of Henry III., . . . doubtless circular throughout England.

Coin

It is alleged that it [a subsidy] exceeded all the current coin of the realm.

Commencement

The time of Henry VII. . . . nearly coincides with the commencement of what is termed “modern history.”

Commentary

This letter . . . was published by him with a severe commentary.

Commoner

All below them [the peers] even their children, were commoners, and in the eye of the law equal to each other.

Community

Burdens upon the poorer classes of the community.

Compel

Wolsey . . . compelled the people to pay up the whole subsidy at once.

Compensation

The parliament which dissolved the monastic foundations . . . vouchsafed not a word toward securing the slightest compensation to the dispossessed owners.

Composition

Compositions for not taking the order of knighthood.

Compromise

An abhorrence of concession and compromise is a never failing characteristic of religious factions.

Concession

By mutual concession the business was adjusted.

Conciliate

The rapacity of his father's administration had excited such universal discontent, that it was found expedient to conciliate the nation.

Confession

Auricular confession . . . or the private and special confession of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution.

Confiscation

The confiscations following a subdued rebellion.

Conformity

The king [James I.] soon afterward put forth a proclamation requiring all ecclesiastical and civil officers to do their duty by enforcing conformity.

Conjuration

Pretended conjurations and prophecies of that event.

Conservation

A step necessary for the conservation of Protestantism.

Consolidation

The consolidation of the great European monarchies.

Constitutionally

The English were constitutionally humane.

Construction

Any person . . . might, by the sort of construction that would be put on this act, become liable to the penalties of treason.

Contest

The late battle had, in effect, been a contest between one usurper and another.

Continental

No former king had involved himself so frequently in the labyrinth of continental alliances.

Contingency

The remarkable position of the queen rendering her death a most important contingency.

Convergent

The vast dome of its cathedral . . . directing its convergent curves to heaven.

Conviction

The greater certainty of conviction and the greater certainty of punishment.

Corruption

It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of monasteries, . . . to exite popular indignation against them.

Criminal

The officers and servants of the crown, violating the personal liberty, or other right of the subject . . . were in some cases liable to criminal process.

Cultivation

Italy . . . was but imperfectly reduced to cultivation before the irruption of the barbarians.

Cursory

Events far too important to be treated in a cursory manner.

Dark

The tenth century used to be reckoned by mediæval historians as the darkest part of this intellectual night.

Decorum

Negligent of the duties and decorums of his station.

Defeat

The escheators . . . defeated the right heir of his succession.

Degree

In the 11th century an opinion began to gain ground in Italy, that third cousins might marry, being in the seventh degree according to the civil law.

Deliberative

The court of jurisdiction is to be distinguished from the deliberative body, the advisers of the crown.

Denial

The commissioners, . . . to obtain from the king's subjects as much as they would willingly give, . . . had not to complain of many peremptory denials.

Dependent

A host of dependents on the court, suborned to play their part as witnesses.

Design

The leaders of that assembly who withstood the designs of a besotted woman.

Destruction

Destruction of venerable establishment.

Detention

The archduke Philip . . . found himself in a sort of honorable detention at Henry's court.

Determination

So bloodthirsty a determination to obtain convictions.

Device

Their recent device of demanding benevolences.

Dexterity

He had conducted his own defense with singular boldness and dexterity.

Direct

A direct and avowed interference with elections.

Discontent

The rapacity of his father's administration had excited such universal discontent.

Dissent

The bill passed . . . without a dissenting voice.

The dissent of no small number [of peers] is frequently recorded.

Drawback

The avarice of Henry VII . . . . must be deemed a drawback from the wisdom ascribed to him.

Duty

Forgetting his duty toward God, his sovereign lord, and his country.

To employ him on the hardest and most imperative duty.

Embowel

The barbarous practice of emboweling.

Epithet

A prince [Henry III.] to whom the epithet “worthless” seems best applicable.

Fine

Men fined for the king's good will; or that he would remit his anger; women fined for leave to marry.

Furtive

A hasty and furtive ceremony.

Gymnasium

More like ordinary schools of gymnasia than universities.

Hydrostatic

The first discovery made in hydrostatics since the time of Archimedes is due to Stevinus.

Implication

Whatever things, therefore, it was asserted that the king might do, it was a necessary implication that there were other things which he could not do.

Keep

The lower chambers of those gloomy keeps.

masculine

That lady, after her husband's death, held the reins with a masculine energy.

Mislay

The . . . charter, indeed, was unfortunately mislaid: and the prayer of their petition was to obtain one of like import in its stead.

Mutton

Muttons, beeves, and porkers are good old words for the living quadrupeds.

Nadir

The seventh century is the nadir of the human mind in Europe.

Non obstante

In this very reign [Henry III.] the practice of dispensing with statutes by a non obstante was introduced.

Normal

Deviations from the normal type.

Probe

The growing disposition to probe the legality of all acts, of the crown.

Romance

Upon these three columns -- chivalry, gallantry, and religion -- repose the fictions of the Middle Ages, especially those known as romances. These, such as we now know them, and such as display the characteristics above mentioned, were originally metrical, and chiefly written by nations of the north of France.

Seneschal

Philip Augustus, by a famous ordinance in 1190, first established royal courts of justice, held by the officers called baitiffs, or seneschals, who acted as the king's lieutenants in his demains.

Serf

In England, at least from the reign of Henry II, one only, and that the inferior species [of villeins], existed . . . But by the customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if injured by him.

Staple

Wool, the great staple commodity of England.

Suburb

[London] could hardly have contained less than thirty or forty thousand souls within its walls; and the suburbs were very populous.

Summons

Special summonses by the king.

Tantamount

A usage nearly tantamount to constitutional right.

Virgule

In the MSS. of Chaucer, the line is always broken by a caesura in the middle, which is pointed by a virgule.