INTERDICT, in its technical sense as an ecclesiastical term, is a sentence by a competent ecclesiastical authority forbid ding all celebration of public worship, the administration of some sacraments (baptism, confirmation and penance are permitted) and ecclesiastical burial. An interdict is a measure which seeks to punish a population or a religious body (e.g., a chapter) for the fault of some only of its members, who cannot be reached sepa rately. It is a penalty directed against society rather than against individuals. In the Chronicle of Ademar of Limoges (ad ann. 994) it is stated that Bishop Alduin introduced there "a new plan for punishing the wickedness of his people; he ordered the churches and monasteries to cease from divine worship and the people to abstain from divine praise, and this he called excom munication" (see Gieseler, Kirchengesch. iii. 342, where also the text is given of a proposal to a similar effect made by Odolric, abbot of St. Martial, at the council of Limoges in io31). It was not until the i 1th century that the use of the interdict obtained a recognized place among the means of discipline at the disposal of the Roman hierarchy, which used it, without great success, to bring back the secular authorities to obedience. Important his torical instances of the use of the interdict occur in the cases of Scotland under Pope Alexander III. in 1181, of France under Innocent III. in 1200 and of England under the same pope in 1209.
See A. Boudinhon, art. "Interdict" in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.