BANNS OF MARRIAGE, the public legal notice of an im pending marriage. The church in earliest days was forewarned of marriages (Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, De Pudicitia, c.4). The first canonical enactment on the subject in the English Church is that contained in the I 1 th canon of the synod of Westminster in Lon don (A.D. I Zoo), which orders that "no marriage shall be con tracted without banns thrice published in the church, unless by special authority of the bishop." It is, however, believed that the practice was in France as old as the 9th century, and certainly Odo, bishop of Paris, ordered it in 1176. By the Lateran Council of 1215 the publication of banns was made compulsory on all Christendom. In early times it was usual for the priest to betroth the pair formally in the name of the Blessed Trinity ; and some times the banns were published at vespers, sometimes during mass. In Great Britain, under the canon law and by statute, banns are the normal preliminary to marriage ; but a marriage may also be solemnized without the publication of banns, by obtaining a licence or a registrar's certificate. In the United States there is no statutory requirement; and the practice of banns (though general in the colonial period) is practically confined to the Roman Catholics. (See BETROTHAL and MARRIAGE.)