INTERDICT, an ecclesiastical decree which forbids the performance of certain acts of pub lic worship. When an interdict was laid upon a town, district or country, all the churches were closed, the bells were silent, the sacra ments, except infant baptism and extreme unction (and sometimes even these), were with held, the rites of burial were not performed and all the public ceremonies of religion were suspended. Interdicts may be general, as ap plied to a country or city; particular, as applied to a parish or diocese; personal, as applied to a person, or some class of persons. The bishops seem to have anciently exercised the right of publishing interdicts; for in 870 Hincniar, bishop of Laon in France, issued one against a parish in his diocese. One of the earliest cen sures of this sort on record was imposed upon the city of Rouen in the 6th century en account of the murder of the Archbishop Pretextatus by order of Queen Fredegonda. In 997 Gregory V laid the kingdom of France under an inter dict because King Robert had married his cousin, and the king was abandoned by most of his court. The same penalty was inflicted upon the
kingdom of England under Stephen (1147) by Eugenius III, under John (1207) by Innocent III, under Henry VIII (1535) with little effect by Paul III and under Elizabeth' (1587) by Sixtus V. Adrian IV laid Rome under an in terdict for the purpose of compelling the Romans to drive out Arnold of Brescia. Greg ory IX made use of the. same instrument of compulsion in his quarrel with the Emperor Frederic II. During the Middle Ages the inter dict was a powerful engine of attack for the popes in their contests with sovereigns, as the popular dread of its effects was so great that kings were often forced by rebellions to submit to almost any conditions in order that it might be taken off. From the time of the Reformation general and local interdicts have become rare. When Paul V laid Venice under an interdict in 1606, the churches were not closed, and only a minority of the bishops submitted to it.