The king ordered the observance of this dec laration, but it was condemned by Alexander VIII. Later, King Louis XIV wrote the Pope that he had ordered that the decree should not be observed. Nevertheless, the Re galia was observed up to 1789 throughout all France, and the government continued taking the revenues of all vacant bishoprics and ap pointing to benefices during the interregnum. In an edict of 1695 a code of ecclesiastical law as observed in France was enacted, and in it was the appeal "as from an abuse,' that is, from the ecclesiastical to the civil authorities. The national convention in 1790 passed a civil con stitution for the clergy by which dioceses and parishes were suppressed and the Church made subject to the state. In 1801 Napoleon, as First Consul, and Pope Pius VII made a con cordat in which the Catholic Church was ac knowledged as the state Church, and by which new limits were assigned to dioceses and par ishes, and by which especially the right of nominating bishops was given to the ruler of France. To the nominees the Pope would grant institution. Various other regulations were made, and the French government took upon itself the support of the bishops and par ish priests in place of restoring the immense Church properties which had been confiscated. During the year 1904 a great agitation occurred for the suppression of this concordat because of controversies over some bishops held delin quent and suspended by the Pope. The con cordat was suppressed in 1906. With the abro gation of the concordat the state no longer supports the clergy, nor can it nominate to bishoprics. There is complete separation of Church and State in France since the passage of the law abrogating the concordat of 1801. During the 19th century the liturgical worship of the Church in France was made conformable to that of Rome, and other matters of discipline were brought under general canon law.
Undoubtedly canon law has exerted a wide and lasting influence on the nations of Europe and America. It made them Christian states and directly or indirectly modified their consti tutions. State legislative assemblies based their proceedings on the methods of Church councils. The law of nations is simply the application to nations of the principles of Christian law taught to individuals. The ancient Romans as well as barbarous tribes considered all foreign ers enemies; the Church taught the brother hood of all men. The Pope, as the common father of all Christians, acted as arbitrator in the disputes between nations, and so noteworthy became the Roman Rota, to which the Pope referred international disputes, that at times much of its work was deciding important ques tions for rulers of nations. The system of
Church administration served as a model for that of states, and the clergy, especially in the earlier and Middle Ages, being the educated class and following canon law, naturally intro duced many of its rules into everyday life. The elevated condition of woman is due to the canon law prescriptions regarding marriage, which the Church enforced on all nations converted to Christianity. Questions relating to widows and orphans were within the jurisdiction of canon law and Church courts. The incorporation of Church bodies, from which other corporations took their origin, had its foundation in the law of Justinian and was imported into England with the civil and canon law. As in the Roman law, the charter of the sovereign is always ex pressed, or at least implied. From England the idea of corporation and corporation sole came into American law. The writ of habeas corpus had its origin in the Roman law ginterdictum de libero homine exhibendo.' Inheritance by will and the rule for the descent of real prop erty came from Roman law, while trial by Jury, with challenges of the jurymen, was determined in the Roman Lex Servilia and Lex Cornelia. While in England "Christianity is part of the law of the land,' in the United States this "is true only in a qualified
(33 Barb. 548), and owing only to "the fact that it is a Christian country and that its constitution and laws are made by a Christian people' (23 Ohio St. 211). Nevertheless "the decision of ecclesiastical courts or officers having, by the rules or laws of the bodies to which they belong, jurisdiction of such questions, or the right to decide them, will be held conclusive in all courts of civil admin istration, and no question involved in such de cisions will be revised or reviewed in the civil courts, except those pertaining to the jurisdic tion of such courts or officers to determine such questions according to the laws or usage of the bodies which they
(Quoted with ap proval in 98 Penn. 213). "Civil courts will not review the action of ecclesiastical tribunals ex cept where rights of pro erty are involved' (62 J Iowa 567; 23 Ill. 456). Justice Strong, in