Bulls, etc., from Rome Act 1571
Act of Parliament
Parliament of England
Long titleAn Acte agaynste the bringing in and putting in Execution of Bulls and other Instruments from the Sea of Rome.
Citation13 Eliz. 1. c. 2
Dates
Royal assent29 May 1571
Other legislation
Repealed byStatute Law (Repeals) Act 1969
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

The Bulls, etc., from Rome Act 1571 (13 Eliz. 1. c. 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England during the English Reformation, with the long-title An Act against the bringing in and putting in execution of bulls writings or instruments and other superstitious things from the See of Rome.

The act punished with high treason those who published papal bulls and Roman Catholic priests and their converts.[1] This Act was a response to Pope Pius V's Regnans in Excelsis.

Breaching the act ceased to be a crime in 1846, but remained unlawful until the act was repealed.[2] The remainder of the Act was repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969.[3]

In 1911, Pope Pius X excommunicated Arnold Mathew from the Catholic Church. The Times reported on this excommunication and included an English language translation of the Latin language document which described Mathew, among other things, as a "pseudo-bishop".[4][5] Mathew's attorney argued, in the 1913 trial Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd., that publication of the excommunication by The Times in English was high treason under this law. The trial was, according to a 1932 article in The Tablet, the last time this principle was invoked and the judge, Charles Darling, 1st Baron Darling, "held that it was not unlawful to publish a Papal Bull in a newspaper simply for the information of the public."[6][7]

Notes

  1. ^ Medley, Dudley J. (1925). A student's manual of English constitutional history (6th ed.). New York: Macmillan. p. 638. hdl:2027/uc1.$b22458. OCLC 612680148. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  2. ^ Craies, William F. (1911). "Treason" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 223–228.
  3. ^ Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969, c. 52, Schedule, Part II.
  4. ^ Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: "The excommunication of Englishmen". The Times. No. 39520. London. 28 February 1911. p. 6. ISSN 0140-0460.
  5. ^ Pope Pius X (4 March 1911). "Motu Proprio". The Tablet. London. p. 25. ISSN 0039-8837. Archived from the original on 22 August 2013. Retrieved 22 August 2013. English translation of Pope Pius X (11 February 1911). "Sacerdotes Arnoldus Harris Mathew, Herbertus Ignatius Beale et Arthurus Guilelmus Howarth nominatim excommunicantur" (PDF). Acta Apostolicae Sedis (motu proprio type apostolic letter) (in Latin). Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis (published 15 February 1911). 3 (2): 53–54. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 May 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
  6. ^ Cowper, Francis H. (7 May 1932). "Catholic authority and English law". The Tablet. London. p. 6. ISSN 0039-8837. Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  7. ^ Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd., 29 T.L.R. 471 (KB 1913).

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