As guardian of the rights of the Church, he hurled an excommunication against the usurpers.

The city of Beneventum refused to open its gates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, at the Emperor's request, pronounced against it a sentence of excommunication.

At last, in consequence of a renewed demand on the part of the Pope that Ignatius and Photius should be sent to Rome for judgment, the latter prelate, whose ability and eloquence had obtained great influence for him, summoned a council at Constantinople in the year 867, to decree the counter-excommunication of the Western Patriarch.

They then laid the bull of excommunication on the high altar and left the church, shaking, as they did so, the dust from off their feet, and exclaiming in the deepest grief, "God sees it; He will judge."

"And it was under threat of excommunication, which made resistance a duty from the side of the government," Giustinian Giustiniani asserted uncompromisingly.

Haughty as was the attitude of Venice in the face of the threatened excommunication, the occasion was one of peril to which she was not blind, and the danger was greatest among the peoplethe popolowho were more under the influence of the priests, and who still included in their beliefs many superstitions which were not likely to deter the disciplined body of nobles from acquiescence in the decisions of their chiefs.

There will be no services, no marriage for our people, no burial, no consolations of our holy religion, no sacramentsif this excommunication should come upon us.

"One of the fathers tells us that an excommunication is null when it would usurp over citizens the right of their prince.

Every detail of this world-renowned quarrel was conducted on the part of Venice with an irreproachable dignity and diplomacy that raised it to the height of a negotiation of State, and it formed no part of the policy of the Republic to tolerate any disbelief in her own loyalty; the Venetians should stand before the world as faithful sons of the Church, bearing unmerited sentence of excommunication.

The Arians were forbidden to assemble together in their churches, and by a sort of civil excommunication they were branded with infamy by the magistrates, and rendered incapable of civil offices of trust and emolument.

He summoned a consistory of fourteen eminent Dominican theologians, to inquire into his conduct and opinions, and issued a brief forbidding him to preach, under penalty of excommunication.

Leo's privilege is the one that so long underwent the singular obloquy of being a bull of excommunication against all who objected to the poem!

But the majority allowed themselves to be persuaded; the motion to negotiate with the parliament was rejected, and the penalties of treason were denounced by the assembly, the sentence of excommunication by the bishops, against all who should conclude any private treaty with the enemy.

Alessandrothe younger boytwelve years old, was the son of Lorenzo de' Medici, created Duke of Urbino in 1536, when the Pope annexed that principality to the pontifical estates, upon the excommunication of the rightful sovereign.

Massacres and persecutions of the Protestants have begun to take place in the South of France, and the priests are at work again threatening with excommunication and hell the purchasers and inheritors of emigrant estates and church lands.

So many robberies were committed in this way, that the magistrates of the town and the ecclesiastical authorities forbad the inhabitants from visiting the Egyptians' camp, or from having any intercourse with them, under penalty of excommunication and of a fine of fifty livres.

And excommunication was threatened if any more married men (uxorati) were received in the chapel.

And that all archbishops and bishops shall pronounce the sentence of great excommunication against all those that by word, deed, or counsel do contrary to the foresaid Charters, or that in any point break or undo them.

It did not expressly depose the king; it merely announced that measures would be taken more serious even than excommunication.

But on the 7th of June, 1304, instead of absolving them, he launched a fresh bull of excommunication against "certain wicked men who had dared to commit a hateful crime against a person of good memory, Pope Boniface."

Whosoever shall transgress and violate the present law, be subjected to excommunication; and whosoever, on the contrary, shall faithfully keep it, be preserved forever amongst those who dwell in the house of the Lord.

Thomas de Marle was put under the ban of the kingdom, and visited with excommunication "by a general assembly of the Church of the Gauls," says Guibert of Nogent, "assembled at Beauvais; "and this sentence was read every Sunday after mass in all the metropolitan and parochial churches.

On the same day the Bishop of Senlis and the Abbot of St. Denis had arrived at Tournay, and had superintended the reading out in the market-place of a sentence of excommunication against the Ghentese.

Then came the messenger with the bishop's excommunication, and thisbut not the marriage ceremonywas read to them.

And the King looked mildly on them; and as he long had had the intention to humiliate the proud Bishop of Lindkjöping, the moment was not unfavourable to them; the King listened to the relation of their lives and sufferings, and gave them his word, that the excommunication should be annulled.