foundling hoſpitals, though comprized in the Theodoſian code[1], were rejected in Juſtinian’s collection.
These rights, of life and member, can only be determined by the death of the perſon; which is either a civil or natural death. The civil death commences if any man be baniſhed the realm[2] by the proceſs of the common law, or enters into religion; that is, goes into a monaſtery, and becomes there a monk profeſſed: in which caſes he is abſolutely dead in law, and his next heir ſhall have his eſtate. For, ſuch baniſhed man is entirely cut off from ſociety; and ſuch a monk, upon his profeſſion, renounces ſolemnly all ſecular concerns: and beſides, as the popiſh clergy claimed an exemption from the duties of civil life and the commands of the temporal magiſtrate, the genius of the Engliſh law would not ſuffer thoſe perſons to enjoy the benefits of ſociety, who ſecluded themſelves from it, and refuſed to ſubmit to it’s regulations[3]. A monk was therefore accounted civiliter mortuus, and when he entered into religion might, like other dying men, make his teſtament and executors; or, if he made none, the ordinary might grant adminiſtration to his next of kin, as if he were actually dead inteſtate. And ſuch executors and adminiſtrators had the ſame power, and might bring the ſame actions for debts due to the religious, and were liable to the ſame actions for thoſe due from him, as if he were naturally deceaſed[4]. Nay, ſo far has this principle been carried, that when one was bound in a bond to an abbot and his ſucceſſors, and afterwards made his executors and profeſſed himſelf a monk of the ſame abbey, and in proceſs of time was himſelf made abbot thereof; here the law gave him, in the capacity of abbot, an action of debt againſt his own executors to recover the money due[5]. In ſhort, a monk or religious was ſo effectually dead in law, that a leaſe made even to a third perſon, during the life (generally) of one who afterwards became a monk, determined by ſuch his entry into religion: for
