inflicts them. These are some of the leading arguments which have been advanced in defence of the Declaration of Paris, and which no doubt actuated the authors of it.
A full account of the controversy will be found in the third volume of Sir Robert Phillimore's Commentaries on International Law, where the learned author supports and advocates the old traditions of the Court of Admiralty, and also in Hall's Rights and Duties of Neutrals (1874). The principles on which the Declaration of Paris is based are explained and defended in an article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 296.(H. R.)
DECLARATOR, in Scotch law, is a form of action by
which some right of property, or of servitude, or of status,
or some inferior right or interest, is sought to be judicially
declared (see Bell's Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland.)
DECREE, DECREET, the judgment of a court of
justice, and, in English law, more particularly the judgment of a court of equity. A decree nisi is the conditional
order for a dissolution of marriage made by the court for
divorce and matrimonial causes, which will be made
absolute after six months, in the absence of sufficient cause
shown to the contrary.
DECRETALS, in canon law, are the answers sent by the Pope to applications made to him as head of the church, chiefly by bishops, but also by synods, and even private individuals, for guidance in cases involving points of doctrine or discipline. In the early days of the church these replies came to be circulated throughout the various dioceses, and furnished precedents to be observed in analogous circumstances. From the 4th century onwards they formed the most prolific source of canon law. Decretals (decreta constituta decretalia, epistolæ decretales, or shortly decretalia, or decretales) ought, properly speaking, to be distinguished, on the one hand from constitutions (constitutiones pontificæ), or general laws enacted by the Pope sua sponte without reference to any particular case, and on the other hand from rescripts (rescripta), which apply only to special circumstances or individuals, and constitute no general precedent. But this nomenclature is not strictly observed.
For futher information see art. Canon Law, in which will also be found an account of the Pseudo-Isidorian or False Decretals.
DECURIO, an officer in the Roman cavalry, commanding a decuria, which was a body consisting of ten men.
There were certain provincial magistrates called decuriones
municipales, who had the same position and powers in free
and corporate towns as the senate had in Rome. As the
name implies, they consisted at first of ten, but in later
times the number was often as many as a hundred; their
duty was to watch over the interests of their fellow-citizens,
and to increase the revenues of the commonwealth. Their
court was called curia decurionum, and minor senatits; and
their decrees, called decreta decurionum, were marked with
D. D. at the top. They generally styled themselves
civitatum patres curiales, and honorati inunicipiorum senatores. They were elected with the same ceremonies as
the Roman senators, and they required to be at least twenty-five years of age, and to be possessed of a certain fixed
income. The election took place on the kalends of March.
DEE, JOHN (1527-1608), a mathematician and astrolo
ger, waa born in July 1527, in London, where his father
was a wealthy vintner. In 1542 he was sent to St John s
College, Cambridge. After five years close application to
mathematical studies, particularly astronomy, he went to
Holland, in order to visit several eminent Continental
mathematicians. Having remained abroad nearly a year,
he returned to Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of
Trinity College, then first erected by King Henry VIII.
In 1548 he took the degree of master of arts ; but in the
same year he found it necessary to leave England on
account of the suspicions entertained of his being a conjuror,
which were first excited by a piece of machinery, in the
Irene of Aristophanes, he exhibited to the university, re
presenting the scarabseus flying up to Jupiter, with a man
and a basket of victuals on its back. On leaving England
he went first to the university of Louvain, where he resided
about two years, and then to the college of Rheims, where
he read lectures on Euclid s Elements with great applause.
On his return to England in 1551 King Edward assigned
him a pension of 100 crowns, which he afterwards
exchanged for the rectory of Upton-upon-Severn. Soon
after the accession of Mary, he was accused of using en
chantments against the queen s life ; but after a tedious
confinement, he obtained his liberty in 1555, by an order
of council.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne, Dee was asked by
Lord Dudley to name a propitious day for the coronation.
On this occasion he was introduced to the queen, who took
lessons in the mystical interpretation of his writings, and
made him great promises, which, however, were never ful
filled. In 1564 he again visited the Continent, in order to
present a book which he had dedicated to the Emperor
Maximilian. He returned to England in the same year ;
but in 1571 we find him in Lorraine, whither two physicians
were sent by the queen to his relief in a dangerous illness.
Having once more returned to his native country, he settled
at Mortlake, in Surrey, where he continued his studies with
unremitting ardour, and made a collection of curious books
and manuscripts, and a variety of instruments, most of
which were destroyed by the mob during his absence, on
account of his supposed familiarity with the devil. In
1578 Dee was sent abroad to consult with German
physicians and astrologers in regard to the illness of the
queen. On his return to England, he was employed in
investigating the title of the Crown to the countries
recently discovered by British subjects, and in furnishing
geographical descriptions. Two large rolls containing the
desired information, which he presented to the queen, are
still preserved in the Cottonian Library. A learned treatise
on the reformation of the calendar, written by him about
the same time, is still preserved in the Ashmolean Library
at Oxford.
From this period the philosophical researches of Dee
were concerned entirely with the pseudo-science of
necromancy. In 1581 he became acquainted with Edward
Kelly, an apothecary who professed to have discovered the
philosopher s stone, and by whose assistance he performed
various incantations, and maintained a frequent imaginary
intercourse with spirits. Shortly after, Kelly and Dee
were introduced to a Polish nobleman, Albert Lasld,
palatine of Siradia (Sieradz), devoted to the same pursuits,
who persuaded the two friends to accompany him to his
native country. They embarked for Holland in September
1583, and arrived at Laski s place of residence in
February following. They lived for some years in Poland
and Bohemia in alternate wealth and poverty, according
to the credulity or scepticism of those before whom they
exhibited. They professed to raise spirits by incantation.
Kelly dictated their utterances to Dee, who wrote them
down and interpreted them.
Dee, having at length quarrelled with his companion,
quitted Bohemia and returned to England, where he was
made chancellor of St Paul s Cathedral in 1594, and warden
of Manchester College in 1595. He afterwards returned
to his house at Mortlake, where he died in 1608, at the
age of eighty-one.
His principal works are Propcedeumata Aphoristica, Lond. 1558;
Monas Hicroglyphica, Antwerp, 1564 ; Epistola ad Fredericnrn
Commandinum, Fesaro, 1570 ; Preface Afathcmatical to the English
Euclid, 1570 ; Divers Annotations and Inventions added after the
tenth look of English Euclid, 1570 ; Epistola praflxa Ephemc.-
ridibus Joannis Feldi, a 1557; Parallaticcc Coirunentationis Praxcos-
