INTERDICT(interdictum sc. officiorum divinorum), in its full technical sense as an ecclesiastical term, means a sentence by a competent ecclesiastical authority (popes, councils, bishops with chapters) forbidding all administration of the sacraments, celebration of public worship, and use of the burial service. An interdict may be either local, personal, or mixed, according as it applies to a locality, to a particular person or class of persons, or to a particular locality as long as it shall be the residence of a particular person or class of persons. Local interdicts again may be either general or particular; in the latter instance they refer only to particular buildings set apart for religious services. In the writings of Augustine (Epp., 250) there is an indication that something of the nature of an interdict had been attempted in his diocese by a certain bishop Λuxilius; the attempt is strongly condemned by Augustine, who disapproved of the plan, as making the innocent suffer along with the guilty. In 869 Hincmar of Laon laid his entire diocese under an interdict, a proceeding for which he was severely censured by Hincmar of Rheims. In the Chronicle of Ademar of Limoges (ad ann. 994) it is stated that Bishop Alduin introduced there “a new plan for punishing the wickedness of his people; he ordered the churches and monasteries to cease from divine worship and the people to abstain from divine praise, and this he called excommunication” (see Gieseler, Kirchengesch. iii. 342, where also the text is given of a proposal to a similar effect made by Odolric, abbot of St Martial, at the council of Limoges in 1031). It was not until the 11th century that the use of the interdict obtained a recognized place among the means of discipline at the disposal of the Roman ...

INTERDICTION, in Scotch law, is a process of restraint applied to prodigals and others who, “from weakness, facility, or profusion, are liable to imposition.” It is either voluntary or judicial. Voluntary interdiction is effected by the act of the prodigal himself, who executes a bond oblig ing himself to do no deed which may affect his estate without the assent of certain persons called the “interdictors.” This may be removed by the court of session, by the joint act of the interdictors and the interdicted, and by the number of interdictors being reduced below the number constituting a quorum. Judicial interdiction is imposed by order of the court itself, either moved by an interested party or acting in the exercise of its nol>ile officium, and can only be removed by a similar order. After interdiction duly completed according to law, all deeds done by the interdicted person, so far as they affect or purport to affect his heritable estate, are reducible, unless they have been done with the consent of the interdictors. Interdiction has no effect, however, on movable property.