Powheid (Lazarus), the old sexton in Douglas.—Sir W. Scott, Castle Dangerous (time, Henry I.).
Poyning’s Law, a statute to establish the English jurisdiction in Ireland. The parliament that passed it was summoned in the reign of Henry VII. by Sir Edward Poynings, governor of Ireland (1495).
Poyser (Mrs.), shrewd, capable and ready-tongued wife of a British yeoman, and aunt of Hetty Sorrel.—George Eliot, Adam Bede.
P. P., “Clerk of the Parish,” the feigned signature of Dr. Arbuthnot, subscribed to a volume of Memoirs in ridicule of Burnet’s History of My Own Times.
Those who were placed around the dinner-table had those feelings of awe with which P. P., Clerk of the Parish, was oppressed when he first uplifted the psalm in presence of ... the wise Mr. Justice Freeman, the good Lady Jones, and the great Sir Thomas Truby.—Sir W. Scott.
Pragmatic Sanction. The word pragmaticus means “relating to State affairs,” and the word sanctio means “an ordinance” or “decree.” The four most famous statutes so called are:
1. The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis (1268), which forbade the court of Rome to levy taxes or collect subscriptions in France without the express permission of the king. It also gave French subjects the right of appealing, in certain cases, from the ecclesiastical to the civil courts of the realm.
2. The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, passed by Charles VII. of France, in 1438. By this ordinance the power of the people in France was limited and defined. The authority of the National Council was declared superior to that of the pope. The French clergy were forbidden to appeal to Rome on any point affecting the secular condition of the nation; and the Roman pontiff was wholly forbidden to appropriate to himself any vacant living, or to appoint to any bishopric or parish church in France.
3. The Pragmatic Sanction of Kaiser Karl VI. of Germany (in 1713), which settled the empire on his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of François de Loraine. Maria Theresa ascended the throne in 1740, and a European war was the result.
4. The Pragmatic Sanction of Charles III. of Spain (1767). This was to suppress the Jesuits of Spain.