DECOY, a contrivance for the capture or enticing of duck and other wild fowl within range of a gun, hence any trap or enticement into a place or situation of danger. Decoys are usually made on the following plan: long tunnels leading from the sea, channel or estuary into a pool or pond are covered with an arched net, which gradually narrows in width; the ducks are enticed into this by a tame trained bird, also known as a “decoy” or “decoy-duck.” In America the “decoy” is an artificial bird, placed in the water as if it were feeding, which attracts the wild fowl within range of the concealed sportsman. The word “decoy” has, etymologically, a complicated history. It appears in English first in the 17th century in these senses as “coy” and “coy-duck,” from the Dutch kooi, a word which is ultimately connected with Latin cavea, hollow place, “cage.”[1] The de-, with which the word begins, is either a corruption of “duck-coy,” the Dutch article de, or a corruption of the Dutch eende-kooi, eende, duck. The New English Dictionary points out that the word “decoy” is found in the particular sense of a sharper or swindler as a slang term slightly earlier than “coy” or “decoy” in the ordinary sense, and, as the name of a game of cards, as early as 1550, apparently with no connexion in meaning. It is suggested that “coy” may have been adapted to this word.
[1] Distinguish “coy,” affectedly shy or modest, from O. Fr. coi, Lat. quietus, quiet.
DECREE (from the past participle, decretus, of Lat. decernere), in earlier form Decreet, an authoritative decision having the force of law; the judgment of a court of justice. In Roman law, a decree (decretum) was the decision of the emperor, as the supreme judicial officer, settling a case which had been referred to him. In ecclesiastical law the term was given to a decision of an ecclesiastical council settling a doubtful point of doctrine or discipline (cf. also [Decretals]). In English law decree was more particularly the judgment of a court of equity, but since the Judicature Acts the expression “judgment” (q.v.) is employed in reference to the decisions of all the divisions of the supreme court. A “decree nisi” is the conditional order for a dissolution of marriage made by the divorce court, and it is made “absolute” after six months (which period may, however, be shortened) in the absence of sufficient cause shown to the contrary. (See [Divorce].) Decreet arbitral is a Scottish phrase for the award of an arbitrator.
DECRETALS (Epistolae decretales), the name (see [Decree] above), which is given in Canon Law to those letters of the pope which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law; they are generally given in answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the initiative of the popes. These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and form the greater part of the Corpus Juris. In this connexion they are dealt with in the article on Canon Law (q.v.).
The False Decretals. A special interest, however, attaches to the celebrated collection known by this name. This collection, indeed, comprises at least as many canons of councils as decretals, and the decretals contained in it are not all forgeries. It is an amplification and interpolation, by means of spurious decretals, of the canonical collection in use in the Church of Spain in the 8th century, all the documents in which are perfectly authentic. With these amplifications, the collection dates from the middle of the 9th century. We shall give a brief account of its contents, its history and its influence on canon law.
The author assumes the name of Isidore, evidently the archbishop of Seville, who was credited with a preponderating part in the compilation of the Hispana; he takes in addition the surname of Mercator, perhaps because he has made use of two passages of Marius Mercator. Hence the custom of alluding to the author of the collection under the name of the pseudo-Isidore.
The collection itself is divided into three parts. The first, which is entirely spurious, contains, after the preface and various introductory sections, seventy letters attributed to the popes of the first three centuries, up to the council of Nicaea, i.e. up to but not including St Silvester; all these letters are a fabrication of the pseudo-Isidore, except two spurious letters of Clement, which were already known. The second part is the collection of councils, classified according to their regions, as it figures in the Hispana; the few spurious pieces which are added, and notably the famous Donation of Constantine, were already in existence. In the third part the author continues the series of decretals which he had interrupted at the council of Nicaea. But as the collection of authentic decretals does not begin till Siricius (385), the pseudo-Isidore first forges thirty letters, which he attributes to the popes from Silvester to Damasus; after this he includes the authentic decretals, with the intermixture of thirty-five apocryphal ones, generally given under the name of those popes who were not represented in the authentic collection, but sometimes also under the names of the others, for example, Damasus, St Leo, Vigilius and St Gregory; with one or two exceptions he does not interpolate genuine decretals. The series stops at St Gregory the Great (d. 604), except for one letter of Gregory II. (715-731). The forged letters are not, for the most part, entirely composed of fresh material; the author draws his inspiration from the notices on each of the popes given in the Liber Pontificalis; he inserts whole passages from ecclesiastical writers; and he antedates the evidences of a discipline which actually existed; so it is by no means all invented.