ECCLES, a municipal borough in the Eccles parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 4 m. W. of Manchester, of which it forms practically a suburb. Pop. (1901) 34,369. It is served by the London & North-Western railway and by the Birkenhead railway (North-Western and Great Western joint). The Manchester Ship Canal passes through. The church of St Mary is believed to date from the 12th century, but has been enlarged and wholly restored in modern times. There are several handsome modern churches and chapels, a town hall, and numerous cotton mills, while silk-throwing and the manufacture of fustians and ginghams are also among the industries, and there are also large engine works. A peculiar form of cake is made here, taking name from the town, and has a wide reputation. Eccles was incorporated in 1892, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. The borough maintains the tramway service, &c., but water and gas are supplied from Manchester and Salford respectively. Area, 2057 acres.
Before the Reformation the monks of Whalley Abbey had a grange here at what is still called Monks’ Hall; and in 1864 many thousands of silver pennies of Henry III. and John of England and William I. of Scotland were discovered near the spot. Robert Ainsworth, the author of the Latin and English dictionary so long familiar to English students, was born at Eccles in 1660; and it was at the vicarage that William Huskisson expired on the 15th of September 1830 from injuries received at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester railway. From early times “wakes” were held at Eccles, and bull-baiting, bear-baiting and cock-fighting were carried on. Under Elizabeth these festivals, which had become notoriously disorderly, were abolished, but were revived under James I., and maintained until late in the 19th century on public ground. The cockpit remained on the site of the present town hall. A celebration on private property still recalls these wakes.
ECCLESFIELD, a township in the Hallamshire parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 5 m. N. of Sheffield, on the Great Central and Midland railways. The church of St Mary is Perpendicular, with a central tower, and contains excellent woodwork. It formerly bore, and must have deserved, the familiar title of the “Minster of the Moors.” Ecclesfield was the seat of a Benedictine priory, which passed to the Carthusians in the 14th century. Cutlery and tools are largely manufactured, and there are coal-mines, paper mills and iron and fire-clay works. After the inclusion within the county borough of Sheffield of part of the civil parish of Ecclesfield in 1901, the population was 18,324.
ECCLESHALL, a market town in the north-western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England; 7 m. N.W. from Stafford, and 4 W. of Norton Bridge station on the London & North-Western main line. Pop. (1901) 3799. The church of the Holy Trinity, one of the most noteworthy in Staffordshire, is principally Early English, and has fine stained glass. Several bishops of Lichfield are buried here, as Eccleshall Castle was the episcopal residence from the 13th century until 1867. Of this the ancient remains include a picturesque tower and bridge. To the west on the borders of Shropshire is Blore Heath, the scene of a defeat of the Lancastrians by the Yorkists in 1459.
ECCLESIA (Gr. ἐκκλησία, from ἐκ, out, and καλεῖν, to call), in ancient Athens, the general assembly of all the freemen of the state. In the primitive unorganized state the king was theoretically absolute, though his great nobles meeting in the Council (see [Boulē]) were no doubt able to influence him considerably. There is, however, no doubt that in the earliest times the free people, i.e. the fighting force of the state, were called together to ratify the decisions of the king, and that they were gradually able to enforce their wishes against those of the nobles. In Athens, as in Rome, where the Plebs succeeded in their demand for the codification of the laws (the Twelve Tables), it was no doubt owing to the growing power of the people meeting in the Agora that Draco was entrusted with the task of publishing a code of law and so putting an end to the arbitrary judicature of the aristocratic party. But there is no evidence that the Ecclesia had more than a de facto existence before Solon’s reforms.
The precise powers which Solon gave the people are not known. It is clear that the executive power in the state (see [Archon]) was still vested in the Eupatrid class. It is obvious, therefore, that a moderate reformer would endeavour to give to the people some control over the magistracy. Now in speaking of the Thetes (the lowest of the four Solonian classes; see [Solon]), Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens says that Solon gave them merely “a share in the Ecclesia and the Law Courts,” and in the Politics we find that he gave them the right of electing the magistrates and receiving their accounts at the end of the official year. Thus it seems that the “mixed” character of Solon’s constitution consisted in the fact that though the officials of the state were still necessarily Eupatrid, the Ecclesia elected those of the Eupatrids whom they could trust, and further had the right of criticizing their official actions. Secondly, all our accounts agree that Solon admitted the Thetes to the Ecclesia, thus recognizing them as citizens. Under Cleisthenes the Ecclesia remained the sovereign power, but the Council seems to have become to some extent a separate administrative body. The relation of Boulē and Ecclesia in the Cleisthenic democracy was of the greatest importance. The Ecclesia alone, a heterogeneous body of untrained citizens, could not have passed, nor even have drawn up intelligible measures; all the preliminary drafting was done by the small committee of the Boulē which was in session at any particular time. In the 5th century the functions of the Ecclesia and the popular courts of justice were vastly increased by the exigencies of empire. At the beginning of the 4th century B.C. the system of payment was introduced (see below). In 308 B.C. Demetrius of Phalerum curtailed the power of the Ecclesia by the institution of the Nomophylaces (Guardians of the Law), who prevented the Ecclesia from voting on an illegal or injurious motion. Under Roman rule the powers of the Ecclesia and the popular courts were much diminished, and after 48 B.C. (the franchise being frequently sold to any casual alien) the Demos (people) was of no importance. They still assembled to pass psephisms in the theatre and to elect strategi, and, under Hadrian, had some small judicial duties, but as a governing body the Ecclesia died when Athens became a civitas libera under Roman protection.
Constitution and Functions.—Throughout the period of Athenian greatness the Ecclesia was the sovereign power, not only in practice but also in theory. The assembly met in early times near the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemus (i.e. south of the Acropolis), but, in the 5th and 4th centuries, the regular place of meeting was the Pnyx. From the 5th century it met sometimes in the theatre, which in the 3rd century was the regular place. From Demosthenes we learn that in his time special meetings were held at Peiraeus, and, in the last centuries B.C., meetings were held at Athens and Peiraeus alternately. Certain meetings, however, for voting ostracism (q.v.) and on questions affecting individual status took place in the Agora. Meetings were (1) ordinary, (2) extraordinary, and (3) convened by special messengers (κύριαι, σύγκλητοι and κατάκλητοι), these last being called when it was desirable that the country people should attend. At ordinary meetings the attendance was practically confined to Athenian residents. According to Aristotle there were four regular meetings in each prytany (see [Boulē]); probably only the first of these was called κυρία. It is certain, however, that the four meetings did not fall on regular days, owing to the occurrence of feast days on which no meeting could take place. In the κυρία ἐκκλησία of each month took place the Epicheirotonia (monthly inquiry) of the state officials, and if it proved unsatisfactory a trial before the Heliaea was arranged; the council reported on the general security and the corn-supply, and read out lists of vacant inheritances and unmarried heiresses. In the sixth prytany of each year at the κυρία ἐκκλησία the question whether ostracism should take place that year was put to the vote. For all meetings it was usual that the Prytaneis should give five days’ notice in the form of a programma (agenda). On occasions of sudden importance the herald of the council summoned the people with a trumpet, and sometimes special messengers were despatched to “bring in” the country people (κατακαλεῖν).