Brawling - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition brawling

Definition :

Brawling [fr. brailler, Fr., to brawl], the offence of quarrelling, or creating a disturbance in the church or churchyard, punished by 5 & 6 Edw. 4, c. 4 [partly repealed by 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, s. 1, and wholly repealed as to laymen by the (English) Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. 32)], by excommunication and suspension, and also, by the unrepealed but disused 1 Mary, st. 2, c. 3, by imprisonment until the party repent.

By the Act of 1860, persons guilty of riotous, violent, or indecent behaviour in churches and chapels of the Church of England or Ireland, or in any chapel of any religious denomination, or in England in any place of religious worship duly certified under the (English) Places of Worship Registration Act, 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c. 81), or in church-yards or burial grounds, on conviction before two justices are made liable to a penalty of not more than 5l., or imprisonment for any term not exceeding two months, See Matthews v. King, (1934) 1 KB 505.

To object to a deacon presenting himself for ordination as priest, that he has taken part in services in churches, in breach of prescribed ritual, is not to allege a crime or impediment to ordination, within the ordination service, and therefore the objector may be convicted of an offence against the Act of 1860 [Kensit v. St. Paul's Dean and Chapter, (1905) 2 KB 249].