Ban

a term akin to banner, meaning to publish or proclaim. Instead of obtaining a license from the clerk of the court, it was formerly the custom, both in Great Britain and the United States, for those intending to be married to have their bans proclaimed in church a few weeks before the wedding. Any having objections to the marriage were called upon to "forbid the bans," or ever afterward hold their peace. The custom still prevails in the Catholic church. In history the term has, however, a somewhat different significance, a ban being equivalent to a sentence of outlawry. One who had been "banned," or placed under the ban of the empire, might be killed like any wild beast. Chambers gives the following formula employed on such occasions:

We declare thy wife a widow and thy children orphans; we restore all thy feudal tenures to the lord of the manor: thy private property we give to thy children: and we devote thy body and flesh to the beasts of the forest and the fowls of the air. In all ways, and in every place where others find peace and safety, thou shalt find none and we banish thee into the four roads of the world--in the devil's name.