Laity
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
In England, where clergymen of the established church are a distinct rank or class, in legal cognizance, the word laity has a definite legal meaning, as including all persons who are not of the clergy. And laic or layman signifies an individual who is not in orders; not a clergyman. In the United States, these words have no use as law terms; the employment of them is only conventional. Layman is probably here generally used to imply that a person is a member of or connected with a religious denomination, but not an ordained minister. Persons wholly unconnected with any religious body would not ordinarily be deemed embraced in the term the laity. The laity are divisible into three states; 1. Civil, which includes all the nation, except the clergy, the army, and the navy. It is subdivided into nobility, as dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons; commonalty, as knights of the garter, knightsbanneret, baronets, knights of the bath, knights-bachelors, esquires, gentlemen, yeomen, tradesmen, artificers, and laborers.
2.
Military, consisting of the militia of each county, raised from among the people, officered by the principal land-owners, and commanded by the lord lieutenant.
3. Mari-