INTERDICT (interdictum se. ogiciorum divinorum), in its full technical sense as an ecclesiastical term, means a sentence by a competent ecclesiastical authority (popes, councils, bishops with chapters) forbidding all administration of the sacraments, celebration of public worship, and use of the burial service. An interdict may be either local, personal, or mixed, according as it applies to a locality, to a particular person or class of persons, or to a particular locality as long as it shall be the residence of a particular person or class of persons. Local interdicts again may be either general or particular ; in the latter instance they refer only to particular buildings set apart for religious services. In the writings of Augustine (Epp., 250) there is an indication that something of the nature of an interdict had been attempted in his dioceSe by a certain bishop Auxilius ; the attempt is strongly condemned by Augustine, who disapproved of the plan, as making the innocent suffer along with the guilty. In 869 Hinemar of Laon laid his entire diocese under an interdict, a proceeding for which he was severely censured by Hincmar of Rheims. In the Chronicle of Ademar of Limoges (ad ann. 994) it is stated that Bishop Alduin introduced there "a new plan for punishing the wickedness of his people ; he ordered the churches and monasteries to cease from divine worship and the people to abstain from divine praise, and this he called excommunication " (see Gieseler, Kirchengesch. iii. 342, where also the text is given of a proposal to a similar effect made by Odolric, abbot of St Martial, at the council of Limoges in 1031). It was not until the 11th century that the use of the interdict obtained a recognized place among the means of discipline at the disposal of the Roman hierarchy. Important historical instances of the use of the interdict occur, in the eases of Scotland under Pope Alexander III. in 1181, of France under Innocent III. in 1200, and of England under the same pope in 1209. So far as the interdict is " personal," that is to say, applied to a particular individual, it may be regarded as synonymous with EXCOMMUNICATION (q.v.), an ecclesiastical punishment known in one form or another in all churches ; the local interdict is quite peculiar to the Church of Rome. It is removed by what is termed "reconciliation."