Contumacious

Contumacious (pronounced kon-too-mey-shuhs or kon-tyoo-mey-shuhs)

(1) Stubbornly perverse or rebellious; contemptuous of or resistant to authority; wilfully and obstinately disobedient; rebellious.

(2) In law, wilfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.

1590–1600: From the early Modern English contumacious (insolent, resisting legitimate authority).  The construct was the Latin contumāci(a), (stem of contumāx (stubborn; obstinate, stiff-necked)) + (i) + -ous.  The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus (full, full of); a doublet of -ose in an unstressed position.  It was used to form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree, commonly in abundance.  In chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic.  For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The noun contumacy (wilful and persistent resistance to legitimate authority) dates from the early thirteenth century, from the Old French contumace and directly from Latin contumācia in the sense of “perseverance in one's purpose or opinions; generally in a bad sense; arrogance, inflexibility, haughtiness, insolence (and use especially to describe “obstinate disobedience to a judicial order”.  Contumacious is an adjective, contumaciousness & contumacity are nouns and contumaciously is an adverb; the noun plural is contumacities.

Because there’s such an array of synonyms for contumacious including (depending on context) headstrong, obstinate, contrary, disaffected, factious, inflexible, insubordinate, intractable, intransigent, irreconcilable, mutinous, obdurate, perverse, pig-headed, rebellious, recalcitrant, refractory, stubborn & unyielding, the word is a rare sight but more scare still are the negative forms (noncontumacious, noncontumaciousness, noncontumaciously, uncontumacious, uncontumaciousness & uncontumaciously, the more familiar obedient, tractable & willing much preferred.

The word did though find a niche where it remains.  In legal proceedings, the act of contumacy refers to an individual’s refusal to appear in court when served with a summons or their refusal to comply with the terms of a court order.  The most frequently used sanction available to a judge is to find the individual in contempt of the court.  Historically, in most jurisdictions the offence of contempt was not codified there were no statutory schedules of penalties but over two hundred years ago, in United States v Hudson (11 U.S. 7 Cranch 32 32 (1812)), the US Supreme Court (USSC) held that courts have implied powers, including punishing individuals for contumacy, either by time in jail or the imposition of fines; the USSC did not address the matter of quantum and although left unsaid, the consensus has always been the test would be of “reasonableness”.  The notion of contumacy as an offence was not an invention of the US courts.  In England (where in recent years there has been some codification), it was an early creature of the common law courts and, because the Church of England was an established church, where an act of contumacy was alleged to have been committed against an ecclesiastical court, after 1814 this came to attract the issue of a writ from the Court of Chancery, pursuant to a certificate of request from a judge of an ecclesiastical court.  Prior to 1814, such matters were handled under the Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo Act (5 Eliz. 1. c. 23 (1562)), the literal translation of which was “taking one who is excommunicated”, a authority commanding a arrest whomever was excommunicated, holding them until they repented and agreed to become reconciled to the Church.  Thus incarcerated, the prisoner would be held until a bishop was sufficiently convinced of the sincerity of the sinner’s contrition to send to the court a certificate of request, at which point a judge of chancery would issue to the sheriff a writ de Excommunicato Deliberando (order for the delivery of an excommunicated person).