Abjuration is the act of renouncing or giving up a privilege or belief, often under oath. It has been used in legal, religious, and political contexts, such as renouncing claims to the throne or allegiance to another country. It can also refer to retracting testimony in a formal setting.
Renunciation is renunciation or renunciation, usually in formal settings where a person is under oath of some kind. It could be said that when a person recants he resumes, repudiates, or renounces some former privilege or stated belief. In a legal sense, abjuration usually means giving up a privilege to get something else, but the term has been used in other ways to talk about officially giving up a declared position in order to maintain status in a society. In times when Roman Catholics could be considered heretics for their beliefs, there were many who had to report to the church and abjure their positions to avoid being declared a heretic.
Many definitions of abjuration trace their origins to English law, where members of parliament could take an oath to abjure the claims to the throne of anyone other than the current sovereign. This could be called giving up suitors so that full loyalty to the current ruler was shown. In reality the abjuration predates English usage and examples can be seen especially in Catholicism by those whose thoughts had been declared heretical. Galileo, for example, was forced to renounce his astronomical models of the solar system because they were not in line with the teachings of the Church. This was like a public penance, and was done almost by force; it was certainly done under the pressure of the negative consequences that could ensue if a person were considered a heretic.
In a modern sense, one of the most common types of abjuration can occur in many places around the world when people want to become citizens of a particular country. In the United States, for example, people who become citizens must renounce their citizenship and allegiance to another country. There are some exceptions and sometimes a citizen in the United States can have dual citizenship. Most of the time this is not the case, and in most cases, a formal sworn statement must be made that a person will no longer owe allegiance to the leaders of his or her home country.
Another form of abjuration could occur in formal oaths of allegiance. In some regions people are required to formally declare that they will not join any group that can overthrow the government by any means. These oaths have occasionally been questioned, as many of them were specifically directed at refraining from participating in communist activities in countries where freedom of political affiliation is protected.
Another way recantation can be used is when a person retracts testimony in a formal setting, such as in a courtroom. Usually the term abjuration is used more popularly. Yet a retraction is an abjuration when under oath, and therefore fits the definition.
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