COENACULUM

coenaculum, the term applied to the eating-room of a roman house in which the supper (_coena_) or latest meal was taken. it was sometimes placed in an upper storey and reached by an external staircase. the last supper in the new testament was taken in the coenaculum, the "large upper room" cited in st mark (xiv. 15) and st luke (xxii. 12). coenwulf (d. 821), king of mercia, succeeded to the throne in 796, on the death of ecgfrith, son of offa. his succession is somewhat remarkable, as his direct ancestors do not seem to have held the throne for six generations. in 798 he invaded kent, deposed and imprisoned eadberht præn, and made his own brother cuthred king. cuthred reigned in kent from 798 to 807, when he died, and coenwulf seems to have taken kent into his own hands. it was during this reign that the archbishopric of lichfield was abolished, probably before 803, as the hygeberht who signed as an abbot at the council of cloveshoe in that year was presumably the former archbishop. coenwulf appears from the charters to have quarrelled with wulfred of canterbury, who was consecrated in 806, and the dispute continued for several years. it was probably only settled at cloveshoe in 825, when the lawsuit of cwoenthryth, daughter and heiress of coenwulf, with wulfred was terminated. coenwulf may have instigated the raid of æthelmund, earl of the hwicce, upon the accession of ecgberht. he died in 821, and was succeeded by his brother ceolwulf i. see earle and plummer's edition of the _anglo-saxon chronicle_, 796, 819 (oxford, 1892); w. de g. birch, _cartularium saxonicum_, 378 (london, 1885-1893). (f. g. m. b.) coercion (from lat. _coercere_, to restrain), an application of moral or physical compulsion by which a person is forced to do or refrain from doing some act or set of acts apart from his own voluntary motion. where the coercion is direct or positive, _i.e._ where the person is compelled by physical force to do an act contrary to his will,--for example, when a man is compelled to join a rebel army, and to serve as a soldier under threats of death,--his act is not legally a crime. where the coercion is implied, as when a person is legally under subjection to another, the person coerced, having no will on the subject, is not responsible. but this principle is applied only within narrow limits, and does not extend to the command of a superior to an inferior; of a parent to a child; of a master to his servant or a principal to his agent. where, however, a married woman commits a crime in the presence of her husband, she is generally presumed to have acted by his coercion, and to be entitled to acquittal, but this presumption does not extend to grave crimes, nor to those in which the principal part may be supposed to be taken by the woman, such as keeping a brothel. in civil matters, such as the making of a contract, where the law requires the free assent of the person who undertakes the obligation, coercion is a ground for invalidating the instrument. the term "coercion" is inevitably somewhat ambiguous, and depends on the circumstances of the case. in a political sense, the application of the crimes act of 1887 to ireland was called "coercion" by those opposed to the english unionist party and government, as being special legislation differing from the ordinary law applicable in the united kingdom.