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their disabilities. By the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act, 1801, they are made incapable of being elected members of the House of Commons; and by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, s. 12, of being councillors or aldermen in boroughs. They are also prohibited from farming or trading; for, by the Pluralities Act, 1838, ss. 28-30, (repealing some former enactments on this subject,) no spiritual person holding any cathedral preferment or benefice, or any curacy or lectureship, may take to farm for occupation by himself any lands exceeding eighty acres in the whole, without permission in writing from the bishop of the diocese; nor may such spiritual person, by himself or any other to his use, carry on any trade or dealing for profit, unless it be carried on by more than six partners, or unless his share in it shall have devolved to him by inheritance, or other like representative title. And, even in these excepted cases, it is illegal for him to act as director or managing partner, or to carry on the trade in person (i). But, notwithstanding these prohibitions, a contract made by any spiritual person is, in general, enforceable against him (k); and the Act allows him to carry on the business of a schoolmaster, to deal with booksellers as to the sale of books, to be a managing director, partner, or shareholder in any benefit, fire insurance, or life insurance society, to buy or sell to the extent necessarily incidental to his lawful occupation of glebe and other land, and to sell minerals, the produce of his land,— provided always that none of such transactions be personally conducted by him in any market or place of public sale.

The divers ranks and degrees of the clergy, as recognized by the law of England, are the following, namely ;— archbishops and bishops; deans and canons; archdeacons and rural deans; rectors, vicars, and curates; and parish clerks and sextons.

(i) Section 29; and Trading Partnership Act, 1841.

(k) Lewis V. Bright (1855),

4 El. & Bl. 917.

I. Both ARCHBISHOPS and BISHOPS are constituted by election, confirmation, consecration, and installation; though an archbishop is more properly said to be enthroned and not installed (1). [Their election is by the chapter of the cathedral church, but only in virtue of a licence from the Crown; for although, in very early times, election proper, per clerum et populum, was the usual mode of elevation to the episcopal chair (m), yet the right of appointing to bishoprics, already in Saxon times, was in effect in the Crown (n), the investiture (which was originally per annulum et baculum, and subsequently per sceptrum) (o), operating as a complete donation.

Subsequently, however, King John, in order to obtain the protection of the pope against his discontented barons, was prevailed upon to give up, to all the monasteries and cathedrals in the kingdom, the free right of electing their prelates, whether abbots or bishops; and he reserved only the custody of the temporalities during the vacancy, the form of granting a licence to elect (on refusal whereof the electors might proceed without it), and the right of approbation afterwards, which was not to be denied without a reasonable and lawful cause (p). But, by the Act of Annates, in 1534 (2), the right of nomination, as it exists at the present day, was restored to and re-vested in the Crown. For by that statute, it was enacted, that on any future avoidance of an archbishopric or bishopric, the king may send the dean and chapter his usual licence (called his congé d'élire) to proceed to election; which is always

(1) Bishop of St. David's v. Lucy (1699), 1 Salk. 134; 3 Salk. 72.

(m) Bishop of Ossory's Case (1620), Palmer's Reports, p. 28; Sobrean v. Keran, 2 Rolle's Reports (1620), 101; M. Paris, A.D. 1095, p. 95.

(n) Palmer's Reports, 28; Selden, Jan. Ang. 1. 1, s. 39.

(0) Decret. 2, caus. 16, qu. 7, ch. 12 et 13; Encyclop. Britt. sub. tit. Inrestiture.

(p) M. Paris, A. D. 1214, p. 247; 1 Rym. Fœd. 198; Magna Carta, c. 1; 25 Edw. III. (1352), st. 6, c. 3.

(7) Revived by 1 Eliz. (1558) c. 1, s. 7. (The Act of Supremacy.)

[to be accompanied with a letter missive from the King, containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect. And if the dean and chapter delay their election above twelve days, the nomination shall devolve to the king, who may then by letters-patent appoint such person as he pleases; and this congé d'élire issues also (7) in the case of the bishoprics created by Henry VIII. himself, viz., Chester, Gloucester, Peterborough, Bristol, and Oxford, although these are in a sense donative (s), that is, in the gift of the Crown.

This election or nomination, if it be of a bishop, must be signified by the king's letters-patent to the archbishop of the province; and if it be of an archbishop, to the other archbishop and two bishops, or to four bishops. In either case, it requires them to confirm, invest, and consecrate the person so elected, which they are bound forthwith to perform (t); after which, the bishop elect sues to the king for his temporalities, making oath to the king and none other, and takes restitution of his secular possessions out of the king's hands only. And if the dean and chapter do not elect in the manner by the Act appointed, or if the archbishop or bishop refuse to confirm, invest, and consecrate the bishop elect, they incur the penalties of a præmunire, that is to say, the loss of all civil rights, with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment during the royal pleasure.]

There are two archbishops for England and Wales (u) ; that is to say, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has

(r) R. v. Archbishop of Canterbury (1848), 11 Q. B. 513.

(8) Co. Litt. by Harg. 134 a, n. (s).

(t) Rex v. Archbishop of Canterbury, [1902] 2 K. B. 503. A bishop, when consecrated, must be full thirty years of age (see the rubric prefixed to the office of ordination in the Book of Common Prayer); but antiently there

seems to have been no such restriction. (See Godw. Comm. de Prasul. 693.)

(u) At one time there were three archbishoprics, the third being that of Carleon in Wales; but in the time of Henry the First, both that see and all Wales became subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Rogers, Eccl. Law, 105.)

within his province all the bishoprics, except those of Chester, Durham, Carlisle, Ripon, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sodor and Man, Wakefield, and the bishopric of York; and the Archbishop of York, whose province comprises the ten bishoprics just named. [An archbishop is, indeed, the chief of all the clergy in his province; and has the inspection of the bishops of that province as well as of the inferior clergy, or (as the law expresses it) the power to visit them (r). Therefore, he confirms the election of the bishops, and afterwards consecrates them (y); and upon receipt of the king's writ, he calls the bishops and clergy of his province to meet him in convocation, but, without the king's writ, he cannot assemble them (~). To him, all appeals in ecclesiastical matters are made from the inferior ecclesiastical jurisdictions within his province; and as an appeal lies from the bishops in person to him in person (a), so it also lies from the consistory courts of each diocese to the archiepiscopal court (b). During the vacancy of any see in his province, the archbishop is guardian of the spiritualities thereof, as the king is of the temporalities, and he executes all ecclesiastical jurisdiction therein; but if an archiepiscopal see be vacant, the dean and chapter are the spiritual guardians, ever since the office of Prior of Canterbury was abolished at the Reformation (c). The archbishop is entitled to present by lapse, to any ecclesiastical living in the disposal of one of his diocesan bishops, if not filled within six months; and he has a customary prerogative, when a bishop is consecrated by him, to name a clerk or chaplain of his own to be provided for by such bishop (d), in lieu of which, the

(x) Bishop of St. David's v. Lucy (1699), 1 Salk. 134; Re Dean of York (1841), 2 Q. B. 1. (y) 2 Roll. Aor. 223.

(z) 4 Inst. 322, 323.

(a) Read v. The Bishop of Lincoln (1889), 14 P. D. 88.

(b) Ex parte Denison (1854),

4 El. & Bl. 292; R. v. Tristram, [1902] 1 K. B. 816.

(c) 2 Roll. Abr. 223.

(d) Bishops are styled suffragan (a word signifying deputy), in respect of their relation to the archbishops of their province. But at one time bishops also had

[bishop used to make over by deed to the archbishop, the next presentation of such dignity or benefice in the bishop's disposal, within the see, as the archbishop himself should choose, which, therefore, was called his option, and was binding on the bishop himself alone who granted the option, and not on his successors (e).

It is also the privilege of the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown the kings and queens of this kingdom (ƒ); and he has also, by the statute 25 Hen. VIII. (1534), c. 21 (g), the power of granting dispensations in any case, not contrary to the Holy Scriptures or to the law of God, where the pope used formerly to grant them. This is the foundation of his power to grant special licences to marry at any place or time (h), and to give dispensations to hold two livings (), and the like; and on this also is founded

But

their suffragans to assist them in
conferring orders, and in other
spiritual offices within their
diocese; and, after having for a
long period remained in abeyance,
these suffragan bishops have re-
cently been again brought into
use in some of the dioceses.
such suffragan bishops must not
be confounded with the coad-
jutors of bishops, the latter being
appointed (in the case of a bishop's
infirmity) to superintend his juris-
diction and temporalities, neither
of which is within the interference
of the former (1 Gibs. Cod. 2nd
edit. 137; Co. Litt. by Harg. 94 a,
n. (3)). As to the election and
consecration of suffragan bishops,
see 26 Hen. 8 (1534), c. 14,
amended by the Suffragans Nomi-
nation Act, 1888, and by the
Suffragan Bishops Act, 1898.

(e) The king, in imitation of the Emperor of Germany, exercised (or claimed to exercise) the

right of naming to the first prebend that became vacant after his accession (Brev. 11 Edw. 1; 3 Pryn. 1264); and this prerogative probably gave rise to corodies, viz., the right (now disused) of the king to send one of the royal chaplains to be maintained by the bishop, or to have a pension allowed him till the bishop promoted him to a benefice.

(f) It is said, that the Archbishop of York has the privilege to crown the queen consort, and also to be her perpetual chaplain. (1 Burn, Eccl. Law, 198.) At the coronation of King Edw. 7 this privilege of the Archbishop of York was allowed, but not as of right.

(g) See also 28 Hen. 8 (1536), c. 16 Colt v. Bishop of Lichfield (1613), Hob. 140 b.

(h) Marriage Act, 1823, s. 20. (i) Pluralities Act, 1838, s. 6; and 1850.

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