mained unrepealed, in spite of the attempts | supremacy; and by statute 13 & 14 Ca of the popes and their adherents to obtain their abrogation. The rights of ecclesiastical patronage, having been thus solemnly vindicated by the English parliament, have, in their fundamental principles, remained unaltered to the present time. The ceremonies of the presentation and institution in the case of lay patrons, and of collation where the bishop is patron, are still necessary to give a title to all benefices with a cure of souls, except those which are technically called perpetual curacies and donatives; and the title so given is incomplete without corporal induction into possession of the temporalities of the benefices. There are also certain acts enjoined either by the canon law or statute, the non-performance of which will subject the incumbent to the deprivation of the benefice into which he has been lawfully inducted. II. c. 4 (commonly called the Act Uniformity), every parson and v shall, before his admission to be inc bent, subscribe a declaration of cort mity to the Liturgy of the Churc England as by law established. The acts of institution or collatin far confer a right to the temporalit. the benefice, that the clerk may upon the glebe-land and take the te but he cannot sue for them or grant 12until induction. By induction the ch becomes full, even against the king the clerk is seised of the temporalit.. the benefice, and invested with the rights and privileges of a parson, per ecclesiæ; but by the Act of Uniform.r must, within two months after he actual possession of his benefice, some Sunday, openly before his ec gation, read the morning and eve prayers, and declare his assent to Book of Common Prayer, on pari, case of neglect or refusal, of being facto deprived of his benefice. The s statute obliges him, on pain of depriv.: to read publicly, within three m after his subscription to the declar of conformity to the Liturgy, the tast certificate of his having made such s scription, together with the declarat itself: but the statute 23 Geo. III. c.. makes an exception where the incur is prevented by some lawful impedi to be allowed and approved of by the dinary of the place. The same per deprivation is imposed by 13 Eliz.c in case of an incumbent failing, w two months after induction, to read “ licly in the church the Thirty-nine ticles, and to declare his assent to the The 23 Geo. III. c. 28, provides that. case of sickness or other lawful imp ment, it shall be deemed a sufficient There is no difference between institution and collation as to the action itself, but they differ somewhat in their respective consequences. Thus, by institution, the church is said to be full against all persons but the king, and if it has been full for the space of six months, this is a sufficient answer to any action by private persons, or even by the king, where he claims as a private patron and not by royal prerogative, as in case of lapse or otherwise. But by collation the church is not full so as to render a plea to that effect available in the temporal courts, except against the collator. Every clerk before institution or collation is required by the canon law to take the oath against simony, and the oath of the canonical obedience to the bishop, and to declare by subscription his assent to the doctrine of the king's supremacy, to the Book of Common Prayer, and the Thirty-nine Articles. The subscription to the Thirty-pliance with the statute of Elizabet nine Articles is also imposed by statute 13 Eliz. c. 12, upon all persons to be admitted to any benefice with cure of souls. Moreover, the statutes 1 Eliz. c. 1, and 1 Will. and Mary, c. 8, § 5, require that every person collated or promoted to any ecclesiastical benefice shall, before he takes upon himself to supply or occupy the same, take the oaths of allegiance and the incumbent reads the Articles, azi clares his assent to them at the same that he declares his assent to the Bo Common Prayer. Finally, by statur Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 13, the parson within six months after his admiss the benefice, take the oaths of allegian and abjuration in one of the courts Westminster, or at the general quari sessions of the peace, on pain of being incapacitated to hold the benefice, and of incurring certain other disabilities therein specified. Such are the means by which a clerk's legal title as a parson, rector, or vicar is acquired and maintained. Every parson, or rector of a parish with cure of souls, and, where the parsonage is appropriated, every vicar, or perpetual curate, though in his natural Capacity an individual, is in contemplation of law a body corporate, with perpetuity of succession. The rector or parson is entitled to the freehold of the parsonagehouse and glebe-lands, as well as the ithes of the parish, except where a speial exemption from the payment of ithes exists by prescription or otherwise; ut owing to the practice of appropriation, which formerly prevailed to a great exent in England, and has been attended with very remarkable consequences, the ithes are now often vested in laymen, who lave vicars or curates under them to perorm the spiritual duties. [ADVOWSON.] This custom was not confined to spiritual corporations aggregate, but deans and other officers in cathedrals, and in some places even parish priests, procured the privilege of appointing a vicar to perform the spiritual duties of the church, while its revenues were appropriated to themselves and their successors. Hence it happens that in some places a rector and vicar are instituted to the same church; in which case the rector is excused from duty, and the rectory is called a sinecure benefice, being sine curâ animarum. (Burn's Eccles. Law, tit "Appropriation.") In order to effectuate an appropriation it was necessary that the patron should obtain the consent of the king and the bishop, as each of these had an interest in the patronage of the church in case of lapse, which, as a corporation never dies, could not take place after the appropriation; and upon the making an appropriation, an annual pension was reserved to the bishop and his successors, called an indemnity, and payable by the body to whom the appropriation was made. In an ancient deed of appropriation preserved in the registry of the archbishop of Canterbury, the ground of the reservation is expressed to be for a recompense of the as | profits which the bishop would otherwise have received during the vacancy of the benefice. (Burn, Ibid.) After the appropriation the appropriators and their successors became perpetual parsons of the church; but if the corporation were dissolved, the perpetuity of persons being gone, the appropriation ceased, and the church recovered its rights. This principle would have come into extensive operation at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in England, if the legislature had not expressly provided against it. By the statutes 27 Henry VIII. c. 28, and 31 Henry VIII. c. 13, the possessions of these religious houses, and by a subsequent statute, 32 Henry VIII. c. 24, those of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, were all vested in the crown. In each of these statutes parsonages and tithes are expressly included, and the first two confirm the royal grants made or hereafter to be made of this property. Tithes are also included in two subsequent statutes, 37 Henry VIII. c. 4, and 1 Edward VI. c. 14, by which the possessions of chantries and religious fraternities are given to the crown. The last of these statutes empowers the king's commissioners, therein referred to, to ordain and sufficiently endow vicars in perpetuity in parish churches annexed to the religious fraternities whose possessions were confiscated by that act; and also to endow in perpetuity a schoolmaster or preacher in such places where the religious fraternities or incumbents of chantries were bound by the original foundation to keep a schoolmaster or priest. The property acquired by the crown from the above-mentioned sources, and from the dissolution of alien priories in the reign of Henry V., was freely bestowed by the kings of England, especially Henry VIII., not only upon spiritual persons and corporations, but upon laymen. Hence it is that there are so many instances in England at the present time of not merely the right to tithes, but the property of entire rectories being vested in laymen. These benefices are sometimes called lay, but more commonly impropriate rectories, as being (according to Spelman) improperly in the hands of spective houses, and that they might relieve the poor. These duties, however, were so far neglected as to give rise to general discontent. In addition to which the officiating priests were very poorly paid, and oppressed with hard service, and consequently unable to answer the calls of hospitality and charity. At length the legislature, by way of a partial remedy to these evils, enacted (15 Richard II. c 6), "That in every licence for the appro priation of a parish church it should be expressed that the diocesan bishop should ordain, in proportion to the value of the church, a competent sum to be distributed among the poor parishioners annually, and that the vicarage should be suffici ently endowed." Still, as the vicar was laymen. The rector is in that case termed the impropriator; but this appellation is now indiscriminately applied not only to lay individuals and corporations, but to all spiritual persons and corporations who, either by virtue of ancient appropriations or by grants from the crown since the dissolution of the religious fraternities, are entitled to the tithes and other revenues of the church without performing any spiritual duties. By statute 32 Henry VIII. c. 7, the remedies which the law had provided in the ecclesiastical courts for the subtraction of tithes are communicated to laymen, and their title to tithes is put on the same footing with that to land, by giving them the same or similar actions for vindicating their estates in those and other ecclesias-removable at pleasure, he was not likely tical profits against all adverse claimants whatsoever. In short, tithes and other fruits of benefices when vested in laymen, are liable to the same process of execution for debt, and subject to the same incidents of alienation, descent, escheat, and forfeiture as all other incorporeal real property. Moreover, by statute 43 Eliz. c. 2, tithes impropriate are made liable to poor-rates. They are also included in the Land-tax Acts; and by the late Statute of Limitations, 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, actions and suits for their recovery are subject to the same periods of limitation as those for the recovery of land. Another consequence of appropriation in England, besides the vesting the possessions of the church in laymen, was the endowment of vicarages. The appropriating corporations at first used to depute one of their own body to reside and officiate in the parish churches by turns or by lot, and sometimes by way of penance; but as this practice caused scandal to the church, especially in the case of monastic orders whose rules were thereby violated, the monks by degrees ceased to officiate personally in the appropriated churches, and this duty was committed to stipendiary vicars or curates, who were, however, removable at the will of the appropriators. One of the numerous pretexts urged by the monastic Dodies for obtaining appropriations had been, that they might be the better enabled to keep up hospitality in their re to insist very strictly on the legal suffici ency of the endowment. Therefore, to establish the total independence of vicars upon the appropriators, the statute 4 Henry IV. c. 12, provided, "That from thenceforth in every church appropriated there should be a secular person ordained vicar perpetual, canonically instituted and inducted, and covenably (fitly) endowed by the discretion of the ordinary, to do divine service, and to inform the people, and to keep hospitality there; and that no religious, i. e. regular priest, should in anywise be made vicar in any church appropriated." From the endowments made in pursuance of this statute have arisen all the vicarages that exist at the present day. The title of the vicar to tithes and other ecclesiastical dues, such as Easter offerings (which are said to be due to the parson or vicar of common right), and customary payments for marriages, burials, and baptisms, depends primarily upon the deed of endowment. As, however, the rector and vicar are persons equally capable in law of holding such property, the deed is not always conclusive evidence in any question that may arise between these parties as to their respective rights; but it is said, that where either of them has for a long time had undisputed enjoyment of any particular portion of the tithes or other fruits of the benefice, which is not consistent with the terms of the original deed, a variation of that deed by some subsequent instrument may be presumed in favour of such long enjoyment. The endowments of vicarages have generally consisted of a part of the glebe-land of the parsonage, and what are technically called the small tithes of he parish. In some places also a porion of the great tithes has been added to he vicarages. [TITHES.] A vicarage by endowment becomes a istinct benefice, of which the patronage svested in the impropriator or sinecure ector, and is said to be appendant to the ectory. It follows that the vicar, being ndowed with separate revenues, is enbled to recover his temporal rights withat the aid of the patron. The loss of the original Act of Endowment is supplied by prescription; i. e. if e vicar has enjoyed any particular thes or other fruits by constant usage, he law will presume that he was legally dowed with them. If the impropriator, either by design r mistake, presents the vicar to the paronage, the vicarage will be dissolved, and the person presented will be entitled all the ecclesiastical dues as rector. It is to be observed that the statute 4 Henry IV. c. 12, did not extend to apropriations made before the first of Richard II. Hence it happens that in ome appropriated churches no vicar has ver been endowed. In this case the fficiating minister is appointed by the mpropriator, and is called a perpetual urate. He enters upon his official duties y virtue of the bishop's licence only, without institution or induction. It apDears, moreover, from Dr. Burn (Eccles. Law, tit. "Curate"), that there were some Denefices which, being granted for the purpose of supporting the hospitality of he monasteries (in mensas monachorum), and not appropriated in the common form, escaped the operation of the statute of Henry IV. In this case, according to he same author, the benefices were served by temporary curates belonging to the religious houses, and sent out as occasion required; and sometimes the liberty of not appointing a perpetual vicar was granted by dispensation, in benefices not annexed o tables of the monasteries. When such appropriations, together with the charge of providing for the cure, were transferred (after the dissolution of monasteries) from spiritual societies to single lay persons (who, being incapable of serving them themselves, were obliged to nominate a person to the bishop for his licence to serve the cure), the curate by this means became so far perpetual as not to be renovable at the pleasure of the impropriator, but only for such causes as would occasion the depriving of a rector or vicar, or by the revocation of the bishop's licence. (Burn, Ibid.) Though the form of licences to perpetual cures expresses that they last only during the bishop's pleasure, the power of revocation, thus reserved to the bishop, has seldom, if ever, been exercised. There is another kind of perpetual curacy which arises from the erection in a parish of a chapel-of-ease subject to the mother church. But the curacies of chapels-of-ease are not benefices in the strict legal sense of the word, unless they have been augmented out of the fund called Queen Anne's Bounty. The offi ciating ministers are not corporations in law with perpetuity of succession, as par sons, vicars, and other perpetual curates. Neither are chapels-of-ease subject to lapse, although the bishop may, by process in the ecclesiastical courts, compel the patrons to fill them up. But the sta tute 1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 10, provides that all churches, curacies, or chapels which shall be augmented by the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty shall be from thenceforth perpetual cures and benefices, and the ministers duly nominated and licensed thereunto shall be in law bodies politic and corporate, and have perpetual succession, and be capable to take in perpetuity; and that if suffered to remain void for six months they shall lapse in like manner as presentative livings. The 59 Geo. III. c. 134, contained provisions enabling the Church Building Commis sioners to assign districts to chapels under the cure of curates, and it enacted that no such chapelry should become a benefice by reason of any augmentation of the maintenance of the curate by any grant or bounty. Both this statute and that of I Geo. I. were partially repealed by 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49, which has a clause enacting that any church or chapel augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty, and which has had, or may hereafter have, a district assigned to it, is to be a perpetual curacy and benefice. The commissioners for building new churches may assign districts to them, and such church or chapel may be augmented by the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. The district churches built in pursuance of several recent acts (as 58 Geo. III. c. 45; 59 Geo. III. c. 134; 3 Geo. IV. c. 72; 5 Geo. IV. c. 103; 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 72; 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 38; 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 61; 7 Will. IV. & 1 Vict. c. 107; 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49; 3 & 4 Vict. c. 60) are made perpetual cures, and the incumbents corporations. A donative is a spiritual preferment, whether church, chapel, or vicarage, which is in the free gift of the patron, without making any presentation to the bishop, and without admission, institution, or induction by mandate from the bishop or any other; but the donee may by the patron, or by any other authorized by the patron, be put into possession. Nor is any licence from the bishop necessary to perfect the donee's title to possession of the donative, but it receives its full effect from the single act and sole authority of the donor. The chief further peculiarity of donatives is their exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. | ing to the provisions of statutes 1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 13, and 9 Geo. II. c. 26; a: the right of patronage, both of perpetu.. curacies and donatives, is to be vind cated by writ of Quare Impedit. (Burm. Eccles. Law, tit. "Donative.") Neither the augmentation nor th alienation of benefices with cure of so was favoured by the old English law. I prevent augmentation was one of the e jects of the statutes of Mortmain, one c which (23 Hen. VIII. c. 10) express y makes void all assurances of lands favour of parish churches, chapels, &c. It might have been reasonably expected that, at the time of the dissolution of nasteries, the clergy would have received back those revenues which, being origizally vested in them for religious purposes, had been subsequently appropriated 'y the monks. Such a measure, however, was not agreeable to the temper either f King Henry VIII. or his parliame When that king came to a rupture wit the pope, he resolved to free his dominions from the payment of first-fruits and tenths to the papal treasury. The first of these taxes consisted of one year's whole profits of every spiritual preferment, according to a valuation of benefices ma.“ by the pope's authority; the second, f the tenth part of the annual profit of each benefice, according to the same valuation. The manner of visitation of donatives The payment of these to the pope was is by commissioners appointed by the prohibited by statute 25 Henry VIII. patron. If the patron dies during the c. 20; and the next year, by statute 25 vacancy of a donative benefice, the right Henry VIII. c. 3, the whole of the reof nomination descends to the heir-at- venue arising therefrom was annexed t law, and does not belong to his executors, the crown. The last-mentioned statute as is the case with the patronage of pre-directed these taxes to be paid according sentative livings. Donatives, if augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty, become liable to lapse, and also to episcopal visitation. (1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 10.) But no donatives can be so augmented without the consent of the patron in writing, under his hand and seal. Both perpetual curates and incumbents of donatives are obliged to declare their assent to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, in the manner prescribed by the statute 13 Eliz. c. 12, and the Act of Uniformity above mentioned, and must also take the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, accord to a new valuation of ecclesiastical benefices to be made by certain comm sioners appointed for the purpose. This valuation is what is called the vais tion of the king's books. The statue 26 Henry VIII. c. 3, was confirmed by statute 1 Eliz. c. 4. [FIRST FRUITS and TENTHS.] The subsequent proceedings of Henry VIII., after the appropriation of the pos sessions of the monasteries, tended rather to enrich the collegiate and other cor porations aggregate with the revenues of the church, than to revest them in their ancient possessors. Nor was the latter |