rules are to be approved of by the king under his sign manual. Every person having any estate or interest in possession, reversion, or contingency, in lands or personalty, is empowered to settle such estate or interest, either by deed enrolled or will, upon the corporation, without licence of mortmain; and the corporation are empowered to admit benefactors to the fund into their body. (For the principal rules established by the corporation, with respect to augmentations and the operation of these rules, see Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. “First-Fruits and Tenths.")

object the aim of his successors until more than a century after his death; but after the restoration of Charles II. the scandal of lay impropriations gave rise to some relaxation of the statutes of mortmain. Thus by statute 17 Car. II. c. 3, power | was given to lay impropriators of tithes to annex such tithes to, or settle them in trust for, the parsonage or vicarage of the parish church to which they belonged, or for the perpetual curate, if there was no vicarage endowed; and by the same statute, in cases where the settled maintenance of the parsonage or vicarage, with cure, did not amount to the full sum of 100l. a year, clear of all charges and The 1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 10, renders reprises, the incumbent was empowered to valid agreements made with benefactors purchase for himself and his successors to Queen Anne's Bounty, concerning the lands and tithes, without licence of mort-right of patronage of augmented churches main. Another statute of the same reign (29 Car. II. c. 8) confirms, for a perpetuity, such augmentations of vicarages and perpetual curacies as had been already made for a term of years by ecclesiastical corporations on granting leases of impropriatory rectories. The act also confirms future augmentations to be made in the same manner, subject to a limitation which has since been taken off by statute 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 45, by which the provisions of 29 Car. II. c. 8, have been considerably extended. The acts 1 & 2 Vict. c. 107, and 3 & 4 Vict. c. 113, have made further provisions for the augmentation of benefices. But the principal augmentation of the revenues of the church was made under the provisions of the statute 2 & 3 Anne, c. 11. By this act, and by the queen's letters-patent made in pursuance of it, all the revenue of the first-fruits and tenths was vested in trustees for the augmentation of small benefices. This fund is what is usually called Queen Anne's Bounty, and has since been further regulated by statutes 5 Anne c. 24; 6 Anne, c. 27; 1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 10; 3 Geo. I. c. 10.

The trustees, who are certain dignitaries of the church, and other official personages for the time being, are incorporated by the name of " the governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy," and have authority to make rules for the distribution of the fund, which

in favour of such benefactors, where the agreements are made by persons or bodies corporate having such an interest in the patronage of such churches as the act renders necessary; but an agreement by a parson or vicar must be made with consent of his patron and ordinary. The governors are also empowered by the same statute to make agreements with patrons of donatives or perpetual cures for an augmented stipend to the ministers of such benefices when augmented, to augment vacant benefices, and, with the concurrence of the proper parties, to exchange lands settled for augmentation.

It should be observed that a modern statute of mortmain, the Statute of Charitable Uses, 9 Geo. II. c. 36, imposed certain forms, a strict compliance with which was necessary in all gifts to Queen Anne's Bounty. But these restrictions. have been removed by statute 43 Geo. III. c. 107, as far as respects gifts of real property for augmentation of the bounty; and a provision for the augmentation of be nefices not exceeding 150l. per annum was made by 46 Geo. III. c. 133, which discharged all such benefices from the landtax, without any consideration being given for the discharge, with a proviso that the whole annual amount thus remitted should not exceed 6000l.

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England have, since October, 1842, been pursuing a scheme for the augmentation of small livings, by which an annual net

income as nearly as may be of 150l. will be secured to the incumbent of every benefice or church with cure of souls, being either a parish church or chapel, with a district legally assigned thereto, and having a population of 2000, and not being in the patronage of lay proprietors. The funds for augmentation accrue from the suspension of cathedral endowments. The number of livings which had been augmented to May 1, 1844, was 562, and the total sum applied is 29,809l. The following table will show more distinctly what has been done in the case of 496 livings:

tion.

500
500

1000

towns, extends the term specified in the 13 Eliz. c. 10, to forty years, but prohib ts leases of such houses in reversion, and allows of absolute alienation by way of exchange. But the consent of patron and ordinary is still necessary in order to make the leases of parsons and vicars binding upon their successors. It is said that about the time when these statutes were passed, it was a practice for patrons to present unworthy clergymen to their vacant benefices, on condition of having leases of those benefices made to themselves at a very low rate. The consequences of this were not unlike what Popula- ensued from the appropriation of benefices by monastic corporations: the incumbents 2000* did not reside, and the churches were indifferently served by stipendiary curates. To remedy this evil, it was provided by stat. 13 Eliz. c. 20 (made perpetual by 3 Car. I. c. 4), that no lease of a benefice with cure should endure longer than while the lessor should be ordinarily resident and serving the cure, without absence for more than eighty days in any one year, but should immediately, upon non-residence, become void; and that the incumbent should forfeit one year's profits of the benefice, to be distributed among the poor: but the statute contains an exception of the case where a parson, allowed by law to have two benefices, demises the one upon which he is not most ordinarily resident to his curate. The 18 Eliz. c. 11, provides that process of sequestration shall be granted by the ordinary to obtain the profits so forfeited. By stat. 14 Eliz. c. 11, bonds and covenants, and by stat. 43 Eliz. c. 9, judg

The alienation of the temporalities of benefices, even in perpetuity, was not forbidden by the common law, provided it were made with the concurrence of the principal parties interested, viz. the parson, patron, and ordinary. Thus, at the common law, lands might have become exempt from the payment of tithe by virtue of an agreement entered into between the tithe-payer and the parson or vicar, with the necessary consent, for the substitution of land in lieu of tithe. But the statute 13 Eliz. c. 10, prohibits, among other bodies corporate, parsons and vicars from making any alienation of their tenporalities beyond the life of the incumbent, except by way of lease for twentyone years, or three lives," whereupon the accustomed yearly rent or more shall be reserved and payable yearly during the said term." Further restrictions are imposed by the stat. 18 Eliz. c. 11, which requires that where any former lease for years is in being, it must be expired, surrendered, or ended within three years next after the making of the new lease, and all bonds and covenants for renewing or making leases contrary to this and the last-mentioned statute are made void. The stat. 14 Eliz. c. 11, as to houses in

• And upwards.

ments entered into or suffered in fraud of the stat. 13 Eliz. c. 20, are made void.

The 13 Eliz. c. 20, also renders void all charges upon ecclesiastical benefices by way of pension or otherwise. This last provision has been held to extend to mortgages and annuities, even if made only for the life or incumbency of the mortgagor. But the strictness of the laws prohibiting all alienations by or in favour of ecclesiastical persons, has in modern times been somewhat relaxed by the legislature for purposes of public convenience. Thus the General Inclosure Act, 41 Geo. III. c. 109, and the Land-tax

the archbishop. A copy of every licence | must be filed in the registry of the diocese, and an alphabetical list made out of all such licences, which list may be inspected on payment of a fee of three shillings. A copy of the licence, and a statement of the grounds on which it was obtained, must be transmitted to the churchwardens of the parish of which the person mentioned in the licence is the incumbent, to be by them deposited in the parish chest, and produced at the archdeacon's visitation. Every year, in the month of January, the bishop of each diocese transmits to his clergy a schedule containing eighteen questions, or, if the incumbent be non-resident, twenty-eight questions, replies to which are to be transmitted to the bishop in three weeks. They are intended, amongst other things, to check non-residence, and to render the discipline and government of the clergy more strict. An abstract of the returns is to be made yearly to her Majesty in Council.

There are certain liabilities which parsons, vicars, and other spiritual persons legally incur in respect of their benefices. Thus, by 43 Eliz. c. 2, they are rateable in respect of their benefices for the relief of the poor; and, although the burden of the repairs of the body of the church falls upon the parishioners, the rector (and, where the parsonage is appropriated, the impropriator) is liable for the repairs of the chancel. And the stat. 35 Edw. I. sess. 2, the object of which was to prohibit rectors from cutting down trees in churchyards, contains an express exception of the case where such trees are wanted for the repair of the chancel. Besides the liability implied in the lastmentioned prohibition, all ecclesiastical incumbents are liable for dilapidations. A dilapidation is said to be the pulling down or destroying in any manner any of the houses or buildings belonging to a spiritual living, or suffering them to run into ruin or decay, or wasting or destroying the woods of the church, or committing or suffering any wilful waste in or upon the inheritance of the church. Such proceedings may be prevented by the spiritual censures of the ordinary; and the profits of the benefice may be seques

tered until the damage be repaired; and the Court of Chancery will, at the suit of the patron, grant an injunction to restrain this as well as every other species of waste. Or the next incumbent may recover damages for dilapidations either in the Spiritual Court, or in an action on the case at common law against his predecessor, or, if he be dead, against his personal representatives.

The remedies for the subtraction of tithes given by the law of England to the clergy were sufficiently ample. [TITIES.]

With respect to actions and suits for recovery of lands or rents by parsons, vicars, or other spiritual corporations sole, the 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, § 29, subjects them to the period of limitation of two successive incumbencies, together with six years after the appointment of a third person to the benefice, or in case of this period not amounting to sixty years, then to the full period of limitation of sixty years.

Having thus shown how possession of the different kinds of benefices in England is acquired and maintained, and what are the principal legal incidents of such possession, it remains to consider how benefices may be vacated or avoided. And this may happen several ways: 1. By the death of the incumbent. 2. By resignation, which is made into the hands of the ordinary, except in the case of donatives, which must be resigned into the hands of the patron, who alone has jurisdiction over them. The resignation must be absolute, unless it be for the purpose of exchange, in which case it may be made on the condition that the exchange shall take full effect. Where two parsons wish to exchange benefices, they must obtain a licence from the ordinary to that effect; and if the exchange is not fully executed by both parties during their lives, all their proceedings are void. (See Burn, Eccles. Law, tit. "Exchange.") 3. A benefice may be avoided by the incumbent's being promoted to a bishopric; but the avoidance in this case does not take place till the actual consecration of the new prelate. The patronage of the benefice so vacant belongs for that turn to the king, except in the case of a clergyman beneficed in