between priests and bishops became settled; though controversies have long continued as to their precise mutual relations. The order of office-bearers in the Church of England next to bishops are priests and deacons, and the distinguishing ceremony by which the latter attain that position is by ordination, or a species of solemn consecration which can only be performed by a bishop. And a person presuming to consecrate the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper without being an ordained priest forfeits 1007.1

Bishops and their original mode of appointment.— According to the early practice of the Church, bishops, whatever were their precise position and functions among the clergy, were elected by the laity and clergy together, though it is believed the clergy formed the more numerous constituents.2 Justinian confined the electors to the nobility. By degrees the laity were got rid of altogether, and next the clergy became merged in the cathedral chapter, which was a select body of clergy more closely connected with the chief church of the diocese. This latter stage was reached, it is thought, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. It was not to be wondered

their alms. We therefore have the established clergy mixed throughout the whole mass of life, and blended with all classes of society." -Burke, Fr. Rev.

1 14 Ch. II. c. 4, § 10. There were officers inferior to priests in the third century called Clerici, from their being chosen by lot, as was the custom of both Jews and Gentiles.-Bing, Chr. Ant.b. 1, c. 5. Deacons were, according to the civil and canon law, allowed to be ordained at the age of twenty-five.-Just. Nov. 123, e. 13. Deaconesses were for several centuries regularly appointed as officers of the church, being widows of mature age or virgins. One part of their duty was to assist at the baptism of women, to act as catechists, to attend to the sick, and especially to the wants of martyrs and confessors. They ceased to be appointed after the tenth century.-Bing. Chr. Ant., b. 2, c. 22. But though women served at the altar in 824-Guizot Civ. Fr. 133-they were never appointed to the office of priests. And HERODOTUS says the same of the priests of the gods and goddesses of his time.-Herod. b. 2, c. 35. And yet the inferior officers of the church were forbidden to resign and return to a secular life.Labbé, vol. iv., Concil. pp. 759, 1051.

2 Gibbon's Rome, c. 15; Cyprian, Ep. 76. 3 Nov. 123, § 1.

4 Van Espin, b. 13, p. 1. In England before the Conquest, bishops were appointed in the Wittenagemot; and even in the reign of William I. it was said that Lanfranc was raised to the see of Canterbury by the consent of what then corresponded to Parliament.-4

In

that so conspicuous an office as that of a bishop should in course of time have required the confirmation of the sovereign, and this was said to be a universal practice in all Christian countries since the time of Constantine, and was noticed in England in the time of Alfred.1 the time of William the Conqueror it came to be well settled, that the king appointed to the office by delivery of the ring and pastoral staff.2 Indeed, Coke says more accurately, that a bishop is regularly the king's immediate officer to the king's court of justice in causes ecclesiastical, and the right of donation in the Crown necessarily resulted from the principle and foundation of property, for patronage followed the foundation.3 It would be singular if one who had so large a share in administering the laws of the country could be otherwise appointed. Such a result was inevitable in any well-ordered government, whatever may have been the early practice. The part played by the Pope in such appointments was tolerated with more or less vacillation for centuries, for want of any ready and peremptory answer being found to his interference. And Lyttelton, Hen. II. 144. Bishops were elected after the Conquest by the clergy, and a charter of John confirmed such right of election to the dean and chapter as was the case in other countries.—Gibs. Cod. 133; 3 Stubbs, 296; Fra Paolo (Benef.) c. 24. The Pope assumed a right to determine disputes as to the election-3 Stubbs, 302; and in the beginning of the fourteenth century he assumed the patronage as well as the appellate jurisdiction. William the Conqueror, with the aid of the Pope, also removed bishops.—3 Stubbs, 317. One characteristic of a bishop is that he must be at least thirty years of age, that being said by the canonists to be imitated from the age of our Saviour when he began to preach.-Bing. Chr. Ant. b. 2, c. 10.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of all England, St. Augustin having been the first appointed in 598 by King Ethelbert. And he was primate of Ireland also to the year 1152. He has the ancient duty of crowning the kings of England. The Archbishopric of York was first created in 622. The Archbishop of Canterbury has precedence of all the nobility and next after the blood royal, while the Archbishop of York has precedence over all dukes not of the blood royal, and of all peers except the Lord Chancellor.-God. 13, 14. The Archbishop, besides having a diocese of his own, has jurisdiction of a visitorial kind over the bishops within his province. -Lynd. 277. In 1770 a bishop was deprived, for the power of deprivation is deemed incidental to the visitorial power.- Bp. St. David's Lucy, 1 L. Raym, 539; 14 St. Tr. 447.

Bede, b. 50, c. 20.

2

Ayl. Par. 126.

3 1 Inst. 134.

it was left to a statute of Henry VIII. by strong and direct language to put an end to all such pretensions of foreigners to interfere, whatever was the show of authority under which they had once professed to act.1 Henry VIII. created some new bishoprics out of the ruins of dissolved monasteries, and hence these are often referred to as those of the new foundation in contradistinction to those of the old foundation.2

Form of appointment of bishops by congé d'élire.Yet this prerogative of the Crown to appoint bishops was attacked by the Pope, who claimed that the gift of the ring and staff should come from him, while the Crown should content itself with mere feudal homage. And owing to the overpowering effect of custom, even the Parliament of Henry VIII. resorted to the transparent artifice of appearing to give the power of selection to the dean and chapter by first issuing a congé d'élire (as was adopted in the reign of John), and then confirming their nomination, And though the legislature of Edward VI. declared this to be no election, but "only having colours, shadows and pretences of an election," it survives to this day, not without exciting astonishment in bystanders.3 The astonishment lies in the effort to understand how a chapter can be said to elect when the person to be elected is dictated to them and they can be punished by præmunire or forfeiture of lands and goods for not choosing the person so nominated. And the astonishment still further increases when the forms observed in this fictitious election allow objectors to come forward to object, while there is no court or constituted authority in existence to entertain or dispose of such objections.*

125 Hen. VIII. c. 20, § 3. 2 31 Hen. VIII. c. 9. 3 1 Inst. 134; 3 Salk. 71; 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, §§ 3, 4; 1 Ed. VI. c. 2. 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, § 6; Hampden's case, Jebb's Report; Temple's case, Phillim. Ecc. L. 52. The bishop after being appointed must be consecrated.-25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, § 4. The form of consecration is set forth in the Prayer Book.—Article 36. The bishop also must take an oath of obedience to the archbishop, and subscribe the thirty-nine articles.-14 Ch. II. c. 4. The letters patent of the Crown nominate the bishops and archbishop who are to take part in the consecration, and to refuse to act within twenty days is an offence punishable by præmunire.-25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, § 6. On consecration the bishop's status is complete.-3 Salk. 481. The bishop does feudal homage to the Crown for his temporalities and

Bishops as peers of parliament.-When a bishop is duly appointed and consecrated, he is on the footing of a peer of the realm, and is entitled to receive his writ like other peers to attend the House of Lords. And so important as constituent members of the House of Lords were they once deemed, being with the abbots the great majority of that assembly, that it was sometimes doubted whether a statute would be valid which did not show that they concurred in it, or at least were present.1 And some have doubted whether they sat by virtue of their barony or by usage, as having this dignity annexed to their office. -a nicety which can now be of little importance. The bishops were excluded by statute from sitting in Parliament in 1640; and were restored in 1661. But though bishops and archbishops sit in Parliament like peers of the realm, there is one particular in which they do not share the privileges of the peerage, namely, in being tried by their peers for treason and felony, or taking any part in the trial of other peers for capital offences. Various barony.-25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, § 5. The boundaries of the diocese of bishops were revised and readjusted in 1836.—6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 77; 10 & 11 Vic. c. 98, 108; 1 Vic. c. 30; 18 & 14 Vic. c. 94; 23 & 24 Vic. c. 124. A bishopric is subdivided into archdeaconries, deanries, and parishes.-1 Inst. 94.

1 2 Inst. 585; 4 Inst. 1. About the middle of the nineteenth century the bishops bore only the proportion of one-fourteenth of the whole House of Peers. COKE says that bishops ought to be summoned to Parliament, but that an Act of Parliament is valid whether they assent or not to it. He says an Act of Parliament was proposed to be passed that no man should contract or marry himself to any Queen of England without the special licence and assent of the king. "And the bishops and clergy, being present, assented to this till as far forth as the same swerved not from the law of God and of the Church, and so as the same imported no deadly sin." And this was holden no assent, but the Act was passed omitting the preliminary statement that the prelates assented.-2 Inst. 586.

21 Inst. 97; 4 Inst. 1, 12; Hale quoted, Warburton's Alliance, 131. 3 16 Ch. I. c. 27; 13 Ch. II. c. 2. On the occasion of the union between England and Scotland the danger to the church, and especially of the exclusion of the bishops from the House of Lords, was used as an argument against it; and it was urged that, at least, the Scotch members should be prevented voting in any ecclesiastical matter.-H. L. Debates, 1706. On the creation of some modern bishoprics a limited right to sit in Parliament, according to priority, has been declared by statute 10 & 11 Vic. c. 108, § 2. Even the place of sitting of bishops in the House of Lords is defined by statute, 31 Hen VIII c. 10, § 3.

ancient canons and constitutions directed them to take no part in trials for capital offences, or, as it was described, in causes of blood.1 By this it is true it was only meant, that though they might sit and hear, they were to retire before the voting. And though a statute of William III. seemed to make no exception of spiritual peers, that statute was held to apply only to trials before the High Steward, and not to trials and impeachments before Parliament itself. But in either case, the bishops could not vote in capital cases. And as regards the right to be tried by their peers, i.e. by the temporal peers, they could only be so tried if the Parliament was sitting. This was said to be because the bishops sat, not by virtue of nobility, but solely by virtue of their offices, or because they thought if they were so tried they would admit a temporal jurisdiction.*

Powers and duties of bishops.-The bishops were at first the perpetual censors of the morals of the people, and soon reduced the practice of penance to a kind of code.5 Charlemagne is said to have first permitted bishops to have prisons of their own in which to confine lay offenders, while the monasteries had prisons for refractory clerks. In those times temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions were blended and confused without attempt at discrimination.

1 Gibs. 125; Lind. 269; 3 Inst. 30. Foster, Cr. L. 247. 3 2 Hawk. 424.

2 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 3;

1 Phillim. Eccl. L. 76. In 1700 when a bishop was deprived of his office by the archbishop's court, the Lords resolved that he could not claim the privilege to be tried by his peers in opposition to the archbishop's jurisdiction, and that after deprivation all claim to retain his temporalities ceased.-Lucy v Bp. Watson, 14 St. Tr. 447. In the early part of George III. it was doubted if a bishop on resigning could retain his seat in the House of Lords, and hence the Bishop of Rochester's resignation was not accepted.-1 Hallam, Const. II. c. 2. But resignation is now allowed by statute, see post. 5 Gibbon's Rome, c. 20.

Giannone, b. vi. c. 7. Bishops had anciently large powers of discipline. At an early date it was settled that he had power to Scourge the inferior clergy, but could only imprison the superior clergy.-Concil, Matiscon, can. 5. And thirty-nine stripes was the limit of the former, because Moses specified forty as the maximum. It was deemed a breach of discipline for one of the clergy who quarrelled with another not to submit the quarrel to the bishop; and resorting to a secular tribunal was a cause of deprivation.—Bing. Chr. Ant. b. xvii. c. 5. In the eighth century a bishop was bound to keep a separate house near the church for the purpose of entertaining strangers.-Ecgbright's Exc. A.D. 740.