land about three thousand eight hundred and forty-five, in contradistinction to those in the possession of spiritual persons.

As by virtue of these statutes the churches appropriate were granted to the king, the grantees of the crown had thereby not only the same interest in the appropriation that the religious houses had, but also an interest by the regal grant of an estate given them by parliament, and consequently had a fee or possession which, when the statutes of dissolution were made, was not of spiritual cognizance while in the hands of the king, and therefore could not be so in those of his patentees. (1)

Principally by 32 Henry VIII. impropriations Impropriations lay now in the possession of laymen are lay fees, fees. temporal inheritances, entirely free from spiritual jurisdiction, and transferable as any other species of property (2); an ejectment and every real action now lies for a rectory or tithes impropriate, and by that statute fines and all assurances may be had and made of them. (3)

(*) Wright v. Gerrard, wyn v. Awberry, 2 Mod. 254. Hob. R. 308. Selden, ch. 13. | Ayl. Par. Jur. Can. Ang. 90.

s. 1. Fanshaw v. Rotheram, 1 Eden's R. 281. Grendon's case, Plowd. R. 499. Wol

(2) 1 Inst. 159. a.

(3) Baldwin v. Wine, Cro. Car. 301. Com. Dig. tit. Adv. E.

The Instrument of an Appropriation.

Ralph, &c. To the religious men, the abbot and convent of the monastery of Stratford. Greeting you well, we esteem it pious, and acceptable to God, not only to plant holy religion, but also by all ways and means to cherish it when planted; considering therefore you and your monastery by reason of manifest and frequent floods of water, whereby the fruit of your lands, meadows, and pastures, and your cattle often perish; and also of the charge of persons resorting to you and your house, under colour of hospitality; and moreover by contributions and divers other frequent burthens, are so far reduced to poverty, that without great assistance, the expences brought upon you cannot be repaired; nor can the income for you and your monastery, serve for the necessary preservation of a life of religion, as it is convenient; we willing with all the care we can to relieve your necessities in this particular, with the advice and consent of the chapter of our church, for the relief of the charge and burthen aforesaid, and the maintenance of your holy religion, do give and grant to you, and by pontifical authority with a view of charity, do by the tenor of these presents appropriate to be possessed to your own use for ever, the parochial church of East-ham of our diocese near your monastery, whereof ye are the rightful patron, to which ye have presented several rectors at the late vacancies thereof, saving a fit portion thereof for a perpetual vicar to be hereafter, to administer in the same church as we order and direct; to wit, first we order that he who shall be vicar for the time being, shall have his meat and drink there as other vicars in times past have been accustomed to have; and that such vicar shall have and take the tythes of gardens and curtilages, and all manner of tythes, except tythes of corn and hay, and of mills; also that he shall have all manner of oblations, obventions, and legacies whatsoever left to that church, or to the use thereof, and other things, which by the right and custom of the church, ought to be carryed with dead corps, and all other things which are known to belong to alterage; and besides this, we order that the said

vicar shall have and receive every year from you, the abbot and convent, on the feast of St. Michael and Easter, by equal portions, five marks of lawful money, sterling, for the said tythes of to be by you duly paid to him as an augmentation of the portion aforesaid; as also, we, as well reserve, order, and decree the said vicarage as often as it shall happen to be vacant, to belong to our collation, and to the collation of our successors, bishops of London, and of our chapter the seat of the Bishop of London, being vacant, saving to us and our successors the right of jurisdiction and diocesan in the said parish church, and all other rights of right due, and accustomed as well to us as others, and saving in all respects the dignity of our cathedral church; but the said vicar shall bear all charges, except the repairing and rebuilding of the chancel: the abbot also, and his successors, and for the time being, as rectors of the said parochial church of Eastham, in the name of that church, shall bear, as other rectors of churches, canonical honour and reverence to us and our successors, and others the ordinaries of our diocese; in testimony whereof to this tripartite, indented writing, to wit, to that part to remain in the custody of the said abbot and convent, our seal, but to that part to remain with us, the seals which are used by the said abbot and convent; and to that part to remain in the custody of the chapter, as well our seal as that of the religious house, are affixed. Dated at London the

year of our Lord

day of

in the

Reasons for

CHAP. VI.

On Unions.

BY the common law, when churches are poor

and unable to support the charges to which they are subjected, they may be consolidated or united with the consent of the parson, patron and ordinary. (')

This consolidation, or union as it was called union in the in the canon law, was permitted for the sake of

canon law.

Pope and king for

merly granted unions.

hospitality, that the rector might thereby be better enabled to relieve the poor; in consequence of the vicinity of situation of several churches-on account of a want of parishioners -and extreme poverty in one or both of the parishes-all which reasons are enumerated out of the canon law. (2)

Thus there are examples in very ancient times of unions by the popes and bishops, according as

(1) Per Holt, C. J. In Harman v. Renew, 1 Salk. 165. Austin v. Twyne, Cro. El. 500. Reynoldson v. Blake and the Bishop of London, 1 Ld. Raym. R. 192.

(2) Concil. Tolet. 16. c.4. Still. Ecc. C. 226. Godolp. Rep. 170. Propter hospitalitatem, propter vicinitatem locorum, propter parochianorum defectum seu exilitatem.

they saw occasion. In the decretals we find pope Alexander the third sends his decree to the archbishop of York, reciting that in a complaint made to him, he had heard that a certain town in his province was so distant from the parish church, that it was very difficult for the inhabitants to repair thither, especially in winter, and withal that the church revenue of the parish (although that town were exempted) was not insufficient for the minister of the mother church, wherefore he commands the archbishop to build in that town a church, and with the assent of the founder of the mother church, to institute at the presentation of the rector an incumbent there, that might have to his own use all ecclesiastic profits increasing in the limits of the said town, and to acknowledge a superiority to the mother church, and that he should do it also whether the rector of the mother church would assent or not.

For the king-There is an old example in 13 Hen. III. where, because the church of St. Peter's in Chichester, was very poor, and that only two parishioners were in it, the king, at the request of Ralph Nevill, then bishop there and chancellor of England, grants quod eadem ecclesia demoliatur et prædicti duo parochiani qui spectabant ad ipsam assignentur in perpetuum hospitali S. Mariæ, quod eidem ecclesiæ est vici