Advowsons

An advowson is the right to present a nominee to a bishop for appointment as the incumbent of a parish church. The holder of the advowson (the patron) did not appoint the priest directly. The patron nominated a candidate, and the bishop decided whether to institute the nominee. In practice, bishops accepted the patron's choice in all but exceptional cases. The advowson was a property right, recognised and enforced by the common law, and it could be inherited, sold, given, or bequeathed.

Advowson appendant and advowson in gross

The law distinguished two forms. An advowson appendant was attached to a manor. When the manor was sold or inherited, the advowson passed with it automatically, as an appurtenance of the lordship. This was the original and most common form. The lord of the manor was the patron of the parish church because he or his predecessor had built and endowed it.

An advowson in gross was an advowson that had been severed from the manor to which it was originally attached. Once separated, it became a freestanding property right that could be held and transferred independently of any land. The separation could occur by express grant: a lord selling a manor might reserve the advowson, or grant the advowson alone to a religious house. Once severed, an advowson appendant could not be reattached to the manor.

Institutional patrons

Many advowsons were acquired by religious institutions. Priories, abbeys, and bishops accumulated advowsons through grants from lay lords seeking spiritual benefits. A lord might grant the advowson of his parish church to a monastery in return for prayers for his soul. The monastery would then present one of its own members, or a secular clerk of its choosing, to the living. By the fourteenth century, religious houses held the patronage of a large proportion of English parish churches.

The Dissolution and after

The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541) transferred monastic advowsons to the Crown along with the monastic estates. The Crown granted or sold many of these advowsons to the new lay owners of the former monastic lands. Others were retained by the Crown or passed to the bishops of the new dioceses. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 recorded which institutions held which advowsons on the eve of the Dissolution.

Advowsons continued to be bought and sold as property through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. A living with a good income (the tithes and glebe land of the parish) was a valuable asset. Patrons presented younger sons, relatives, or political allies. The patronage of a well-endowed parish church could sell for several thousand pounds.

Modern advowsons

The sale of advowsons was restricted by the Benefices Act 1898 and further regulated by the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986, which remains the governing legislation. Advowsons can still be held and transferred, but the patron's right of presentation is now subject to consultation with the parish, the bishop, and the diocesan board of patronage. The parochial church council has the right to object to a nominee. The Measure did not abolish advowsons but transformed them from an absolute right of nomination into a regulated right of participation in the appointment process.

For manorial research, advowsons are significant because presentations to a living (recorded in bishops' registers) provide dated evidence of who held the patronage of a church, and therefore, in many cases, who held the manor to which the advowson was appendant. Bishops' registers and the published Calendars of Patent Rolls record these presentations.