Advowson

Advowson (/ədˈvaʊzən/) or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation (jus praesentandi, Latin: "the right of presenting").

The word derives, via French, from the Latin advocare, from vocare "to call" plus ad, "to, towards", thus a "summoning". It is the right to nominate a person to be parish priest (subject to episcopal – that is, one bishop's – approval), and each such right in each parish was mainly first held by the lord of the principal manor. Many small parishes only had one manor of the same name.

The creation of an advowson was a secondary development arising from the process of creating parishes across England in the 11th and 12th centuries, with their associated parish churches. A major impetus to this development was the legal exaction of agricultural tithes specific to the support of churches and their clergy; landowners needed to establish parish churches on their lands in order to retain tithe income within their estates, and to this purpose sought to raise former field churches to parish church status. This was generally performed by a lord of a manor by rebuilding a church within the boundary of his manor, or within that of a newly subinfeudated manor, and then transferring proprietary rights of certain individual named fields, mills or messuages (i.e. houses on the manor which earned rents) to establish a glebe.

Where parish churches existed on manors established before the Norman Conquest of 1066, the position is less clear and records generally are scarce from which to reconstruct a history. Britain was split into dioceses, however, and many parish churches were established long before that time, and the process of their creation was likely similarly performed by Anglo-Saxon thanes as by Norman lords and feudal barons. Initially feudal lords exercised seigneural dominium over these new parish churches, exacting an introit fee on appointment, and an annual rent thereafter. The restriction of these seigneural rights to that of 'advowson', purely a right of presentation, developed with the process of Gregorian Reform; in consequence of which payments from spiritual income to lay lords were forbidden. The new process was performed in conjunction with the bishop of the diocese in which the manor was situated.

The lord of the manor, having incurred a very great expense in building the church and parsonage and having suffered a loss of income due to his donation of property to the glebe, quite reasonably insisted on the right to select the individual who would act as parish priest, from which office he could not be ejected by the lord until the priest's death. The bishop, without whose consecration the new church would have no religious and spiritual stature, in turn demanded the right of confirmation of the appointment. Thus from the earliest time the advowson was "appurtenant to" the manor, that is to say it appertained to the manor and was exercisable by the lord.

The advowson, being real property could be "alienated" (i.e. disposed of) by sale or gift of the patron, but with special licence from the overlord as was required for the alienation of the manor itself.

Where a manor was split into moieties due to inheritance by co-heiresses, the advowson was also split. Before the 13th century, this would commonly result in the rectory (and its advowson) being split into two or more portions, with the successors of each co-heiress from then on separately nominating a parish priest as their 'portioner'. Emerging Canon Law however, strongly deprecated dividing the cure of souls for a single parish in this way, and bishops ceased to allow such devices; except in the case of portionary collegiate foundations. Henceforth therefore, if a lord of a manor died without male issue but with two daughters, the manorial lands would be split into two moieties, still however within the original undivided parish, controlled by the husbands of each daughter, and the advowson would be held by each daughter's husband jure uxoris in turn. The husband of the elder daughter would have the right to the first presentation, that is to say, the right to appoint a new priest to the first vacancy, whilst the husband of the second daughter – or more usually, given the life tenure of priests, their descendant – would hold the right to the second presentation.

Where manors were split into three or more moieties or "purparties", the turns of presentation expanded accordingly. Bishops then sought to convert existing portionary churches into presentation by turns; but portionary arrangements nevertheless survived in several parishes into the 19th century; and a few still operate (though in name only, the portions being united into a single incumbent). Patrons in need of ready cash might seek to capitalize on the value of their advowsons by selling turns of presentation; either the next turn singly, or alternate future turns as a long-term asset.