Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/355

Rh Amendment Act was passed in the following year. In 1874 the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act was passed, having for its object to amend the law relating to land rights and conveyancing, and to simplify the law.   CONVOCATION, an assembly of the spirituality of the realm of England, which is summoned by the metro politan archbishops of Canterbury and of York respectively, within their ecclesiastical provinces, pursuant to a royal writ, whenever the Parliament of the realm is summoned, and which is also continued or discharged, as thn case may be, whenever the Parliament is prorogued or dissolved. t. This assembly of the spirituality, which is at present sum- l moned only in pursuance of a writ from the Crown, differs in its constitution and in the purport for which it is summoned from an ordinary provincial council, such as the two metropolitan archbishops of England have also been in the habit of summoning from time to time ; for whereas the ordinary provincial councils of the metropolitans have comprised only the bishops of their respective provinces, with whom, however, the deans and the abbots and other governing dignitaries of the church have been on occasions associated, the Convocations of the two provinces have always comprised a definite number of representatives of the clergy of the chapters and of the beneficed cbrgy of the several dioceses. Further, whereas the purport of an ordinary provincial council is to consult on matters which concern the faith or the peace of the church as a religious body, the Convocations are called together to treat of matters which concern the Crown, and the security and defence of the Church of England, and the tranquillity, public good, and defence of the realm itself. All these subjects are specified as probable matters for deliberation in the royal writs, under which the archbishops are commanded to call together their respective Convocations. These assemblies would thus appear to be integral parts of the body politic of the realm of England; but when and how they originated, and when and how they became so incorporated in it is not historically clear. This much is known from authentic records, that the present constitution of the Convocation of the prelates and clergy of the province of Canterbury was recognized as early as in the eleventh year of the reign of Edward I. (1283) as its normal constitution ; and that in extorting that recognition from the Crown, which the clergy accomplished by refusing to attend unless summoned in lawful manner (delnto modo) through their metropolitan, the clergy of the province of Canterbury taught the laity the possibility of maintaining the freedom of the nation against the encroachments of the royal power. It had been a provision of the Anglo-Saxon period, the origin of which is generally referred to the Council of Cloveshoo (747), that the possessions of the church should be exempt from taxation by the secular power, and that it should be left to the benevolence of the clergy to grant such subsidies to the Crown from the endowments of their churches as they should agree to in their own assemblies. It may be inferred, however, from the language of the various writs issued by the Crown for the collection of the &quot; aids &quot; voted by the Commune Concilium of the realm in the reign of Henry III., that the clergy were unable to maintain the exemption of church property from being taxed to those &quot; aids &quot; during that king s reign ; and it was not until some years had elapsed of the reign of Edward I. that the spirituality succeeded in vindicating their constitutional privilege of voting in their own assemblies their free gifts or &quot;benevolences,&quot; and in insisting on the Crown observing the lawful form of con voking those assemblies through the metropolitan of each province.

The form of the royal writ, which it is customary to is sue in the present day to the metropolitan of each province, is identical in its purport with the writ issued by the Crown in 1283 to the metropolitan of the province of Canterbury, after the clergy of that province had refused to meet at Northampton in the previous year, because they had not been summoned in lawful manner ; whilst the mandates issued by the metropolitans in pursuance of the royal writs, and the citations issued by the bishops in pursuance of the mandates of their respective metropolitans, are identical in their purport and form with those used in summoning the Convocation of 1283, which met at the New Temple in the city of London, and voted a &quot; benevol ence &quot; to the Crown, as having been convoked in lawful manner. The existing constitution of the convocation of the province of Canterbury and the same observation will apply to that of the province of York in respect of compnsing representatives or the chapters and. or the beneficed clergy, in addition to the bishops and other dignitaries of the church, would thus appear to be of even more ancient date than the existing constitution of the Parliament of the realm ; for the council of the realm, to which representatives of the counties and of the boroughs were for the first time summoned to the same place with the barons, to meet the king at Shrewsbury in the same year (1283) in which the Convocation of the province of Canterbury was summoned to the New Temple, differed in several important particulars from the Parliament of the realm, as at present constituted, although it is sometimes styled the Parliament of Shrewsbury, or of Acton Burnell. It was, in fact, an extraordinary council, to which the prelates, who were a constituent part of the Commune Concilium of the realm, were not. summoned, its object being to try David, the brother of Llewelyn, prince of Wales, who had surrendered himself a prisoner, on a charge of high treason against the Crown of England. The barons alone appear to have tried and condemned the prisoner, as far as may be inferred from the language of the annalists, although the commons may have been allowed a consultative voice. At all events the commons agreed with the barons in voting. an &quot; aid &quot; of a thirtieth to support the king s expedition into Wales, and the issuing of the ordinance known as the &quot; Statutum de Mercatoribus &quot; concluded the business for which the council was summoned. The settled constitu tion of Parliament as it exists in the present day was not completed until 1295 (23 Edward I.), when the repre sentatives of the commons were summoned to the same place with the barons, and the clergy as a body were also convened with the laity, under a novel clause known as the &quot;pnemunientes&quot; clause, which was inserted in the writs issued by the Crown directly to the bishops.

From this period down to the eleventh year of the reign of Edward III. there were continual contests between the spirituality of the realm and the Crown, the spirituality contending for their constitutional right to vote their subsidies in their provincial Convocations ; the Crown, on the other hand, insisting on the immediate attendance of the clergy in Parliament. The resistance of the clergy to the innovation of the &quot; pra3inunientes &quot; clause had so fat- prevailed in the reign of Edward II. that the Crown con sented to summon the clergy to Parliament through their metropolitans, and a special form of provincial writ was for that purpose framed; but the clergy protested against this writ, and the struggle was maintained between the spirituality and the Crown until 1337 (11 Edward III.), when the Crown reverted to the ancient practice of com manding the metropolitans to call together their clergy in their provincial assemblies, where their subsidies were voted in the manner as accustomed before the &quot; premunientes &quot; clause was introduced. The &quot; prsemunientes &quot; clause, how ever, was continued in the Parliamentary writs issued to the several bishops of both provinces, whilst the bishops were 