Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/295

 Ch. 7. tions, authorities, and commodities, to the aid dignity of upreme head of the church appertaining. And another tatute to the ame purport was made, 1 Eliz. c. 1.

virtue of this authority the king convenes, prorogues, retrains, regulates, and diolves all eccleiatical ynods or convocations. This was an inherent prerogative of the crown, long before the time of Henry VIII, as appears by the tatute 8 Hen. VI. c. 1. and the many authors, both lawyers and hitorians, vouched by ir Edward Coke. So that the tatute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. which retrains the convocation from making or putting in execution any canons repugnant to the king's prerogative, or the laws, cutoms, and tatutes of the realm, was merely declaratory of the old common law : that part of it only being new, which makes the king's royal aent actually neceary to the validity of every canon. The convocation or eccleiatical ynod, in England, differs coniderably in it's contitution from the ynods of other chritian kingdoms: thoe coniting wholly of bihops; whereas with us the convocation is the miniature of a parliament, wherein the archbihop preides with regal tate; the upper houe of bihops repreents the houe of lords; and the lower houe, compoed of repreentatives of the everal diocees at large, and of each particular chapter therein, reembles the houe of commons with it's knights of the hire and burgees. This contitution is aid to be owing to the policy of Edward I; who thereby at one and the ame time let in the inferior clergy to the privilege of forming eccleiatical canons, (which before they had not) and alo introduced a method of taxing eccleiatical benefices, by conent of convocation. Rh