Thus much of the clergy, properly so called. There are also certain inferior ecclesiastical officers of whom the common law takes notice; and that, principally, to assist the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, where it is deficient in powers. On which officers I shall make a few cursory remarks. VII. Churchwardens are the guardians or keepers of the church, and representatives of the body of the parish. They are sometimes appointed by the minister, sometimes by the parish, sometimes by both together, as custom directs. They are taken, in favour of the church, to be, for some purposes, a kind of corporation at the common law: that is, they are enabled by that name to have a property in goods and chattels, and to bring actions for them, for the use and profit of the parish. Their office also is to repair the church, and make rates and levies for that purpose; but these are recoverable only in the ecclesiastical court. They are also joined with the overseers in the care and maintenance of the poor. They are to levy a shilling forfeiture on all such as do not repair to church on Sundays and holidays, and are empowered to keep all persons orderly while there; to which end it has been held that a churchwarden may justify the pulling off a man's hat, without being guilty of either an assault or trespass. There are also a multitude of other petty parochial powers committed to their charge by divers acts of parliament. VIII. Parish clerks and sextons are also regarded by the common law, as persons who have freeholds in their offices; and therefore though they may be punished, yet they cannot be deprived, by ecclesiastical censures*. The parish clerk was formerly very frequently in holy orders, and some are so to this day. He is generally appointed by the incumbent, but by custom may be chosen by the inhabitants. *The commentator only meant by this, that the ecclesiastical court cannot deprive them for it is thought that the incumbent may remove the clerk for sufficient cause. "He certainly," said lord Mansfield, "holds his office quamdiu se bene gesserit." R. v. Warren, Cowp. 371. QUESTIONS. Can a Clergyman be a Juryman? A sheriff? A constable? How is an Archbishop, or Bishop, elected? What led to the interference of Kings in the nomination of these ecclesiastical officers ? What was the origin of the conge d'elire? How is the right of nomination now exercised by the crown? What is the penalty attached to a disregard of the nomination of the crown? What are the duties and powers of an Archbishop? Who crowns the Kings and Queens of Great Britain ? What is the duty of a bishop? How may an Archbishopric or Bishopric become void? What becomes of the preferments of a spiritual person when he is made a Bishop? What is an Archdeacon, how appointed, and what are his functions? What are Rural Deans? What is a Parson-and from what is the word derived? Who has the freehold of the parsonage-house, the glebe, and tithes, &c.? What are appropriators? What is a "Vicar? State their history? To whom do great tithes, and small tithes belong? What is the distinction between a Parson and a Vicar? What are the four requisites in order to become a Parson or Vicar? What is necessary before a Deacon can be made a Parson or Vicar? What is a collation to a benefice? What is Induction-and how performed? How may a Parson, or Vicar, cease to be such? What is holding a living in commendam ? What is the lowest degree in the church? What are Churchwardens? How appointed? What are their general duties? Who are Parish-Clerks and Sextons? THE CIVIL STATE. NOBILITY-KNIGHTHOOD-BARONETCY-ESQUIRES GENTLEMEN. THE civil state consists of the nobility and the commonalty. The nobility, the peerage of Great Britain, or lords temporal-as forming, together with the bishops, one of the supreme branches of the legislature—we are here to consider according to their several degrees or titles of honour. All degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the king, as their fountain *; and he may institute what new titles he pleases. Hence it is that all degrees of nobility are not of equal antiquity. Those now in use are dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons +. 1. A duke, though he is with us, in respect of his title of nobility, inferior, in point of antiquity, to many others, yet is superior to all of them in rank; his being the first title of dignity after the royal family. Among the Saxons, the Latin name of dukes, duces, is very frequent, and signified, as among the Romans, the commanders or leaders of their armies, whom in their own language they called Deretoga; and in the laws of Hen. I., as translated by Lambard, we find them called heretochii. But after the Norman conquest, which changed the military polity of the nation, the kings themselves continuing for many generations dukes of Normandy, they would not honour any subjects with the title of duke, till the time of Edward III.; who, claiming to be king of France, and thereby losing the ducal in the royal dignity, in the eleventh year of his reign created his son, Edward the Black Prince, duke of Corn * 4 Inst. 363. For the original of these titles on the continent of Europe, and their subsequent introduction into this island, see Mr. Selden's Titles of Honour. wall; and many, of the royal family especially, were afterwards raised to the like honour. However, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1572, the whole order became utterly extinct; but it was revived about fifty years afterwards by her successor, who was remarkably prodigal of honours, in the person of George Villiers, duke of Buckingham. 2. A marquess, marchio, is the next degree of nobility. His office formerly was (for dignity and duty were never separated by our ancestors) to guard the frontiers and limits of the kingdom, which were called the marches, from the teutonic word marche, a limit; such as, in particular, were the marches of Wales and Scotland, while each continued to be an enemy's country. The persons who had command there were called lords marchers, or marquesses, whose authority was abolished by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 27; though the title had long before been made a mere ensign of honour, Robert Vere, earl of Oxford, being created marquess of Dublin, by Richard II., in the eighth year of his reign. : 66 3. An earl is a title of nobility so ancient that its original cannot clearly be traced out. Thus much seems tolerably certain that among the Saxons they are called ealdormen, quasi eldermen, signifying the same as senior or senator among the Romans; and also shiremen, because they had each of them the civil government of a several division or shire. On the irruption of the Danes they changed the name to eorles, which, according to Camden, signified the same in their language. In Latin they are called comites, a title first used in the empire from being the king's attendants; a societate nomen sumpserunt, reges enim tales sibi associant." After the Norman conquest they were for some time called counts, or countees, from the French; but they did not long retain that name themselves, though their shires are from thence called counties to this day. The name of earls, or comites, is now become a mere title, they having nothing to do with the government of the county; which, as has been more than once observed, is devolved on the sheriff, the earl's deputy, or vice-comes. In writs and commissions, and other formal instruments, the king, when he mentions any peer of the degree of an earl, usually styles him "trusty and well-beloved cousin :" an appellation as ancient as the reign of Henry IV., who being either by his wife, his mother, or his sisters, actually related or allied to every earl then in the kingdom, artfully and constantly acknowledged that connection in all his letters and other public acts; from whence the usage has descended to his successors, though the reason has long ago failed. 4. The name of vice-comes, or viscount, was afterwards made use of as an arbitrary title of honour, without any shadow of office pertaining to it, by Henry the Sixth; when, in the eighteenth year of his reign, he created John Beaumont a peer, by the name of viscount Beaumont, which was the first instance of the kind. 5. A baron's is the most general and universal title of nobility; for originally every one of the peers of superior rank had also a barony annexed to his other titles. But it hath sometimes happened that when an ancient baron hath been raised to a new degree of peerage, in the course of a few generations the two titles have descended differently, one perhaps to the male descendants, the other to the heirs general, whereby the earldom or other superior title hath subsisted without a barony; and there are also modern instances where earls and viscounts have been created without annexing a barony to their other honours: so that now the rule doth not hold universally, that all peers are barons. The origin and antiquity of baronies have occasioned great inquiries among our English antiquaries. The most probable opinion seems to be, that they were the same with our present lords of manors; to which the name of court baron, which is the lord's court, and incident to every manor, gives some countenance. It may be collected from king John's magna charta, that originally all lords of manors, or barons, that held of the king in capite, had seats in the great council, or parliament; till about the reign of that prince the conflux of them became so large and troublesome, that the king was obliged to divide them, and summon only the greater barons in person, leaving the small ones to be summoned by the sheriff, and, as it is said, to sit by representation in another house; which gave rise to the separation of the two houses of parliament. By degrees the title came to be confined to the greater barons, or lords of parliament only: and there were no other barons among the peerage but such as were summoned by writ, in |