A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

3. By the statute of the Articuli cleri, (9 Edw. II. st. i. c. 8,) in the articles exhibited by the clergy, one is as follows: Also barons of the king’s Exchequer, claiming by their privilege, that they ought to make answer to no complainant out of the same place, do extend the same privilege unto clerks abiding there, called to orders or unto residence, and inhibit ordinaries that by no means, or for any cause, so long as they be in the Exchequer, or in the king’s services, they shall not call them to judgment. “Unto which it is answered,” It pleaseth our lord the king, that such clerks as attend in his service, if they offend, shall be correct by their ordinaries, like as other; but so long as they are occupied about the Exchequer, they shall not be bound to keep residence in their churches. And this is added of new by the king’s council: “The king and his ancestors, since time out of mind, have used that clerks which are employed in his service, during such time as they are in service, shall not be compelled to keep residence at their benefices; and such things as be thought necessary for the king and commonwealth, ought not to be said to be prejudicial to the liberty of the Church.”

By the 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13, commonly called the statute of Non-residence: As well every spiritual person, now being promoted to any archdeaconry, deanery, or dignity in any monastery, or cathedral church, or other church conventual or collegiate, or being beneficed with any parsonage or vicarage; as all and every spiritual person and persons, which hereafter shall be promoted to any of the said dignities or benefices, with any parsonage or vicarage, shall be personally resident and abiding in, at, and upon his said dignity, prebend, or benefice, or at any one of them at the least; and in case he shall not keep residence at one of them as aforesaid, but absent himself wilfully by the space of one month together, or by the space of two months to be at several times in any one year, and make his residence and abiding in any other places by such time, he shall forfeit for every such default £10, half to the king, and half to him that will sue for the same in any of the king’s courts by original writ of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in which action and suit the defendant shall not wage his law, nor have any essoin or protection allowed. (S. 26.)

And if any person or persons shall procure at the court of Rome, or elsewhere, any licence or dispensation to be non-resident at their said dignities, prebends, or benefices, contrary to this act; every such person, putting in execution any such dispensation or licence for himself, shall incur the penalty of £20 for every time so doing, to be forfeited and recovered as aforesaid, and such licence or dispensation shall be void. (S. 27.)

Provided that this act of non-residence shall not extend nor be prejudicial to any such spiritual person as shall chance to be in the king’s service beyond the sea, nor to any person going to any pilgrimage or holy place beyond the sea, during the time that they shall so be in the king’s service, or in the pilgrimage going and returning home; nor to any scholar or scholars being conversant and abiding for study, without fraud or covin, at any university within this realm or without; nor to any of the chaplains of the king or queen, daily or quarterly attending and abiding in the king’s or queen’s most honourable household; nor to any of the chaplains of the prince or princess, or any of the king’s or queen’s children, brethren, or sisters, attending daily in their honourable households, during so long as they shall attend in any of their households; nor to any chaplain of any archbishop or bishop, or of any spiritual or temporal lords of the parliament, daily attending, abiding, and remaining in any of their honourable households; nor to any chaplain of any duchess, marquess, countess, viscountess, or baroness, attending daily and abiding in any of their honourable households; nor to any chaplain of the lord chancellor, or treasurer of England, the king’s chamberlain, or steward of his household for the time being, the treasurer and comptroller of the king’s most honourable household for the time being, attending daily in any of their honourable households; nor to any chaplain of any of the knights of the honourable order of the Garter, or of the chief justice of the King’s Bench, warden of the ports, or of the master of the rolls, nor to any chaplain of the king’s secretary, dean of the chapel, amner for the time being, daily attending and dwelling in any of their households, during the time that they shall so abide and dwell without fraud or covin, in any of the said honourable households; nor to the master of the rolls, or dean of the arches, nor to any chancellor or commissary of any archbishop or bishop, nor to as many of the twelve masters of the chancery and twelve advocates of the arches as shall be spiritual men, during so long time as they shall occupy their said rooms and offices; nor to any such spiritual persons as shall happen by injunction of the lord chancellor, or the king’s council, to be bound to any daily appearance and attendance to answer to the law, during the time of such injunction. (S. 28.)

Provided also, that it shall be lawful to the king to give licence to every of his own chaplains, for non-residence upon their benefices; anything in this act to the contrary notwithstanding. (S. 29.)

Provided also, that every duchess, marquess, countess, baroness, widows, which shall take any husbands under the degree of a baron, may take such number of chaplains as they might have done being widows; and that every such chaplain may have like liberty of non-residence, as they might have had if their said ladies and mistresses had kept themselves widows. (S. 33.) [This statute is abstracted from Burn in order to show the history of the law regarding residence, but it was repealed by the 57 Geo. III. c. 99, and that act also was repealed, and the whole question resettled, in 1838, by 1 & 2 Vic. c. 106, which is abstracted towards the end of this article.]

By the 25 Hen. VIII. c. 16. Whereas by the statute of the 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13, it was ordained, that certain honourable persons, as well spiritual as temporal, shall have chaplains beneficed with cure to serve them in their honourable houses, which chaplains shall not incur the danger of any penalty or forfeiture made or declared in the same parliament, for non-residence upon their said benefices; in which act no provision was made for any of the king’s judges of his high courts, commonly called the King’s Bench and the Common Pleas, except only for the chief judge of the King’s Bench, nor for the chancellor nor the chief baron of the king’s Exchequer, nor for any other inferior persons being of the king’s most honourable council: It is therefore enacted, that as well every judge of the said high courts, and the chancellor and chief baron of the Exchequer, the king’s general attorney and general solicitor, for the time that shall be, shall and may retain and have in his house, or attendant to his person, one chaplain having one benefice with cure of souls, which may be absent from his said benefice, and not resident upon the same; the said statute made in the said one and twentieth year, or any other statute, act, or ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding.

By the 28 Hen. VIII. c. 13. Whereas divers persons, under colour of the proviso in the act of the 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13., which exempteth persons conversant in the universities for study, from the penalty of non-residence, contained in the said act, do resort to the universities, where, under pretence of study, they live dissolutely, nothing profiting themselves by study at all, but consume the time in idleness and other pastimes: It is enacted, that all persons who shall be to any benefice or benefices promoted, as is aforesaid, being above the age of forty years, the chancellor, vice-chancellor, commissary of the said universities, wardens, deans, provosts, presidents, rectors, masters, principals, and other head rulers of colleges, halls, and other houses or places corporate within the said universities, doctors of the chair, (readers of divinity in the common schools of divinity in the said universities only excepted,) shall be resident and abiding at and upon one of their said benefices, according to the intent and true meaning of the said former act, upon such pain and penalties as be contained in the said former act, made and appointed for such beneficed persons for their non-residence; and that none of the said beneficed persons, being above the age aforesaid, except before except, shall be excused of their non-residence upon the said benefices, for that they be students or resiants within the said universities; any proviso, or any other clause or sentence, contained in the said former act of non-residence, or any other thing to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.

And further, that all and singular such beneficed persons, being under the age of forty years, resident and abiding within the said universities, shall not enjoy the privilege and liberty of non-residence, contained in the proviso of the said former act, unless he or they be present at the ordinary lecture and lectures, as well at home in their houses, as in the common school or schools, and in their proper person keep sophisms, problems, disputations, and other exercises of learning, and be opponent and respondent in the same, according to the ordinance and statutes of the said universities; anything contained in the said proviso, or former act, to the contrary notwithstanding.

Provided always, that nothing in this act shall extend to any person who shall be reader of any public or common lecture in divinity, law civil, physic, philosophy, humanity, or any of the liberal sciences, or public or common interpreter or teacher of the Hebrew tongue, Chaldee, or Greek; nor to any persons above the age of forty years, who shall resort to any of the said universities to proceed doctors in divinity, law civil, or physic, for the time of their said proceedings, and executing of such sermons, disputations, or lectures, which they be bound by the statutes of the universities there to do for the said degrees so obtained.