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Advowson () 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 Manorialism. Many small parishes only had one manor of the same name.
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 Thegn as by Norman lords and feudal barons. Initially feudal lords exercised 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 Lord as was required for the alienation of the manor itself.
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.
There were also many lords of manors and patrons of appurtenant livings who were , that is to say who remained and refused to adopt the new Protestant religion. Such patrons were disbarred from making presentations by the Presentation of Benefices Act 1605 (3 Jas. 1. c. 5), which transferred the right for the time being to the universities of Oxford or Cambridge according to the geographical location of the parish.. The university was allowed to assign this right to a third party adherent to the new religion, for consideration or otherwise..
Following reforms of parish administration in the late 19th century (principally the imposition of secular parishes and wider county and district authorities), the advowson had negligible commercial value. The Benefices Act 1898 (Amendment) Measure 1923 phased out advowsons so that they could not be sold or inherited after two vacancies occurred after 14 July 1924 and enabled their elimination earlier by direction of the current patron. It had the effect, however, in the words of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, in 1933, "that the sale of advowsons very rapidly increased. Patrons were eager to sell, and were advised to sell, while their proprietary rights had still some financial value, and there can be no doubt the opportunity was used very largely to secure advowsons for party purposes and for party trusts.". The purchase of advowsons to ensure that a parish became an Anglo-Catholic, or more often Evangelical, stronghold, had begun in the 19th century. It led to a number of situations where an incumbent was imposed on a parish, and had been partly dealt with by the establishment of Diocesan Boards of Patronage in 1932.
The rich body of common law regarding advowsons can sometimes become relevant in modern times when dealing with disputes over modern incorporeal hereditaments, such as farming allotments, that are not handled by statute or adequately settled by other common law. An example, outside the English jurisdiction, is the 1980 case of First Victoria National Bank v. United States.
A benefice generally included use of a house, i.e. a vicarage, parsonage or rectory, as well as the income from the glebe and tithes, which would provide for the living expenses of the incumbent, and the value of the advowson would thus vary according to how richly endowed the glebe had been out of the lord of the manor's manorial lands. For example: the advowson of the parish of Paulerspury in Northamptonshire (Peterborough diocese) was bought by New College, Oxford, in 1750 for the sum of £1,300.
Advowsons were frequently used by lords and landowners as a means of providing a career and income for a younger son who, due to the custom of primogeniture, would not inherit any of the paternal lands. If the father did not already own a suitable advowson, he might purchase one for this purpose.
Inheritants of any part of these lands could be expressed to hold the right of advowson appurtenant to their lands, in many cases impliedly, but not so in registered land. In most instances, lay holders are willing to donate them without payment to the diocese, on being asked to do so in a polite letter from the bishop.For example, the advowson of the manor of Siston, Gloucestershire. Advowsons have lower value to lay holders, since the ban on sale of livings is more easily enforced and few lay holders wish to exert a proxy influence over the morals of their neighbourhood, most of which would have from medieval times to the 19th century have been their tenants in the parish, nor in such a way for their younger children to be put forward for preferred selection as parish priests, which was in the era of often a source of high real-terms pay. Lay advowsons have been left by successive wills or estate successions and so it is a sign of past wealth to hold many advowsons. Debrett's Peerage of 1995 shows John Hervey, 7th Marquess of Bristol (d. 1999), then aged 40, in a modern extreme example: he was "patron of thirty livings". Debretts Peerage 1995 edition, p.162 as his father had been, in the 1968 edition for example.
Many advowsons rest with the Church Society on the Protestant wing of the church, and on the Anglo-Catholic wing with The Church Union and the Society for the Maintenance of the Faith. Donation to one of these can help to seek to see that style of worship remains constant over generations in a parish with slightly less regard to reforms in either direction introduced by the local bishops, though in all cases the ultimate decisions to appoint and promote rest with the bishops. This is tempered by the central policies of many faiths, but particularly churches, of subsidiarity (local differentiation) which is opposed to dogma from senior figures.
In 2019, Teresa Sutton argued for three specific reforms in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal:
"First, propose a sunset rule on individual private lay patronage providing that personal patronage may no longer be passed onto another individual.Anthony Jennings responded to Sutton's article describing her proposal to abolish private patronage as "drastic".Second, develop a nominal figurehead 'charity patron' role without formal rights of presentation for educational or guild patrons that are willing to retain supportive links with a church.
Finally, recognise value in the work of the patronage societies in reflecting churchmanship through provision for societies to assist parishes, but only where PCCs opt into continuing that arrangement at the point of vacancy."
In March 2021, the PCC of St Luke's, West Holloway announced it is seeking a patron other than the Church Pastoral Aid Society. St Luke's is a member of Inclusive Church and flies an LGBT Pride flag, an outlook not shared by CPAS, according to Rev John MacKenzie, vicar of the church. The PCC believes that "the CPAS board of trustees did not want to give up this patronage without acquiring another in its place, but might be willing to swap". Writing about the system of patronage, Martin Wroe suggested it is "time to disempower some of these hidden hierarchies and place a little more trust in the local".
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