Editing Advowson (section)

==Origin==
The creation of an advowson was a secondary development arising from the process of creating [[parish]]es across England in the 11th and 12th centuries, with their associated parish churches.  A major impetus to this development was the legal exaction of agricultural [[tithe]]s specific to the support of churches and their clergy; landowners needed to establish parish churches on their lands in order to retain tithe income within their estates, and to this purpose sought to raise former [[Minster (church)|field churches]] to parish church status.   This was generally performed by a lord of a manor by rebuilding a church within the boundary of his manor, or within that of a newly [[Subinfeudation|subinfeudated]] manor, and then transferring proprietary rights of certain individual named fields, mills or [[messuage]]s (i.e. houses on the manor which earned rents) to establish a [[glebe]].

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|thane]]s as by Norman [[lord of the manor|lords]] and [[English feudal barony|feudal barons]].  Initially feudal lords exercised [[seigneur]]al ''[[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.<ref>{{cite book | last =McGurk | first = JJN |title= A Dictionary of Medieval Terms: For the Use of History Students |publisher= Reigate Press for St Mary's College of Education |location= Reigate, UK |year=1970|oclc= 138858 |page=1}}</ref> 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|overlord]] as was required for the alienation of the manor itself.<ref>{{cite book | last =Mirehouse | first = John |title=A Practical Treatise on the Law of Advowsons |publisher= Joseph Butterworth & Sons |year=1824}}</ref>