Too little is known about the history of the profession of ecclesiastical law. It is a good subject for research. The Prefect of the Vatican Library once described the medieval English ecclesiastical lawyers as a ‘much-maligned class’ that has commonly been held responsible for a great many of the ills that afflicted the English Church. He was restating a not uncommon judgment among historians who have been obliged by their subject to say something about ecclesiastical lawyers. But it is a statement about public perception rather than actual conditions among these lawyers. There needs to be somewhat more of the latter. We do know something about the top of the profession, the advocates and judges of Doctors' Commons. The rest of the landscape is almost wholly terra incognita. About the diocesan registrar, the backbone of the profession, there is only one article – a good article to be sure – but only one: that published in 1976 by Rosemary O'Day. There is much more to be done.

Since our next pair were not lawyers at all. it may seem rather incongruous to include them in the company of ‘canon lawyers’. Yet it would be pedantic to exclude them from a survey of English canonistic literature for want of the requisite formalities, especially since their collections of legal sources have been so widely consulted by ecclesiastical lawyers down to the present. Both their endeavours were prompted, indirectly, by a fierce controversy over the constitution of the Church of England and the historic role of Convocation; but, unlike much of the polemical literature spawned by that debate, the works of Gibson and Wilkins each made a more enduring contribution to the history of English ecclesiastical law.

The office of archdeacon has its origins in the early history of the Church. The archdeacon is referred to by St. Jerome and other writers of the fourth century. He was the principal deacon of a local church. The eminent Victorian ecclesiastical lawyer, Sir Robert Phillimore wrote: ‘The primitive offices of the archdeacon may be enumerated under five heads. First, to attend the bishop to the altar and to order all things relating to the inferior clergy and ministrations in the church. Secondly, to assist the diocesan in the distribution and management of the ecclesiastical revenues.’

In the public mind noise is associated more with the sound of twentieth century inventions than the ages old chime of church clocks and the clang of church bells or indeed the crowing of cockerels. The Law Reports give little guidance as to the principles governing the legal liability in the case of nuisance from clocks, bells and cockerels at common law and the circumstances in which an injunction can be obtained to stop them, in contrast to a steady flow of cases arising out of noise created by today's mechanised and industralised society. However, it would appear from recent experience as reported in national newspapers and from the writer's own experience that these issues are very much alive and of interest to practitioners, particularly those who are advising ecclesiastical authorities.

In this paper I offer some warnings regarding the scheme for alternative episcopal oversight now embodied in the Act of Synod passed by the House of Bishops and published as Appendix B to Ordination of Women to the Priesthood: Pastoral Arrangements. These arrangements provide sacramental care as well as oversight for opponents of the ordination of women to the priesthood. Furthermore, the scheme is intended to serve two purposes: first, to safeguard the position of bishops and other clergy opposed to women's ordination; secondly, to ensure a continuity of such bishops and clergy. That the scheme is flawed becomes apparent when one examines it in the light of an arrangement devised at the end of the 17th century. The arrangement had been intended to secure the episcopal oversight of the body, both clerical and lay, which separated itself from the Church of England in 1690–91. The separation stemmed from its members feeling themselves unable to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary; hence the term ‘Nonjurors’.

The first statutory reference to a Vicar General in Man appears in an Act of Tynwald (the ancient Manx Legislative Assembly and which stil exists and operates today as a modern and democratically elected body) namely section 3 of ‘a book of spiritual laws and customs of the Island’.

In October 1992 representatives of the British and Irish Anglican Churches, together with their counterparts from the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Churches signed an historic agreement near Porvoo in Finland which, if accepted by all these churches, will bring about their closer communion. The Porvoo Common Statement and a supporting dossier of Essays on Church and Ministry in Northern Europe were published in 1993 (Together in Mission and Ministry, Church House Publishing, London). The Porvoo Common Statement is now being considered by the General Synod which will be asked to accept a core Joint Declaration. This begins by a mutual acknowledgement of each other's churches as part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. A second acknowledgement follows concerning the mutual presence of the Word of God and the Sacraments of baptism and the eucharist;then acknowledgements of the common confession of the apostolic faith and the ministry as both an instrument of grace and as having Christ's commission.

At the April 1995 meeting of the Governing Body, the Constitution of the Church in Wales was amended in accordance with decisions taken by the Governing Body in September 1994. It had been resolved that stipendiary clerics and non-stipendiary clerics under seventy years of age should not receive fees for taking services in vacant incumbencies, but that retired clerics, readers and non-stipendiaries over the age of seventy should receive such fees. All should receive travelling expenses. The Maintenance of Ministry Scheme was accordingly amended to reflect these decisions by minor amendments to section 6 (1) (h) and section 6 (3) of the Scheme and the replacement of sections 4 and 5 of the Third Schedule thereto. The Governing Body had also agreed that a maximum of two lay persons per diocese should be included in the Maintenance of Ministry Scheme, which provides for the payment of ministers, provided that these were accredited lay Ministers licensed by the diocesan bishop to engage in the work of mission and ministry in a parochial or diocesan capacity. The lay persons concerned were to be counted as serving clerics for the purposes of allocating monies among the dioceses. The Maintenance of Ministry Scheme has again been amended to effect these decisions, this time by the introduction of a new paragraph (k) in section 6 (1) – the existing paragraphs (k) to (m) being redesignated (1) to (n) as a result – and by the introduction of a new paragraph (e) into section 6 (2).