Advowson is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present or appoint a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation (ius praesentandi). In effect this means the right to nominate a person to hold a church office in a parish.[1] It is also known as advocation or patronage.
An advowson was regarded as property and could be bought, sold, or bequeathed but following reforms of parish administration in the 19th century it had little commercial value. Advowsons were valued for a number of reasons, including as a means for the patron to influence the parish through the appointee or to simply reward the appointee for services rendered. A benefice could include a house as well as the income, which would provide for the incumbent, and the value of the advowson would vary accordingly. Occasionally, advowsons were purchased to provide for descendants of a family, but most appointments were subject to the approval of the bishop of the diocese. At one time annexed to a manor or estate (which provided the land on which the church was built if not the building as well), many advowsons were sold off.[2]
The right to advowson originated in the rights of a feudal lord to control the churches on his estates.[3] Canon law, however, by the 12th century, decreed that the right to present belonged to the saint the church was dedicated to and that only church courts could rule on cases involving advowsons. King Henry II's Constitutions of Clarendon held otherwise, and, after Thomas Becket's murder, the king once more issued rules requiring cases involving advowsons to be heard by secular courts.[1]
Advowsons were one of the earliest incorporeal hereditaments. As such, courts will still occasionally look to the common law on the transfer of advowsons for guidance on the transfer of modern incorporeal hereditaments, such as farming allotments. See First Victoria Nat'l Bank v. United States, 620 F.2d 1096 (5th Cir., 1980).[4]