When the piety of some rich and prominent men, or great lords, induced them to build churches, near, or upon, their own estates, and endow them with land called a glebe, or to appropriate the rent or tithes from neighbouring lands of their own, to their support, the bishops, (non-episcopal church organizations did not then exist) desiring to encourage such pious undertakings, permitted these rich men to appoint what person they pleased to officiate in such chlirches, and receive the emoluments annexed to them ; reserving to themselves only the power to examine, judge of, and pass u])on, the qualifications of the persons so nominated. Originally a mere indulgence, this practice in process of time became a right. And those who had either founded or endowed a church naturally claimed and exercised the right of presenting a clergyman to the bishop for institution whenever the Church became vacant. This right of presentation originally allowed to the person who built or endowed a church, became by degrees annexed to the estate or Manor in which it was erected ; for the endowment, whether land, or i tithes of its produce, was taken as part of the Manor and held of it ; hence the right of presentation jiassed with the Estate or Manor to which it was appendant ' by grant, and thus became a species of property. '

' Presentation ' is the offering of a clergyman by the patron, or owner, of an advowson to the Bishop or ordinary, by a kind of letter in writing, requesting him to admit the clergyman named in it to the Church. When the Bishop, or Ordinary, alter due examination, certified in writing that the clergyman was a fit person to serve the church, the latter was said to be "admitted." The Bishop, or Ordinary then "instituted" the clergyman, by the formal commitment to him of the cure of souls.