letters patent[1]. The chapter, conſiſting of canons or prebendaries, are ſometimes appointed by the king, ſometimes by the biſhop, and ſometimes elected by each other.
The dean and chapter are, as was before obſerved, the nominal electors of a biſhop. The biſhop is their ordinary and immediate ſuperior; and has, generally ſpeaking, the power of viſiting them, and correcting their excelles and enormities. They had alſo a check on the biſhop at common law: for till the ſtatute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28. his grant or leaſe would not have bound his ſucceſſors, unleſs confirmed by the dean and chapter[2].
Deaneries and prebends may become void, like a biſhoprick, by death, by deprivation, or by reſignation to either the king or the biſhop[3]. Alſo I may here mention, once for all, that if a dean, prebendary, or other ſpiritual perſon be made a biſhop, all the preferments of which he was before poſſeſſed are void; and the king may preſent to them in right of his prerogative royal. But they are not void by the election, but only by the conſecration[4].
III. An arch-deacon hath an eccleſiaſtical juriſdiction, immediately ſubordinate to the biſhop, throughout the whole of his dioceſe, or in ſome particular part of it. He is uſually appointed by the biſhop himſelf; and hath a kind of epiſcopal authority, originally derived from the biſhop, but now independent and diſtinct from his[5]. He therefore viſits the clergy; and has his ſeparate court for puniſhment of offenders by ſpiritual cenſures, and for hearing all other cauſes of eccleſiaſtical cognizance.
IV. The rural deans are very antient officers of the church[6], but almoſt grown out of uſe; though their deaneries ſtill ſubſiſt as an eccleſiaſtical diviſion of the dioceſe, or archdeaconry. They ſeem to have been deputies of the biſhop, planted all round his
