At our annual conference next March the proposed topics for discussion are the parson's freehold and clergy discipline. Although it will necessarily touch upon the latter, this article is primarily concerned with the parson's freehold. It is an attempt to consider some of the ramifications of that freehold now that it is a subject once more to be debated by the General Synod. I do not intend to reach any conclusion as to whether or not that freehold should be abolished or, indeed, as to what should replace it if it is. Rather, I would seek to raise questions that should be considered within the legal sphere whilst that debate continues. In so doing, however, I am only certain of three things: first, that the parson's freehold cannot be considered in isolation; second, that it is essential before anything is abolished that careful stock is taken of what actually is being abolished (otherwise the consequences may be other than intended); and third, that equal care must be given to what, if anything, should replace it. Underlying all this is my own conviction that the law is a framework to regulate a society, in this instance the Church. It may be a bastion to protect the weak or it may be a tool misused by the strong but in the last analysis, once others have decided that it should be altered, the lawyer's duty is to advise and then to implement. There is nothing immutable about the ecclesiastical law.

The best known of all medieval English canonists is William Lyndwood, compiler of the Provinciale. His name derives from what is now Linwood, in Lincolnshire, where his father John (d. 1419) was a woolman, and where (according to his will) he was born. William was sent to Cambridge, where he studied at Gonville Hall and is said to have become a fellow of Pembroke Hall. In the old library of Gonville and Caius College there was an inscription in the window requesting prayers for Lyndwood as ‘hujus collegii quondam commensalis’. His lectures have not survived, and the exact dates of his university residence are not known; but he was certainly a doctor of both laws by 1407, when he was ordained priest. By that time he already held a number of benefices – the earliest we know of was the wardenship of a hospital in 1396 – and he was to collect many more in the course of his career. These were not actual occupations, but sources of income intended to maintain a lawyer destined for high office.

The immediate reason for this paper is the imminent coming into force of the Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1991 which makes several references to ‘chancellor’ but does not specify in which of his offices the chancellor will be acting. A wider reason is that chancellors are increasingly needing to consider the capacities in which they act for such purposes as issuing practice directions and issuing instructions about the care of churches and churchyards. In the 1991 Measure, section 6(3) requires every chancellor to issue written guidance to parochial church councils (PCCs) about trees in churchyards. Section 11 (8) requires every chancellor to issue written guidance to PCCs, ministers and churchwardens as to those matters which he considers to be of such a minor nature that they may be undertaken without faculty. Section 13(6) allows a chancellor ‘of his own motion’ to issue an injunction to restrain an unlawful act or to make a restoration order if such an act has been done. Section 14 requires every chancellor to confer jurisdiction to grant faculties to archdeacons to such extent as is prescribed in rules. Section 18 provides a procedure whereby a chancellor may by instrument authorise the demolition of a church where this is necessary in the interests of safety or health without a faculty having been sought or granted. When the chancellor acts under these various sections will he do so as chancellor, as vicar-general or as official principal, or in all three capacities, and should he specify in which capacity he acts? In relation to directions or instructions given outside the authority of such a measure do similar questions arise?

The broadcasting world is currently undergoing a revolution. The new technologies of cable and, more importantly, satellite broadcasting have brought within reach an enormous potential expansion and diversity in broadcasting. The Broadcasting Act 1990 is the government's response to the challenge, creating a mostly new regulatory framework. Alongside technological advance there has been a growing concern with regulating programme quality, as the creation of the Broadcasting Standards Commission (placed by Pt. V of the Act on a statutory footing) bears witness. A minor, but not insignificant, place in these cross-currents of ferment is occupied by religious broadcasting. This article seeks to place the controls and duties relating to religious broadcasting under the new regime within the context of its history in the UK and to consider the extent to which the new legal and administrative controls achieve an acceptable balance between religious expression and control of standards.