In the coming months, the General Synod and then the diocesan synods will be considering legislation enabling bishops of the Church of England to ordain women to the office of priest, and making related provisions as to the manner and effect of this change in the law and practice of the Church of England. The purpose of this article is not to examine that draft legislation, which at the time of writing is still being subjected to line-by-line scrutiny in a Revision Committee of the General Synod, but to sketch in some of the legal background against which it was prepared. In particular, there is a fundamental issue: why is legislation needed? To which may be added: why is Parliamentary authority, expressed by the approval of a Measure, required for any necessary change in the Canons?

At its April meeting, the Governing Body considered a varied agenda, including three items of legal interest. These were: firstly, an amendment relating to the size and composition of the membership of the Representative Body of the Church in Wales; secondly, the second reading of a bill to amend the canon law of the Church in Wales relating to clerical disabilities, and, thirdly, a motion seeking to render retired clerics ineligible for membership of Parochial Church Councils within the province.

‘One swallow docs not a summer make’ – so goes the old adage – and the object of this note is not to assert that reported cases are unreliable evidence. Its aim is to suggest that research must still extend beyond the printed evidence even for that period in history when collections of reported cases start to become freely available.

“I believe that in the years to come it will be the best thing this government has done and one of the best things any government has done in this century.”