Advowson

Advowson () or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiasticalbenefice or church living, a process known as presentation (jus praesentandi, Latin: "the right of presenting").

The word derives, via French, from the Latin advocare, from vocare "to call" plus ad, "to, towards", thus a "summoning". It is the right to nominate a person to be parish priest (subject to episcopal—that is, one bishop's—approval), and each such right in each parish was mainly first held by the lord of the principal manor. Many small parishes only had one manor of the same name.