IV. c. 72 ; 5 Geo. IV. c. 103; 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 72; 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 38; 2 & 3 Will. IV. c. 61; 7 Will. IV. & 1 Viet C. 107; 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49; 3 & 4 Vict. c. 60) are made perpetual cures, and the incumbents corporations.
A donative is a spiritual preferment, whether church, chapel, or vicarage, which is in the free gift of the patron, without making any presentation to the bishop, and without admission, institution, or induction by mandate from the bishop or any other ; but the donee may by the patron, or by any other authorized by the patron, be put into possession. Nor is any licence from the bishop necessary to perfect the donee's title to possession of the donative, but it receives its full effect from the single act and sole authority of the donor. The chief further peculiarity of donatives is their exemption from epis copal jurisdiction.
The manner of visitation of donatives is by commissioners appointed by the patron. If the patron dies during the vacancy of a donative benefice, the right of nomination descends to the heir-at law, and does not belong to his executors, as is the case with the patronage of pre sentative livings. Donatives, if aug mented by Queen Anne's Bounty, become liable to lapse, and also to episcopal visi tation. (1 Geo. I. seas. 2, c. 10.) But no donatives can be so augmented with out the consent of the patron in writing, under his hand and seal. Both perpetual curates and incumbents of donatives are obliged to declare their assent to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, in the manner pre scribed by the statute 13 Eliz. c. 12, and the Act of Uniformity above mentioned, and must also take the oaths of allegi sum, supremacy, and abjuration, acoord ing to the provisions of statutes 1 Geo. I. sess. 2, c. 13, and 9 Geo. II. c. 26; and the right of patronage, both of perpetual curacies and donatives, is to be vindi cated by writ of Quare Impedit. (Burn, Eccles. Law, tit. " Donative.") Neither the augmentation nor the alienation of benefices with cure of souls was favoured by the old English law. To prevent augmentation was one of the ob jects of the statutes of Mortmain, one of which (23 Hen. VIII. c. 10) expressly makes void all assurances of lands in favour of parish churches, chapels, &c.
It might have been reasonably expected that, at the time of the dissolution of mo nasteries, the clergy would have received back those revenues which, being origin ally vested in them for religious purposes, had been subsequently appropriated by the monks. Such a measure, however, was not agreeable to the temper either of King Henry VIII. or his parliaments. When that king came to a rupture with the pope, he resolved to free his dominions from the payment of first-fruits and tenths to the papal treasury. The first of thee, taxes consisted of one year's whole profits of every spiritual preferment, ac cording to a valuation of benefices made by the pope's authority ; the second, of the tenth part of the annual profit of each benefice, according to the same valuation.
The payment of these to the pope was prohibited by statute 25 Henry VIII. c. 20 ; and the next year, by statute 26 Henry VIII. c. 3, the whole of the re venue arising therefrom was annexed to the crown. The last-mentioned statute directed these taxes to be paid according to a new valuation of ecclesiastical be nefices to be made by certain commis sioners appointed for the purpose. This valuation is what is called the valua tion of the king's books. The statute 26 Henry VIII. c. 3, was confirmed by statute 1 Eliz. c. 4. [Fran FRUITS and TENTHS.] The subsequent proceedings of Henry VIII., after the appropriation of the pos sessions of the monasteries, tended rather to enrich the collegiate and other cor porations aggregate with the revenues of the church, than to retest them in their ancient possessors. Nor was the latter object the aim of his successors until more than a century after his death ; but after the restoration of Charles II. the scandal of lay impropriations gave rise to some relaxation of the statutes of mortmain. Thus by statute 17 Car. II. c. 3, power was given to lay impropriators of tithes to annex such tithes to, or settle them in trust for, the parsonage or vicarage of the parish church to which they belonged, or for the perpetual curate, if there was no vicarage endowed ; and by the same statute, in cases where the settled main tenance of the parsonage or vicarage, with cure, did not amount to the full sum of 1001. a year, clear of all charges and reprises, the incumbent was empowered to purchase for himself and his successors lands and tithes, without licence of mort main. Another statute of the same reign (29 Car. II. c. 8) confirms, for a per petuity, such augmentations of vicarages and perpetual curacies as had been already made for a term of years by ecclesiastical corporations on granting leases of im propriatory rectories. The act also con firms future augmentations to be made iu the same manner, subject to a limitation which has since been taken off by statute 1 & 2 Will. IV o. 45, by which the provisions of 29 Car. H. c. 8, have been considerably extended. The acts 1 & 2 Vict. c. 107, and 3 & 4 Vict. e. 113, have made further provisions for the aug mentation of benefices. But the princi pal augmentation of the revenues of the church was made under the provisions of the statute 2 & 3 Anne, c. 11. By this act, and by the queen's letters-patent made in pursuance of it, all the revenue of the first-fruits and tenths was vested in trustees for the augmentation of small benefices. This fund is what is usually called Queen Anne's Bounty, and has since been further regulated by statutes 5 Anne c. 24 ; 6 Anne, c. 27; 1 Geo. I. seas. 2, c. 10 ; 3 Geo. I. 0. 10.