DISPENSATION, in canon law, is the re laxation of a law in a particular case: it is an act for which the lawgiver is competent as re gards laws enacted by himself or by his prede cessors to whose powers he succeeds. It dif fers from absolution, for it not only forgives the illegal act but validates its results. It is claimed for the Supreme Pontiff that he can dis pense in matters where the jus divinum springs from a human act of will, as in vows and promissory oaths (Liguori) : in such case casu ists hold that the Pope does not do away with the jus diviussin but removes the ground of the obligation of oath or vow: in the words of Aquinas, °He determines what is pleasing to God?' The claim of power in the Pope to do this rests on the power granted to Saint Peter, of loosing, and binding. Dispensations were for centuries granted by bishops to their sub jects, not only from diocesan or provincial statutes, but even from laws imposed by a gen eral council or by the Pope; but since the time of Innocent III (d. 1216) the right has
been claimed as a prerogative of the Supreme Pontiff. Bishops by their ordinary power can dispense from the laws and statutes of their own diocese and from the general laws of the Church by virtue of powers delegated by the Pope, as in most vows and in the laws relating to fasts, abstinences, observance of holidays, etc. In 1534 Henry VIII decided that for his realm applications should no longer be made to Rome, and this assumption of ecclesiastical rights he conferred on the archbishop of Can terbury. Dispensations are generally obsolete in the Anglican Church, but bishops have power of issuing special marriage licenses and per mitting non-residence and the holding of two benefices.