Walter Alison Phillips

“ Divorce (in Ireland) by act of parliament may be taken as an example which still actually occurs. On the other hand, the dispensing power once vested in the crown in England is now merely of historical interest, though of great importance in the constitutional struggles of the past. This power possessed by the crown of dispensing with the statute law is said to have been copied from the dispensations or non obstante clauses granted by the popes in matters of canon law ”

“ Even more scandalous was the almost unrestrained traffic in licences and dispensations at Rome, which grew up, at least as early as the 14th century, owing to the fees charged for such dispensations having come to be regarded by the Curia as a regular source of revenue (Woker, Das kirchliche Finanzwesen der Päpste, Nördlingen, 1878, pp. 75, 160) . Loud complaints of these abuses were raised in the reforming councils of Constance and Basel in the 15th century, but nothing was done effectually to check them. ”

“ Dispensations from the observance of traditional rules were, however, during the early centuries exceedingly rare, and there are more instances of the popes repudiating than of their exercising the power to grant them. Thus Celestine I. (d. 432) wrote: “The rules govern us, not we the rules: we are subject to the canons, since we are the servants of the precepts of the canons” (Epist. 3 ad Episcopos Illyrici) ; and Pope Zozimus wrote even more strongly: “This see possesses no authority to make any concession or change ”

“ It is now confined to granting dispensations for holding two benefices at once, to issuing licences for non-residence, and in matrimonial cases to the issuing of special licences. The dispensing power of bishops in the Church of England survives only in the right to grant marriage licences, i.e. ”

“ Hist. ss. 290, 291. (W. A. P.)
↑ In this quotation the word dispensatio still has its meaning of “economy”: “we are bound by the necessary economy of things.” Possibly its use by the pope in this connexion may have led to the technical meaning of the word dispensatio in the medieval canon law. ”