The Convocations of Canterbury and York are the synodical assemblies of the bishops and clergy of each of the two provinces which comprise the Church of England.
Their origins go back to the ecclesiastical reorganisation carried out under Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (668–690) and the establishment of a separate northern province in 733.
Four years later, Archbishop Sheldon agreed to surrender the right of the clergy to tax themselves and as a result the convocations ceased to be licensed for business on a regular basis.
Pressure for the reactivation of the convocations began to mount in the 1840s as people began to realise that the Church of England and the state were no longer coterminous and that the Church of England needed to find some means of expressing its mind and will; Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, was a leading figure in pressing for their revival.
Prior to 1295, the Church in England had assembled in diocesan and provincial synods to regulate disciplinary and other matters interesting the body of the clergy.
Moreover, the archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors used to take their place in the national council on account of the estates they held in chief (in capite) of the English Crown.
The increasing frequency of royal appeals for money grants and the unwillingness of the bishops to be responsible for allowing them had brought Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, as early as 1225, to summon proctors of cathedral, collegiate and conventual churches to attend his provincial synod, and gradually that representative principle became part of the system of Convocation.
It was to facilitate the obtaining of money grants that Edward I endeavoured once more to unite representatives of the clergy and laity in one deliberative assembly, composed on the basis of temporal property.
To have countenanced the attempt would have been to recognize the Crown's claim to tax church property, and the clergy insisted upon their constitutional right of making their money grants in Convocation.
Two opinions have found defenders: one that the older ecclesiastical council fused with the Parliamentary representatives of the clergy; the other, that by the process of gradual decay of parliamentary representation of the clergy, part of their rights passed to the ecclesiastical councils, thus giving rise to the historical connection between the convocations and Parliament.
In 1296 the members of Convocation resolved themselves for deliberative purposes into four groups: bishops, monastic representatives, dignitaries and proctors of the clergy.
It continued to be convoked at the beginning of each Parliament, but its sittings were interrupted from 1640 to 1660 (being largely replaced by the puritan Westminster Assembly of Divines), to be resumed after the Stuart Restoration.
In 1689, in view of the opposition of the clergy to the Toleration Act of William III and Mary II, no summons was issued to Convocation.
The Commons, however, protested against the innovation, and their petition had its effect; at the same time Archbishop Tillotson, and to some extent his successor Tenison, met the difficulties of the situation by refusing to allow any deliberations.
The opposition of the Lower House was worn out by repeated prorogations immediately following the opening session, and with the exception of the discussions allowed in 1741 and 1742, Convocation ceased to be a deliberative body until 1852.
Its characters include Deans Blunt, Pliable, Primitive, Pompous and Critical; Archdeacons Jolly, Theory and Chasuble; and Doctors Easy, Viewy and Candour.
Lay representation developed from the House of Laymen, which first met in connection with the Convocation of Canterbury in 1886 (York, 1892), and formally in legislation in the Church Assembly (1919) and General Synod (1970).
[18] The reason for using this electoral system rather than others is that STV is a form of proportional representation, and therefore gives a significant weight to minority viewpoints and also requires more than one representative for each constituency.