Anyone coming across the fourteenth-century church of St Cornelius in Lyndewode, now Linwood, a short distance from the Lincolnshire town of Market Rasen, is struck by its stark isolation—it virtually stands alone in fields. Anyone entering the church will most likely be struck by two interesting objects which have some bearing on this lecture. The first, at the west end of the north aisle, are two fine excellently preserved brasses, both of wool men. They had clearly prospered in the economic development of Lincolnshire in the later middle ages. One of these brasses is of John Lyndwood, who died in 1419, with his wife, four sons and three daughters under smaller canopies. The other represents another John Lyndwood, the son of the former, who died in 1421.

Scripture refers to an ‘informer’ in the story of the rich man who had a steward, and was told that he was mismanaging his master's resources (Luke 16: 1ff). The Vulgate has hic diffamatus est apud ilium. We hear nothing more about the informer in this parable, or what became of him. He is not reproached for his action.

Whatever may be thought about the question of the possible disestablishment of the Church of England, there is one premise which the protagonists do not dispute. Nobody doubts that the Church of England is established. Well informed persons also know that, as one aspect of struggling with ‘the Irish question’ in the nineteenth century, the union of the Churches of England and Ireland was dissolved, and the Church disestablished, so far as the island of Ireland was concerned, by the Irish Church Act 1869. Besides, there was disestablishment for the territory of Wales and Monmouthshire by the Welsh Church Act 1914, an Act which is something of a constitutional curiosity: as there is not a separate Welsh legal system, it is very rare for legislation to distinguish between English and Welsh territory, as that Act does.

In his obituary to the late Chancellor Garth Moore, Chancellor Quentin Edwards QC recalled one of Garth's constant sayings: ‘It may be possible to be a theologian without being a canonist; but it is impossible to be a canonist without being a theologian’. The recent Lyndwood Lecture marking, as it did, the first joint venture between this Society and the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, brought into sharp focus some of the differences between Anglican and Roman Catholic canonists. The laws of the latter reveal a more visible and systematic theology whereas those of the Church of England are unashamedly positivist both in form and ostensible origin. This paper seeks to consider the role of the Gospel in the contemporary governance of the Church of England and to isolate—but not resolve— certain of the ‘practical parish problems’ which will fall to be addressed at the forthcoming residential conference.

In his interesting article on order and disorder in church, Paul Barber cited Abrahams and Ors v. Cavey. The case is also cited by others writing on related matters. It has both social and legal aspects which it was not germane to Barber's purpose to develop, and this note is intended to remind readers of an event which may have attracted their attention and interest at the time.