I confess that I am not a natural early riser but it is still a great joy for me to celebrate at my parish's 8 o'clock Holy Communion service, especially when the rite is the Holy Communion service from the Book of Common Prayer. I am not saying that I do not enjoy, and do not see the worth of, the rites in the Alternative Service Book, but there is something very special about the rhythms and cadences of the old service and I personally want to see the continuation of all those services contained in the Book of Common Prayer. I therefore want to pose four questions:

(1) How has the Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure 1974 attempted to ensure the continuing availability of the forms of service contained in the Book of Common Prayer?

(2) What are the ‘occasions for which no provision has been made’ embraced by the provisions of Canon B5, para 2?

(3) What, if any, is the legal status of a form of service once, but no longer, authorised?

(4) To what extent does the ecclesiastical law relating to the liturgy bind lay ministers?

In the July 1995 number of the Ecclesiastical Law Journal, Mr R. H. Bloor presented an interesting account of recent difficulties encountered by the parish church of St Mary's Belton with regard to the chiming of its church clock. In his article, ‘Clocks, Bells and Cockerels’, he took occasion to consider briefly the law relating to bells as a noise nuisance and usefully brought some unreported cases to the attention of readers of the Journal. He did not however consider one question which is, it is submitted, of peculiar importance to ecclesiastical lawyers, a question raised by the present author in a letter to The Times on 22 October 1994, namely whether the obligation of clerics to ring a bell under ecclesiastical and canon law can be a defence to a complaint of nuisance for the noise caused. Nor did he examine the differences which exist, particularly with regard to defences, depending upon whether the complaint is one of public, private or statutory nuisance. The present paper is therefore offered as a discussion of these points and as a wider review of the authorities relating to them.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Doctors' Commons enjoyed a final flowering before its eradication in the 1860s, and its leading members once again achieved a reputation for scholarship and intellectual distinction. Lord Eldon's brother, William Scott (1745–1836), Lord Stowell, undoubtedly bears a considerable part of the credit for raising the public standing of the Civilian profession. Scott was a remarkable man, and his career was not a conventional one. Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen—in the very year that his neighbour Blackstone across the High became Vinerian Professor—he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple the year after taking his D.C.L., and by 1794 was a bencher of his Inn and a distinguished ecclesiastical judge. Yet not only was Dr Scott a Civilian and a barrister, he also taught for several years at Oxford as Reader in Ancient History, and served as a member of Parliament. In law and politics, Stowell shared the conservative instincts of his brother. While professing to value the principle of religious toleration, he was strenuously opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation in Ireland, which he felt would be ‘setting fire to the country’, while in the Commons in 1815 he urged that sectarians should not be excused from contributing to the maintenance of the established Church. In a letter to Joseph Story in 1820 he explained his opposition to all manner of reform, including moderate reform; the latter he considered particularly dangerous, because a modest reform was easily made and then the violent reformers would rush into the breach.

The procuratio was originally the hospitality necessarily provided for an ecclesiastical ordinary and his retinue when engaged in a visitation of the churches and spiritual places of his jurisdiction: ‘per procurationes … intelligitur necessariorum sumptuum exhibitio, que ratione visitationis debetur. …’ By this means the provision of food, drink, and accommodation for the visitor as he perambulated his territory was placed on a formal footing, so that most of the expenses of visitation might be met, and the visitor with his attendants assured of somewhere to spend each night in reasonable comfort.

An extremely important article appeared in the Winter 1995 issue of Ecclesiastical Law Journal entitled ‘An Evidential Privilege for Priest-Penitent Communications’ by Professor D. W. Elliott, outlining the problems of imputing to sacramental confessions the status of privileged communications.

The past year or so has seen a number of incidents where a public service has been disrupted by a group of people seeking to make a point through the attendant publicity. An example occurred in February 1995 when the gay rights group ‘Outrage’ disrupted the enthronement of the Bishop of Guildford. Such an incident inevitably gives rise to questions of law, and this article intends to survey very briefly the law which is particularly applicable in cases where there are disturbances in places of worship. Of course, both the general law concerning public order and the common law relating to breach of the peace also apply as much within churches as without. However, much is written about them elsewhere.