xchequer chamber upheld in the House of Lords, where the peers were
equally divided, correctly stated the English Canon law (_Reg._ v.
_Millis_, 10 Cl. & Fin., 534) was in regard to the essentials of
marriage. By the general Western canon law before the council of Trent,
the parties themselves were said to be the "ministers of the Sacrament"
in the case of holy matrimony. The declared consent of the parties to
take each other there and then constituted at once (although
irregularly) holy matrimony. The presence of priest or witnesses was not
necessary. In _Reg._ v. _Millis_, however, it was held that in England
it was always otherwise and that here the presence of a priest was
necessary. High authorities, however, have doubted the historical
accuracy of this decision. (5) The addition of houses of priests to the
provincial synods seems peculiar to England and Ireland.

The historical position of the general canon law of the Catholic Church
in the English provinces has, since the separation from Rome, been the
subject of much consideration by English lawyers and ecclesiastics. The
view taken by the king's courts, and acquiesced in by the ecclesiastical
courts, since Henry VIII., is that the Church of England was always an
independent national church, subject indeed to the general principles of
the _jus commune ecclesiasticum_ (Whitlock J. in _Ever_ v. _Owen_,
Godbolt's Reports, 432), but unbound by any particular constitutions of
council or pope; unless those constitutions had been "received" here by
English councils, or so recognized by English courts (secular or
spiritual) as to become part of the ecclesiastical custom of the realm.
Foreign canon law never bound (so it has been taught) _proprio vigore_.

The sources of English ecclesiastical law (purely ecclesiastical) were
therefore (1) the principles of the _jus commune ecclesiasticum_; (2)
foreign particular constitutions received here, as just explained; (3)
the constitutions and canons of English synods (cf. _Phill. Ecc. Law_,
part i. ch. iv., and authorities there cited).

1. On the existence of this _jus commune ecclesiasticum_ and that the
Church of England, in whatever sense independent, takes it over until
she repeals it, see _Escott_ v. _Mastin_, 4 Moo. _P.C.C._ 119. Lord
Brougham, in delivering the judgment, speaks of the "common law
prevailing for 1400 years over Christian Europe," and (p. 137) says that
"nothing but express enactment can abrogate the com