_Convocation._--The convocation of the province of Canterbury (for that of York seems never to have been important) is summoned by the archbishop's writ, under the king's direction, along with every parliament, to which it bears analogy both in its constituent parts and in its primary functions. It consists (since the reformation) of the suffragan bishops, forming the upper house; of the deans, archdeacons, a proctor or proxy for each chapter, and two from each diocese, elected by the parochial clergy, who together constitute the lower house. In this assembly subsidies were granted, and ecclesiastical canons enacted. In a few instances under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, they were consulted as to momentous questions affecting the national religion; the supremacy of the former was approved in 1533, the articles of faith were confirmed in 1562, by the convocation. But their power to enact fresh canons without the king's licence, was expressly taken away by a statute of Henry VIII.; and, even subject to this condition, is limited by several later acts of parliament (such as the acts of uniformity under Elizabeth and Charles II., that confirming, and therefore rendering unalterable, the thirty-nine articles, those relating to non-residence and other church matters), and still more perhaps by the doctrine gradually established in Westminster Hall, that new ecclesiastical canons are not binding on the laity, so greatly that it will ever be impossible to exercise it in any effectual manner. The convocation accordingly, with the exception of 1603, when they established some regulations, and of 1640 (an unfortunate precedent), when they attempted some more, had little business but to grant subsidies, which, however, were from the time of Henry VIII. always confirmed by an act of parliament; an intimation, no doubt, that the legislature did not wholly acquiesce in their power even of binding the clergy in a matter of property. This practice of ecclesiastical taxation was silently discontinued in 1664; at a time when the authority and pre-eminence of the church stood very high, so that it could not then have seemed the abandonment of an important privilege. From this time the clergy have been taxed at the same rate and in the same manner with the laity.[348]