PRECENTOR or CHANTER OF ST. PAUL’S, an officer who superintends the church music, and has a sub-chanter to officiate in his absence. To him belongs the second stall on the north side of the choir: he is perpetual Rector of the church of Stortford, proprietor of the same, and patron of the vicarage. _Newc. Repert._ PREROGATIVE COURT in Doctors Commons; this court is thus denominated from the prerogative of the Archbishop of Canterbury; who by a special privilege beyond those of his suffragans, can here try all disputes that happen to arise concerning the last wills of persons within his province, who have left goods to the value of 5_l._ and upwards, unless such things are settled by composition between the metropolitan and his suffragans; as in the diocese of London, where it is 10_l._ This court, which was formerly held in the consistory of St. Paul’s, is kept in Doctors Commons in the afternoon, the next day after the court of Arches. The Judge is attended by the Register and his Deputy, who sets down the decrees and acts of the court, and keeps the records. PREROGATIVE OFFICE in Doctors Commons, an office belonging to the above court, in which copies of all wills deposited in the office are wrote in large folio volumes, and any person may have the privilege of searching a particular will for a shilling, and of having a copy of the whole, or of any part of it, for a moderate fee. The places belonging to this court are in the gift of the Archbishop of Canterbury. PRESBYTERIANS, a considerable body of Protestant dissenters; their religious sentiments are in general pretty far from Calvinism, they have now scarcely any resemblance to the church of Scotland; and every congregation in this city, is in a manner as independent of each other as the independents themselves. The meeting houses within the bills of mortality are as follows: