Definition
An advowson in gross is a right of advowson — the right to nominate or present a candidate to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice (such as a parish church) — that exists independently, detached from any manor or land. It is held as a personal right by an individual or legal person, not as an appurtenance to a particular estate in land.
To understand advowson in gross, the base term must be clear: an advowson is a proprietary right, recognized under English common law, to present a clerk to a bishop for appointment to a church living. When that right is attached to ownership of a specific manor, it is an advowson appendant — it passes with the land. When the right has been severed from the manor and stands alone, attached to a person rather than a parcel, it becomes an advowson in gross. It is then a species of incorporeal hereditament, capable of being held, transferred, and inherited in its own right.
---
Common Confusion
ADVOWSON IN GROSS vs. ADVOWSON APPENDANT: These are the two principal forms of advowson, and the distinction is structural, not merely descriptive. An advowson appendant runs with a specific manor; transfer of the manor carries the advowson with it. An advowson in gross travels with the holder's person, not with any land, and must be expressly conveyed. Historical sources occasionally use "advowson" without qualification; researchers must determine from context whether the right is appendant or in gross before drawing conclusions about how it was transferred or inherited.
---
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Advowsons at common law were further divided by the nature of the presentation right:
PRESENTATIVE: The holder nominates a candidate; the bishop retains the power of institution. This was the dominant and most legally developed form.
COLLATIVE: The bishop holds the advowson and institutes directly without external presentation.
DONATIVE: The patron appointed directly to the benefice without episcopal institution. Donative advowsons largely disappeared following the Benefices Act 1898.
An advowson in gross may be any of these in character; the "in gross" designation speaks to severance from land, not to the mechanics of the presentation right itself.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a feature of English legal history and will appear in common law sources from the medieval period through the nineteenth century. American researchers will encounter it only in foundational common law treatises and in early state cases that worked through which English property doctrines survived reception into American law. The advowson itself did not transplant: the establishment clause and the absence of an established church meant the presentation right had no operative American context. When the term appears in American sources, it is generally as doctrinal background for the broader category of incorporeal hereditaments.
For researchers working in English legal history, the in gross/appendant distinction carries significant practical weight. Because an advowson in gross was personal property in the hands of a natural person but could be held by a corporation in perpetuity, the form of holding affected rules on alienation, mortmain, and inheritance. Mortmain legislation, beginning with the Statute of Mortmain 1279, targeted the absorption of advowsons (among other rights) into ecclesiastical corporations, and the in gross form was particularly susceptible to evasion concerns.
Researchers using early plea rolls, conveyancing records, or ecclesiastical court materials should note that advowson disputes generated a distinct common law action — the writ of quare impedit — and that the characterization of the advowson as appendant or in gross would determine how the right had been acquired and what chain of title was relevant.
The term also appears in treatises on incorporeal hereditaments as a structural example of how English law permitted the severance of use-rights and incident-rights from the land itself — a concept with ongoing relevance to easements in gross and profits in gross in modern property law.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary supplies a compact and accurate definition: an advowson "separated from the manor, and annexed to the person," with supporting citations to Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Com. 22), Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 120), Crabb's Real Property (1 Crabb's Real Prop. 130, § 118), and Stephen's Commentaries (3 Steph. Com. 116). This is consistent with the standard treatment across classical English property authorities. Blackstone's discussion at Book II, Chapter 3 remains the most accessible primary synthesis for researchers approaching the concept for the first time. Burrill does not develop the in gross/appendant distinction beyond the definitional contrast, and does not address the consequences of severance for purposes of alienation or mortmain — gaps that Crabb and Stephen fill in greater depth.
---
Jurisdictional Note
Advowson in gross is a doctrine of English law with no operative American equivalent. It may appear in American jurisdictions as historical common law background in treatise citations or in early nineteenth-century cases working through the scope of incorporated English doctrine, but it generated no independent American jurisprudence.
---