Journal of Anglican Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/AST Additional services for Journal of Anglican Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Church in Wales and the State: A Juridical Perspective Norman Doe Journal of Anglican Studies / Volume 2 / Issue 01 / June 2004, pp 99 - 124 DOI: 10.1177/174035530400200110, Published online: 05 January 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1740355300000346 How to cite this article: Norman Doe (2004). The Church in Wales and the State: A Juridical Perspective. Journal of Anglican Studies, 2, pp 99-124 doi:10.1177/174035530400200110 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/AST, IP address: 131.251.254.13 on 25 Feb 2014 [JAS 2.1 (2004) 99-124] ISSN 1740-3553 Series on Church and State The Church in Wales and the State: A Juridical Perspective Norman Doe
[email protected] ABSTRACT In 1536 Wales (Cymru) and England were formally united by an Act of Union of the English Parliament. At the English Reformation, the estab- lished Church of England possessed four dioceses in Wales, part of the Canterbury Province. In 1920 Parliament disestablished the Church of England in Wales. The Welsh Church Act 1914 terminated the royal sup- remacy and appointment of bishops, the coercive jurisdiction of the church courts, and pre-1920 ecclesiastical law, applicable to the Church of England, ceased to exist as part of public law in Wales. The statute freed the Church in Wales (Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) to establish its own domestic system of government and law, the latter located in its Constitution, pre-1920 eccles- iastical law (which still applies to the church unless altered by it), elements of the 1603 Canons Ecclesiastical and even pre-Reformation Roman canon law.