Overview
faculty
Quick Reference
A dispensation or licence from an ecclesiastical superior permitting someone to perform an action or occupy a position which without it he could not lawfully do or hold. In 1534 the ‘Court of Faculties’ was created to restrain people from suing for dispensations from Rome. Since in every diocese the consecrated lands and buildings and their contents are in the ultimate guardianship of the Bishop, faculties are needed for additions or alterations to churches or churchyards; in such cases they are normally issued by the Bishop's Chancellor or, since 1991, in uncontested cases by the Archdeacon.
In the academic world a faculty is an organization for the teaching of a particular subject, so called because it can grant a faculty to receive or supplicate for a degree.
Subjects: Religion
