LAMBETH DEGREES
By MAJOR CEDRIC GLOVER
THE new Archbishop of Canterbury will find that consecration has endued him not only with the spiritual and administrative functions associated with his great office, but with at least one curious privilege as an individual, which is in no way associated with the Church of which he is head. This privilege, known as the Legatine Prerogative, is the power to confer degrees in any faculty and on any person in his unfettered discretion. As a peer, the Archbishop would be free, in theory at any rate, to support by his vote a Bill in the House of Lords for the establishment in England of the Presbyterian Church in place of the Anglican ; similarly, in exercise of the Legatine Prerogative, he can confer a Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity on a Jewish Rabbi if he so desires. The pro- priety of his action in either case should not be called in question, as he is not acting in virtue of his office as Archbishop. As its name suggests, the Legatine Prerogative is a legacy of those stormy days in the Middle Ages when the Papal Legate and the universities were constantly at loggerheads. In order to bolster up the authority of the Legate, the Pope entrusted to him this power of conferring degrees or licences to teach, and thus made him independent of the ordinary. degree-giving institutions.
In exercising the Prerogative, the Archbishops for many years have confined themselves mainly to the faculties of divinity and music ; there has been one case of a degree in arts during the past twenty years, and none in medicine within living memory, though it was widely rumoured some years ago that a petition had been un- successfully presented to the then Archbishop, praying him to confer a Lambeth Doctorate in Medicine on a brilliant practitioner outside the orthodox fold. Something of the ancient purpose of the Legatine Prerogative is apparent in the modern custom of con- ferring Lambeth Doctorates of Divinity on diocesan bishops, who until recently received such degrees in some honorary form or other from their universities. The universities struck and the Archbishop stepped in. The late Archbishop publicly laid down the principles by which he would be guided in conferring Lambeth Degrees in Music ; two qualifications were specified, both of which had to be fulfilled: (i) "High musical repute." (2) " Conspicuous musical service to the Church "—qualities rarely found in a combination in one individual in these days.
The Legatine Prerogative has naturally been an object of grow- ing irritation to universities and professional associations, particularly those which are concerned to protect the status of musicians. They consider their own prerogatives infringed, and look askance at the grant of honorific titles to persons who could, if they chose and if they possessed the ability, acquire an orthodox university degree. To the ignorant, a Doctor of Music is a Doctor of Music, whether the degree has been conferred by the Vice-Chancellor of a university after several .years of hard study and the passing of a number of stiff examinations, or by the Archbishop of Canterbury without any of these preliminaries. It is commonly reported that strong efforts have been made to persuade the Archbishops to undergo a self- denying ordinance and confine the Lambeth Doctorate of Music to retired cathedral organists and the like as reward for past services.
One can understand this attitude, and yet deplore it. We live in a hag-ridden age, and one of the most unmanageable of our tormentors is a wholly misplaced veneration for examinations. Godley tells us that Mark Pattison declared his conviction that compulsory examinations produce " paralysis of intellectual action." If, as ought to be the case, the Lambeth degrees are conferred, like the Fellow- ship of the Royal Society, for services already rendered and for merit generally recognised, they should rank in public estimation far above the corresponding university degree, which can be obtained by any young man at the outset of his career, merely by passing examina- tions and fulfilling certain statutory obligations. There need be no competition between the universities and Lambeth ; universities, in any case, have never been able to claim a complete monopoly of degree-giving: witness the "House" degrees occasionally conferred by Ch. Ch. at Oxford. One would like to tee the Archbishop hold his own annual encaenia and confer his degrees on persons who already hold academic degrees, and on those who in youth never attended a university and have yet become eminent musicians, men of science or writers ; to the stature of such, an academic degree, taken in middle life after examination, would add not one jot or tittle. A Lambeth degree, however, conferred by the Archbishop in his capacity as a national leader, might well transcend in popular estimation even the honorary degrees conferred by the universities. He would, of course, have to be advised by selection panels, on which it would be well to include informed members of the general public, as well as specialists in each faculty.
Two reforms are desirable. The heavy legal expenses which are at present borne by the recipient of a Lambeth degree should be considerably reduced, and the unmannerly, but traditional, practice among Lambeth doctors of wearing the robes of the university to which the Archbishop himself belongs should cease. If any insignia are necessary for the adornment of a Lambeth doctor, they should be of 'the simplest character and without any suggestion of an academic prototype. The democratic purist will no doubt rail against the Legatine Prerogative as an archaic survival from the bad old days of patronage and placemen., We can leave him with confi- dence to the tender mercies of the new society, reported to have been founded in Cambridge of all places, for the preservation of privilege and the, maintenance of sinecures. But those with less aggressively tidy minds should welcome the continuance of any harmless anomaly in these days of hideous uniformity, and should seek to rejuvenate and adapt, rather than to destroy, a function with such a pleasant historical aroma.
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