Dispensation
the act by which an exception is made to the rigor of the law in favor of some person. The Pope may release from all oaths or vows, and may sanction a marriage within the prohibited degrees of the Mosaic law, or exempt from obedience to the disciplinary enactments of the canon law. In England the monarch claimed , in similar dispensing former times, a power in civil law, but the prerogative was SO much abused by James II. that it was abolished by the Bill of Rights.
The power of commuting sentences in capital cases is the only form in which the dispensing power still exists. In ecclesiastical matters a bishop may grant a dispensation allowing a clergyman to hold more than one benefice , or to absent himself from his parish. Dispensations were first granted by Pope Innocent III. in 1200, and, being paid for, became a source of considerable revenue to the Holy See. Appeal to them on the part of English subjects was rendered illegal by 25 Henry VIII., c. 21, passed in 1533. A certain dispensing power was continued to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and an ordinary bishop can still dispense with the law of the Church in many cases.