Diploma Mills Part 4: Saints and sinners

Before the Reformation the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Papal Legate, was empowered by the Church to make provisional awards of degrees, which were then ratified by the Pope in his capacity as head of the university he had founded at the Pontifical Court. After the Reformation, the Archbishop was authorised to continue to award degrees by the virtue of the Ecclesiastical Licenses Act 1533 — known as Peter's Pence Act.