As to the Bishops meeting and making tests, they can in law do nothing, except in Convocation, with the presbyters and under licence of the Crown.
"Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2"
Robert Ornsby
Some students have held that the passage quoted above refers, not to deaconesses, but to a sort of female presbyters, like those who in the age succeeding that of the Apostles had a certain oversight over the widows and orphans of the congregations.
"Women of Early Christianity Woman: In all ages and in all countries, Vol. 3 (of 10)"
Alfred Brittain Mitchell Carroll
Those "presbyteresses" whose attire Sirica considered she had ample right to copy, were the wives of presbyters who had been married before ordination.
"Women of Early Christianity Woman: In all ages and in all countries, Vol. 3 (of 10)"
Alfred Brittain Mitchell Carroll