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Records of the Court of Arches in Lambeth Palace Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Melanie Barber
Melanie Barber
Affiliation:
Deputy Librarian and Archivist, Lambeth Palace Library
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The Court of Arches is the Archbishop's court of appeal for the Province of Canterbury. It derives its name from the church of St. Mary-le-Bow or St. Maria de Arcubus in the city of London where the court was held from at least the primacy of Archbishop Pecham (1279–92) until the church was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. The church was one of thirteen in the City of London which, before the abolition of peculiars in the middle of the nineteenth century, came within the Archbishop's jurisdiction of the deanery of the Arches. The judge or Official Principal who presided over the Court of Arches came to be known as the Dean of the Arches from his lesser office as judge of the court of the peculiar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 12 , January 1993 , pp. 10 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 1993

References

1. The deanery of the Arches was incorporated into the diocese of London in 1845: SirPhillimore, Robert J, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, (2nd edn. 1895), vol 1, pp 214–215.Google Scholar

2. For the early history, see Churchill, Irene J, Canterbury Administration (1933), vol 1, pp 430–434.Google Scholar

3. A specific reason had to be given to avoid contravening the Statute of Citations 1531 (23 Hen 8 c 19). See also canon 94 of the 1603 canons.

4. Appeals to Rome were abolished by the Act in Restraint of Appeals 1532 (the Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532) (24 Hen 8 c 12), and the Submission of the Clergy Act 1534 (25 Hen 8 c 19) provided for the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of the King in chancery through the Court of Delegates.

5. Under the Privy Council Appeals Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will 4 c 92) and the Judicial Committee Act (3 & 4 Will 4 c 41), the appellate jurisdiction was transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

6. Phillimore, , Tht Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England vol 2, chap. 6.Google Scholar

7. Act book, 1635–6(A 1); three sentence books including libels, 1560–1,1622–3,1639–40 (B 1–3); eight muniment books. 1554–1642 (F 1–8); divorce proceedings Darcy v Eure, 1566 (D 553); Black Book of the Arches (N 1). For a description of the latter, see Churchill, , Canterbury Administration vol 2, pp 206–210.Google Scholar

8. Stone, Lawrence, Road to Divorce England, 1530–1987 (1990)Google Scholar; and Uncertain Unions: Marriage in England, 1660–1753 (1992).Google Scholar

9. Squibb, G D, Doctors' Commons: a History of the College of Advocates and Doctors of Law (1977). chap. 8.Google Scholar

10. SirDibdin, Lewis, ‘Romances of Real Life from the Court of Arches’, in The Guardian, 16 01 1914, pp 83–84.Google Scholar

11. Evidence of Dibdin, , 12 1912Google Scholar: Minutes of evidence … to the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records vol 2. part 3 (1914). p 29.Google Scholar

12. Slatter, M D, Lists of the Records of the Court of Arches deposited for temporary safe keeping in the Bodleian Library in 1941 (duplicated) (1951).Google Scholar See also Slatter, , ‘The Records of the Court of Arches’ (1953) 4 The Journal of Ecclesiastical History pp 139–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘The Study of the Records of the Court of Arches’ (1955) 1 Journal of the Society of Archivists pp 29–31.Google Scholar

13. Index of Cases in the Records of the Court of Arches at Lambeth Palace Library 1660–1913 (Index Library 85, 1972).Google Scholar

14. The micropublication is held by the Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, and is available commercially from Chadwyck-Healey Ltd, Cambridge. A loan copy of the microfiche of the process books is held by the British Library Document Supply Centre, Boston Spa.

15. Dibdin, , ‘Romances of Real Life from the Court of Arches’, p 84.Google Scholar

16. Ff 146, 147 (Case no 8308: Simon etc. v Roberts and Jones (1718)Google Scholar).

17. Ff 291 (Case no 5395: Kirkham v Lovell and Sydes 1666)).

18. Arches Ff 34 (18 vols)

19. Ff 17 (Case no 1527: Burward v Lark (1719)Google Scholar). There are also court books for the archdeaconry of Middlesex, 1667–1742 (Ff 5–11, 30), but these have not yet been identified with any appeal.

20. G 102/68 (Case no 2519: Da Costa v Da Costa Villa Real (1731).Google Scholar)

21. From the middle of the eighteenth century, information on judgments in the Court of Arches is given in Law Reports: 161 English Reports (1917), pp 440–453.Google Scholar

22. The Ecclesiastical Courts: Principles of Reconstruction, being the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts set up by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1951 (1954), p 13.Google Scholar

23. Ibid. pp 23–35.

24. See note 5 above.

25. Following the precedent set for Lord Roos in 1670, there were 317 private Acts of divorce (a vinculo) granted by Parliament before 1858: Winnett, A R, Divorce and Remarriage in Anglicanism (1958), p 129.Google Scholar By the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict c85) a court of justice had the power to grant divorces a vinculo matrimonii.

26. D 1566, ff 151v–2, 156v–8 (Case no 6988: Paul v Paul (1721)).Google Scholar

27. Ee 6, ff 90–2, 98v; E 8/34 (Case no 8646: Stamford v Stamford (1686)).

28. Libel of Sarah Young (uncatalogued papers): Case no 10399: Young v Young (1671).

29. D 2289, p 166 (Case no 10058: Williams v Williams (1707)Google Scholar): not a matrimonial dispute, but a correction case involving adultery: see note 46 below.

30. H 821/2, f 5v (Case no 7745: Roberts v Roberts (1852)).Google Scholar

31. H 858/5, p 10 (Case no 476: Baring v Baring (1857)).Google Scholar

32. Petition in forma pauperis 1661 (uncatalogued papers). Case no 7267: Plummer v Plummer (1671)

33. Case no 7825: Roos v Roos (1661).

34. Case no 498: Barlow v Barlow (1814).Google Scholar

35. Eee 1, f 460 (Case no 3584: Gardiner v Gardiner (1663)).

36. Case no 2031: Coachman v Coachman (1669).

37. Case no 7379: Powles v Powles (1845).Google Scholar

38. The list of testators in Houston's Index (pp 543–569) does not include testators named in numerous records of appointments of guardians ad litem for minors left legacies in wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. These records were omitted unless litigation followed.

39. Eg Robert Lee of Spitalfields, Middlesex., who hoped his dying wishes would be carried our ‘according to the plain acceptation and honest meaning of my Will which I think cannot be Misunderstood by any Man of common Sense or common Honesty therefore I hope no Lawyer will ever be suffered to see it’. G 134/17 (Case no 2349: Cowper and Cox v Littler and Ouvry (1765)).Google Scholar

40. Bbb 863/5, ff 14, 16 (Case no 3325: Finch v Murford (1701)).Google Scholar

41. Depositions of witnesses 1661 (uncatalogued papers). Case no 9880: White v Ellison (1661).

42. Case no 1628: Canterbury v Folkes etc (1737)Google Scholar, especially E 34/11; Eee 14/340–61. See also interrogatories and depositions in LPL Ms 1154.

43. B 3/108 (Fowler v Rawlinson (1639)).

44. D 1631, f 28v (Case no 7184: Philpott v Ganderton (1700)).Google Scholar

45. D 952, ff 50, 62v (Case nos 4242, 5653: Lewis v Harris (1727)).Google Scholar

46. D 2289, pp 15, 65 (Case no 10058: Williams v Williams (1707)).Google Scholar

47. Bbb 66a/3, ff 6, 9 (Case no 1820: Cheeke v Knott (1666)).

48. D 2121, f 56 (Case no 9338: Turner v Sloman (1679)).

49. D 1413, ff 50–2 passim (Case no 6299: Milward v Swan (1666)).

50. Five clergymen were imprisoned for contempt of court between 1877 and 1887: Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church vol 2, p 348, note 1.Google Scholar

51. Case no: 7093: Perkins v Enraght (1879).Google Scholar

52. LPL Tait Papers 245, ff 398–9.

53. For the number of proctors in 1832, see The Special and General Report made to His Majesty by the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Practice and Jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts in England and Wales (1831–2, reprinted 1856), App, p 262. LPL has a card index of over 360 proctors admitted, 1700–1859.

54. Squibb, Doctors' Commons. For membership of Doctors' Commons, see App 3.

55. Eg SirHay, George (1715–1778).Google Scholar The Official Principal/Dean of the Arches was president of Doctors' Commons: Ibid. pp 46, 116, 117.

56. Dickens, CharlesDavid Copperfield (1850), p 242.Google Scholar

57. Over two-thirds of the Arches cases between 1800 and 1857 concerned matrimonial or testamentary matters.

58. Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law p 936.Google Scholar The comment dates from the first edition in 1873.

59. The court is regulated by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963.