The Ecclesiastical Courts

This chapter outlines the history of the Church courts in England. In medieval times they were part of a transnational system with the pope at the summit, although the ‘ecclesia Anglicana’ was recognized as a distinct entity in Magna Carta and medieval English kings exercised some authority over Church matters. A dispute between Henry II and Archbishop Becket secured the ‘benefit of clergy’ but did not exempt the clergy from temporal justice in civil matters. The jurisdictional boundary thereafter was generally clear, and was controllable by the royal writ of prohibition. The break with Rome in 1534 had a minimal effect on the daily work of the ecclesiastical courts, which continued to deal with matrimonial questions, probate, and intestate succession to personalty, until Victorian times. New appellate courts were the High Commission (abolished in 1641) and the Court of Delegates, whose jurisdiction was transferred to the Privy Council in the 1830s.