APPENDIX 1
Information on the ecclesiastical courts and their records is included in J.
H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 3rd edn (London, 1994),
pp. 146–54; E. R. C. Brinkworth, Shakespeare and the Bawdy Court of
Stratford (London, 1972); Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law (2 vols.,
London, 1763/5); Colin R. Chapman, Ecclesiastical Courts, Their Officials
and Their Records (Dursley, 1992); Francis Clarke, Praxis in Curijs Ecclesiasticis (Dublin, 1666); H[enry] C[onset], The Practice of the Spiritual or
Ecclesiastical Courts, 3rd edn (London, 1708), mainly a translation of the
previous text; Henry Coote, The practice of the ecclesiastical courts (London,
1847); John Cowell, The Interpreter (Cambridge, 1607); Edmund Gibson,
Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, 2nd edn (2 vols., Oxford, 1761); John
Godolphin, Repertorium Canonicum, or an abridgement of the Ecclesiastical Laws (London, 1678); Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women,
Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford, 1996); Paul Hair (ed.),
Before the Bawdy Court: Selections from church court and other records
relating to the correction of moral offences in England, Scotland and New
England, 1300–1800 (London, 1972); R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation
in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974) and Roman Canon Law in Reformation England (Cambridge, 1994); Ralph Houlbrooke, Church Courts and
the People during the English Reformation 1520–1570 (Oxford, 1979); Sir
William Holdsworth, A History of English Law, 7th edn (London, 1956),
vol. I, pp. 580–632; Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in
England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1990); Ronald A. Marchant, The Church
under the Law: Justice, Administration and Discipline in the Diocese of York,
1560–1640 (Cambridge, 1969); Thomas Oughton, Ordo Judiciorum (2 vols.,
London, 1738); Dorothy M. Owen, The Records of the Established Church
in England excluding parochial records (British Records Association, 1970);
J. S. Purvis, An Introduction to Ecclesiastical Records (London, 1953); James
Raine (ed.), Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts
of Durham, Extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elizabeth (London, 1845);
[John Rastell], Les Termes De La Ley: or, Certaine difficult and obscure
Words and Termes of the Common Lawes of this Realme expounded
(London, 1629); William Rastell, A colleccion of entrees (London, 1596);
Brian L. Woodcock, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of
Canterbury (Oxford, 1952); and Richard M. Wunderli, London Church
Courts and Society on the Eve of the Reformation (Cambridge, 1981).
Discussions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction include Helmholz, Roman
Canon Law, pp. 28–54; Holdsworth, vol. I, pp. 614–32; Houlbrooke, pp.
7–20; Owen, 'Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England 1300–1550: The Records
and Their Interpretation' in Derek Baker, (ed.), The Materials Sources and
Methods of Ecclesiastical History (New York, 1975), pp. 199–221; and
Chapter 3 of Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989),
which outlines London ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Contemporary discussions on the legitimacy of ecclesiastical jurisdiction include the unpublished,
'Notes and Remembrances', Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 176, fols. 261v-
265v and 'A Distinction Betweene the Ecclesiasticall Law and the Common Law', British Library, Lansdowne MS 253, fols. 138r- 178v; and the
published, John Bridges, A Defence of the Gouernment established in the
Church of Englande for Ecclesiasticall Matters (London, 1587); Richard
Cosin. An Apologie: of, and for sundrie proceedings by Iurisdiction Ecclesiasticall (London, 1591); and Sir Thomas Ridley, A View of the Civile and
Ecclesiastical Law (London, 1607).
Canons are reprinted in J. V. Bullard and H. Chalmer Bell (eds.), William
Lyndwood's Provinciale (London, 1929) and Edward Cardwell (ed.), Synodalia: A Collection of Articles of Religion, Canons, and Proceedings of Convocations (2 vols., Oxford, 1842). Discussions of canon law include Cardwell (ed.),
The Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Laws (Oxford, 1850); Helmholz, Roman
Canon Law; Eric Waldram Kemp, An Introduction to Canon Law in the Church
of England (London, 1957); Frederic William Maitland, Roman Canon Law
in the Church of England (London, 1898); E. Garth Moore, An Introduction
to English Canon Law (Oxford, 1967); and R. C. Mortimer, Western Canon
Law (London, 1953).
For discussions of defamation, see Baker, pp. 495–508; C. A. Haigh,
'Slander and the Church Courts in the Sixteenth Century', Transactions
of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 78 (1975), pp. 1–13;
Gowing, Domestic Dangers, and 'Language, power and the law: women's
slander litigation in early modern London', in Jennifer Kermode and
Garthine Walker (eds.), Women, crime and the courts in early modern
England (London, 1994), pp. 26–47; Helmholz (ed.), Select Cases on
Defamation to 1600, Selden Society, vol. CI (London, 1985); Holdsworth, 'Defamation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', Law
Quarterly Review, 40 (1924), pp. 302–15, 397–412 and History, vol. VIII,
pp. 333–78; Houlbrooke, pp. 79–88; Ingram, pp. 292–319; Ian Maclean,
Interpretation and Meaning in the Renaissance: The Case of Law
(Cambridge, 1992), pp. 186–202; J. A. Sharpe, 'Defamation and Sexual
Slander in Early Modern England: The Church Court at York', Borthwick Papers No. 58 (1981).
For discussions of marriage, see Baker, pp. 545–69; Jeremy Boulton,
'Itching after Private Marryings? Marriage Customs in Seventeenthcentury London', The London Journal, 16 (1991), pp. 15–34; Eric Josef
Carlson, Marriage and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994); C[onset],
pp. 251–87; Charles Donahue, Jr., 'The Canon Law on the Formation of
Marriage and Social Practice in the Later Middle Ages', Journal of Family
History, 8 (1983), pp. 144–58; Frederick J. Furnivall (ed.), Child Marriages,
Divorces, and Ratifications, & c. In the Diocese of Chester, A. D. 1561–6
(London, 1897); John R. Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages,
1600 to the Present (Oxford, 1988), pp. 3–105; Gowing, Domestic Dangers,
pp. 139–79; Helmholz, Marriage; Houlbrooke, Church Courts, pp. 55–75,
83–8 and 'The Making of Marriage in Mid-Tudor England: Evidence from
the Records of Matrimonial Contract Litigation', Journal of Family History, 10 (1985), pp. 339-52; Ingram, Church Courts, pp. 125-281, 'The
Reform of Popular Culture? Sex and Marriage in Early Modern England'
in Barry Reay (ed.). Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (New
York, 1985), pp. 129-65, and 'Spousals Litigation in the English Ecclesiastical Courts c. 1350-c.1640', in R. B. Outhwaite (ed.), Marriage and Society:
Studies in the Social History of Marriage, (New York, 1982), pp. 35-57; A.
Percival Moore, 'Marriage Contracts or Espousals in the Reign of Queen
Elizabeth', Reports and Papers Read at The Meetings of the Architectural
Societies of the County of Lincoln, and County of Leicester, during the
Year MDCCCCIX, vol. 30, part 1 (Lincoln, 1909), pp. 261-98; Diana
O'Hara, 'The Language of Tokens and the Making of Marriage', Rural
History, 3 (1992), pp. 1-40 and "Ruled by my friends": aspects of marriage in the diocese of Canterbury, c. 1540–1570', Continuity and Change,
6 (1991), pp. 9–41; R. B. Outhwaite, Clandestine Marriage in England, 15001850 (London, 1995); Peter Rushton, 'Property, Power and Family
Networks: The Problem of Disputed Marriage in Early Modern England',
Journal of Family History, 11 (1986), pp. 205-19 and 'The Testament of
Gifts: Marriage Tokens and Disputed Contracts in North-East England,
1560-1630', Folk Life, 24 (1985-6), pp. 25-31; Michael M. Sheehan, 'Marriage and Family in English Conciliar and Synodal Legislation', in J. Reginald O'Donnell (ed.), Essays in Honour of Anton Charles Pegis (Toronto,
1974), pp. 205-14; and Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, or
Matrimonial Contracts: Wherein All the Questions relating to that Subject
are ingeniously Debated and Resolved (New York, 1978).
For testamentary procedure in the ecclesiastical courts, see Houlbrooke, Church Courts, pp. 89-116. Explanation of testamentary procedure
provided by contemporary handbooks include Swinburne, A Briefe Treatise
of Testaments and Last Willes (London, 1590) and Thomas Wentworth,
The Office and duty of executors (London, 1676).
Discussions of tithes include Sir Simon Degge, The parson's counsellor
(London, 1676); William Easterby, The history of the law of Tithes in
England (Cambridge, 1888); Godolphin, Repertorium Canonicum; Houlbrooke, Church Courts, pp. 117-50; J[ohn] Selden. The Historie of Tithes
(London, 1618); and Tithes and oblations According to the Lawes established
in the Church of England (n.p., 1595).