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From Synod to Consistory: the Bishops’ Courts in England, 1150–1250

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Colin Morris
Colin Morris
Affiliation:
Professor of Medieval History, University of Southampton
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Extract

It would be absurd to complain that the church courts have been neglected by historians of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. Their conflicts with the royal power over the extent of their jurisdiction lay at the heart of the Becket drama, and help to explain the uneasy relations between church and crown which subsisted throughout a considerable part of the thirteenth century. Although this aspect of the topic is prominent in general histories of the period, however, surprisingly little work has been done on the bishops’ courts themselves; on their mode of operation and the way in which they were organised. On investigation, it must be admitted that one can understand the neglect of historians. The questions of disputed jurisdiction, which are of primary interest for political history, have been thoroughly discussed in a number of able studies. Moreover, the amount of surviving evidence from the bishops’ courts before 1250 is very restricted. Influential litigants preferred to have their cases heard by the pope, either in the Roman curia itself or (more commonly) before papal judges delegate in England; and the uninfluential leave no records. This does not mean that the bishops and archdeacons had lost virtually all their jurisdiction to Rome, but it does mean that the reconstruction of the way in which they operated is a detective problem of considerable delicacy. A complete picture would be very difficult to achieve, but a progress report, however imperfect (for this is all that this article can claim to be) reveals some features of considerable interest.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1971 , pp. 115 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 116 note 1 The translation is that of Bosanquet, G., Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England, London 1964, 85Google Scholar.

page 116 note 2 Honorius iii regarded the bishop's jurisdiction as including ‘canonicam obedientiam, subiectionem et reverentiam, institutionem et destitutionem, correctionem et refor-mationem, ac censuram ecclesiasticam, iurisdiccionem quoque causarum omnium ad forum ecclesiasticum de iure spectantium, poenitentias et … visitationem quoque annuam’: Greg. 1, 31, 16.

page 116 note 3 Contra Philargyriam, cap. 4: P.L., cxlv. 535.

page 116 note 4 Giles, J. A., Petri Blesensis Opera Omnia, Oxford 1847, ep. 58, p. 171Google Scholar.

page 116 note 5 H. S. Offler, Durham Episcopal Charters, Surtees Society, 179, no. 7, p. 55. The fact that the document is a somewhat inept forgery does not reduce its interest for our particular purpose.

page 116 note 6 ‘Unde et eiusdam ecclesie restitucionem et adiucacione m sibi fieri per synodalem sententiam obtinuit … Mam vero cartam per synodalem sententiam evacuavimus et exauctorandam esse decrevimus:’: H. Voss, Heinrich von Blois, Historische Studien 1932, 163; ‘se iudicio sinodi super fidei laesione innocentiam suam purgasse asserebat:’: W. J. Millor and H. E. Butler, The Letters of John of Salisbury, Nelson Medieval Texts 1955, eP-56 p. 95; ‘iudicio synodi Land’ ecclesie:’: Saltman, A., Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, London 1956Google Scholar, no. 115.

page 117 note 1 John of Salisbury, epp. 55 and 77.

page 118 note 1 An example is the Cubbington dispute of 1161/5, printed by Cheney, C. R., From Becket to Langton, Manchester 1956, 186–7Google Scholar.

page 118 note 2 See the discussion in Lot and Fawtier, Histoire des institutionsfrangaises, iii, Paris 259–60.

page 118 note 3 The judge's freedom was not absolute, for he was required to consult his juris periti, and this consultation was specified in the sentence. Nevertheless, there is a great difference, both of theory and practice, between the bishop in his synod of local clergy and the judge among his legal assessors.

page 118 note 4 In 1220, bishop Pandulf of Norwich deprived the vicar of South Cree in the Easter synod at Norwich (Castle Acre Cartulary, B.M. Harl. MS. 2110, fol. 128v). An occasional mention of this sort warns us not to argue too far from silence; but the deprivation of a clerk was particularly the concern of the diocesan clergy, and may have continued to be done in synod after other causes had ceased to be heard there.

page 119 note 1 In this connexion it is interesting to notice that John on occasions distinguished between auditorium and audientia, using the latter term for a superior or appellate tribunal: ‘the controversy was long protracted in the auditorium of the bishop of Chester, and finally transferred by appeal to our audientia (i.e. of Canterbury):’: ep. 55. This distinction can also be found in continental canonists, but was by no means always observed in England at this time.

page 119 note 2 Ed. J. A. Giles, ep. 38, p. 121.

page 119 note 3 Ibid., ep. 6, pp. 15–16.

page 120 note 1 The frequency of meeting may be deduced, as we have already seen, from the number ofstages through which a cause had to pass in the Romano-canonical procedure. Consistory courts in the later Middle Ages usually met monthly, and this may often have been the case in the thirteenth century.

page 120 note 2 As we shall see, the word ‘consistory’ may not carry its later technical sense, and may be used generally for a solemn assembly. Moreover, M. Ralph of Warham was one of the most active of Officials because of the frequent absences of his bishop from the diocese; he may here be presiding in the bishop's absence, not because he was the normal president: Dereham Cartulary, B.M. Add. MS. 46353, fol. 268. It may be added that the period of the interdict under king John, when almost all the bishops were out of the country, but the diocesan administration was still being carried on, at least to some extent, might well have assisted the process by which the Official became the normal replacement for the bishop.

page 120 note 3 Cf. Glanvil rv. 10: ‘in curia christianitatis aduocatus … uersus clericum ipsum coram episcopo suo uel eius officiali placitabit’.

page 121 note 1 Ross, C. D., Cartulary ofdrencester Abbey, London 1964, no. 611, p. 523Google Scholar.

page 121 note 2 Although the deans tended later to be replaced by the deanery apparitor, the representation of the deanery remained a normal part of the consistory. In the fifteenth century, the rural deans still took their oath of office in the consistory at Wells.

page 121 note 3 The position of the archdeacon, who now heard in his own chapters causes which properly belonged to the bishop, and claimed to be able to do so by right, posed a similar problem, which was solved by the rather desperate device ofrecognising the archdeacons as ‘inferior ordinaries’.

page 121 note 4 ‘mota esset controuersia coram auctoritate ordinaria … '; ‘sententialiter et diffini-tiue sententiam excommunicationis … auctoritate ordinaria confirmauimus:’: H. E. Salter, Cartulary ofOserwy Abbey v, Oxford Hist. Soc. 1935, no. 548, 37–38.

page 122 note 1 These were not always in or near the cathedral church. The consistory of Lincoln, for example, met in St. George's church, Stamford, no doubt because it was a better centre for litigants from the diocese as a whole. It may have been during this process of settling down that one or two dioceses (notably Chichester) acquired two separate consistories.

page 122 note 2 A. Morey and C. N. L. Brooke, The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, 1967; ep. 164. The mention of the consistorium of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1162/4 is of dubious authenticity, for it occurs in a narrative which is much later, even if dependent on twelfth-century materials: Riley, H. T., Gesta abbatum … a Thoma Walsingham compilata, Rolls Series, 1867, i. 173Google Scholar.

page 122 note 3 See earlier note for reference.

page 122 note 4 Powicke, and Cheney, , Councils and Synods, Oxford 1964, 116Google Scholar, cap. 33. Interpretation i s made more difficult by the fact that the early MSS. preserve the phrase in two different forms. The Exeter statutes of 1225/37, in reissuing this clause, applied it also to the dress of deans (ibid., 230, cap. 6); since it is rather unlikely that a deanery chapter would be described as consistorium, it suggests that the Council was understood to be referring to the bishop's consistory. The existing text of the synod of Worcester of 1229, if authentic, would remove our doubts, for it indicates the existence of a formally constituted episcopal consistory: ‘ut acta confecta in consistorio episcopi communiter legantur antequam recedat consistorium’ (ibid., 178, cap. 49). But these statutes survive only in a very late copy, and it seems certain that this clause is a later addition. Indeed, caps. 47–49 have a subtitle of their own, and appear to have been added as a group.

page 123 note 1 ‘Officialis consistorie (sic) Norwic’’: Coxford Cartulary, B.M. Add. MS. 47784, fol. 80v. Also 1243: ibid., fol. 80, and Castle Acre Cartulary, B.M. Harl. MS. 2110, fol. 130v.

page 123 note 2 Powicke and Cheney, op. cit., 435 cap. 50, vi.

page 123 note 3 Pershore Cartulary, P.R.O. E/315/61, fol. 110v. I am indebted for this reference to Mrs. Susan Davies.

page 123 note 4 Carisbrooke Cartulary, B.M. Egerton MS. 3667, fol. 80. Also 1258: B.M. Add. Ch. 20212.

page 123 note 5 At Winchester in 1257 (ref. in previous note) and Norwich in 1256/63 (Hulme Cartulary, B.M. Cotton Galba E. ii, fol. 131).