England Church Courts, Marriage and Other Licenses - International Institute

Conferring Degrees
Certain non-university doctorate degrees in divinity, law and medicine were granted by the Pope (Roman Degrees/Graduates) prior to the Reformation and later by the Archbishop of Canterbury from his palace at Lambeth (Lambeth Degrees/Graduates). Such medical degrees were not accepted as a qualification to practice after the 1858 Medical Act.

Faculties
Another kind of Episcopal licence is the faculty, which permits:


 * Alterations or additions to be made to the fabric, furniture or ornaments in a consecrated Church of England building or churchyard. Where the church of vicarage was becoming dilapidated evidence would be forthcoming from local craftsmen such as carpenters, masons, tilers and glaziers as to needed repairs. There will also be estimates and payments to the men employed to do the work, for example, in the archives of St. Paul’s Cathedral is a quit claim dated 3 Feb 1701 and signed by William Middleton advising that he has been fully paid for his work in rebuilding the cathedral after the fire.


 * Removal of a corpse for reburial.


 * Allocation of seating; many parishioners’ names may be included in these records, especially if someone wanted to move their allocated pews around! Often all the elderly local residents were called in to give their recollections of family rights and these depositions can be a goldmine for the genealogist.

Marriage Licences
Licences were needed for those wishing to undergo a valid marriage without publication or proclamation of banns. The marriage licence identified one or more churches in which the ceremony could take place, and it would have to be within canonical hours (8am - 12 noon, extended to 3pm in 1886 and 6pm in 1934). Barber (1980) has a good discussion on the subject.

Rules regarding the appropriate clergyman to apply to for a marriage licence were similar to those for probate until 1837 as follows:

Ordinary Marriage Licences
Common or Ordinary Marriage Licences were issued by:


 * Bishops or their surrogates for those living within their diocese.


 * An archbishop or his surrogate (the vicar-general) for those living in different dioceses. The province of Canterbury’s vicar-general issued 356,000 people licences between 1694 and 1850. These are indexed but a longer index run to 1921 is available on 20 films commencing at 0375222. The indexes from 1660-1694 were published by the Harleian Society (Armytage). The original allegations to 1851 are on 241 films starting at 0363958; a useful list to 1850 is available.


 * The Faculty Office of the Master of the Faculties, on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, for those from different provinces. An index of persons who obtained Faculty Office marriage licences from 1694-1850 is available, although extant records exist from 1543. Published indexes exist for 1632-1714 (Cokayne and Fry) and 1543-1869 (Cokayne and Armytage).

Special Marriage Licences
Special Marriage Licences were issued only by the Archbishop of Canterbury to permit marriage at any time and at any place. This was frequently used by nobility who wished to be married in their own private chapels, and it provided a quick means of solemnizing a death bed marriage. It continues to be used by couples wanting to marry away from their parish church without necessitating residence for the required time (15 days from 1823).

Licences for Parochial Positions
The church was concerned with the endowment and advowson (right to appoint a cleric to a living) of parish churches and the ordination, presentation, collation and preferment of the clergy. Licences were needed by beneficed ministers and unbeneficed preachers from 1604 and some from 1511.

A special group of licences were issued after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries for monks and friars who wished to hold benefices and practice their priestly office as members of the regular clergy. A licence had to be obtained from the Anglican diocese in order to hold the parish office of lecturer, sexton, churchwarden or parish clerk and for all these there may be testimonials in the records. Approval is still necessary, of-course, although the granting of actual licences disappeared around 1900.

Other clerical licences were non-resident licences in order to be absent from the benefice showing cause, and the so-called legal licences making legal the house of residence of the clergy. Disputes over the appointment of clergy and parish officers can indicate the tensions in a local community.

Professional Licences
Henry VIII introduced the licensing of certain professionals for the following reasons:


 * Schoolmasters, to ensure that Roman Catholic tenets were not taught in schools. Licences for schoolmasters continued until about 1850.


 * Midwives, so that a reliable Christian woman was available to baptize newborns whose lives were in danger. One of her duties was to extract the name of the father of an illegitimate child, by refusing assistance to the mother until he had been identified.


 * Physicians. apothecaries and surgeons, to prevent magical and sorcerous practices.

Licences for physicians, surgeons and midwives cease about 1750. Much archival material has been filmed and remains little-used by genealogists, for example for the Diocese of Canterbury there are 15 films commencing at of marriage and general licenses of which only 90 are for marriages. Prest, The Professions in Early Modern England, (Croom Helm, London, ) is a good source on these early professions.

Registration of Dissenters’ Meeting Houses
This was another duty of Anglican bishops following the Toleration Act of 1688. In the earliest period, before chapels were built, these meeting houses were often the homes of named local nonconformists, an obvious boon for the family historian.

____________________________________________________________

Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Court Records-Criminal, Civil and Ecclesiastical offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

We welcome updates and additions to this Wiki page.