Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Table of statutes
- Table of cases
- 1 THE MEDIEVAL INHERITANCE
- 2 THE FORTUNES OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION
- 3 DEVELOPMENTS IN LAW AND LEGAL PRACTICE
- 4 THE LITERATURE OF CIVILIAN PRACTICE
- 5 THE CIVILIANS AND ENGLISH COMMON LAW
- Appendix 1 Manuscript copies of Clerke's Praxis
- Appendix 2 Ecclesiastical reports, 1580–1640
- Index
2 - THE FORTUNES OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Table of statutes
- Table of cases
- 1 THE MEDIEVAL INHERITANCE
- 2 THE FORTUNES OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION
- 3 DEVELOPMENTS IN LAW AND LEGAL PRACTICE
- 4 THE LITERATURE OF CIVILIAN PRACTICE
- 5 THE CIVILIANS AND ENGLISH COMMON LAW
- Appendix 1 Manuscript copies of Clerke's Praxis
- Appendix 2 Ecclesiastical reports, 1580–1640
- Index
Summary
The searcher who examines the records of the ecclesiastical courts in order to trace the fortunes of the Church's jurisdiction during the Reformation era finds that the period from the accession of the Tudors to the start of the reign of Charles I breaks roughly into three segments. The first lasted up to the start of the ‘official’ Henrician Reformation in 1529. These years witnessed a prolonged attack upon the Church's traditional jurisdiction and a gradual acquiescence by the ecclesiastical lawyers in jurisdictional boundaries changed to their detriment. The second period lasted from the time of the Reformation statutes until about 1570. It was a time of uncertainty about the future of the spiritual courts, continued low levels of litigation within them, and surprisingly small variation in court practice, given the dramatic swings in religious policy of the three monarchs who followed Henry VIII. The third period lasted into the reign of the first Stuart king of England. It was a time of recovery of nerve by the civilians, expansion of litigation within the courts, creation of an indigenous literature of English ecclesiastical law, and conflict with the common lawyers.
The story told by the records turns out to be neither simple nor dramatic. It has many twists and turns, and not every piece of evidence points in the same direction. Not all of it suggests the same sort of conclusion about the efficacy or the future of spiritual jurisdiction in England. Tracing the fortunes of the spiritual courts through their records of 150 years warns repeatedly against seeking the definitive historical verdict that one might expect to emerge from prolonged study of act books and cause papers.
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- Roman Canon Law in Reformation England , pp. 28 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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