RECORDS OF THE PECULIAR JURISDICTIONS

The papers relating to the peculiars consist of visitation processes, visitation minute books, citation papers, acts of court, penances, churchwardens presentments, and wills and inventories. Each of these record types is the equivalent to the same form of papers found in the main series of records relating to the whole archdeaconry.

For each of AH39/1-4, AH40/1-4, AH41/1-4 and AH42/1-4, the records include the references 263-265, the numbers accorded to them in the summary list of W.M. Noble and S. Inskip Ladds in 1921. Records AH39/5, AH40/5, AH41/5 and AH42/5 are of unclear provenance, but are believed to have been received by the record office from the Diocese of Ely via Cambridge University Library.

In the ancient diocese of Lincoln there were four prebendaries who exercised peculiar jurisdiction in the county of Huntingdon. These prebendaries held authority separately in the parishes of Brampton, Buckden and Leighton Ecclesia (later known as Leighton Bromswold): and the prebendal of Stow Longa, which covered the parishes of Stow Longa, Little Catworth, Spaldwick with the hamlet of Upthorpe, Easton and Barham. Within these areas the archdeacon had no ecclesiastical authority at all, this being solely held by the prebendary except during visitations of the bishop. Having been dissevered from the diocese of Lincoln to the diocese of Ely in 1839, the peculiar jurisdictions were subsequently abolished by Order in Council in 1852.