Miscellaneous

DCb/PRC/44

Miscellaneous

circa 1400 - 1858

Contains a wide range of records, several of which are sections and fragments of volumes and papers. They include:

Court case records consisting of fee accounts, citations (summons issued to defendants in lawsuits), mandates (court orders), allegation books (containing details of the individuals involved in the case and the alleged offence committed by the defendant), depositions (witness statements), excommunications (documents including lists of persons deprived of the right of church membership, usually when defendants failed to make a payment or answer a court decree), penances (schedules of punishments in the form of confessions which were performed voluntarily by the guilty party to show sorrow for a sin), appointments of surrogates (church officers serving office in place for another) and proctors (court supervisors and lawyers), inhibitions and relaxations (suspensions and renewals of church court business) made in connection with Metropolitical visitations (relating to the Bishop of Canterbury's responsibility as Archbishop of Canterbury for visiting his jurisdiction);

Testamentary records including parts of will registers (containing official copies of wills - without original signatures - recording individuals' intentions for the disposition of their property and rights after his or her death), grants of administrations (when the deceased died without leaving a will (intestate), renunciations of administrations (the giving up of a grant for administering the goods of the deceased), inventories (detailed lists of deceased's goods) and guardianship bonds (made by guardians to agree to faithfully to carry out their responsibilities where the deceased left minors under 21 years);

Meeting House certificate for Northbourne (1834) recording the house and the occupiers' name designated for dissenting congregations and names of the ministers and other members of the congregation. The Toleration Act 1688 permitted Protestant dissenters to worship in their own meeting houses, providing that the building had been registered and certified as such with the diocesan bishop;

Church rates and property leases;

Faculty (bishop's licence) for the erection of a vault at Saint Peter, Canterbury (1768);

And

Visitation papers relating to the visits made by the bishop or his official to persons and places in the diocese with a view of maintaining faith and discipline.

The series also includes the records of the Diocesan Court of High Commission for Canterbury Diocese (1584 - 1603) (reference DCb/PRC/44/3). The Court heard cases relating to incest, incontinence (lack of sexual restraint) and breach of marriage contract, clandestine marriage (secret marriages made often illicit reasons), recusancy (where persons were 'convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine Service' - defined under the statute relating to 'Popish (catholic) Recusants' passed in 1593 (35 Elizabeth 1 c 2), including possession of 'superstitious objects' such as rosaries, violence to ministers, practising medicine without a licence (required by Act of Parliament 1511) and cases of contempt of excommunication (relating to persons deprived of the right of church membership). An index to the cases heard at the court and a description of the court's procedure and business are given in this catalogue.

Includes the case of Margery Pettit of Chilham (1586) accused of concealing superstitious objects keeping ceremonial copes and beads in her house. She was committed to Westgate Prison, Canterbury for refusing to take oath at court DCb/PRC/44/3/folios 36-50).

English

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