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Series
Chancery: Significations of Excommunication
Catalogue reference: C 85
What's it about?
C 85
Warrants sent into Chancery to secure the issue of a writ de excommunicato capiendo under the great seal.The significations informed the king that a certain person or persons had remained obdurately excommunicate for over forty days, and...
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
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C 85
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Title (The name of the record)
- Chancery: Significations of Excommunication
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Date (When the record was created)
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1220-1611
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Description (What the record is about)
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Warrants sent into Chancery to secure the issue of a writ de excommunicato capiendo under the great seal.
The significations informed the king that a certain person or persons had remained obdurately excommunicate for over forty days, and requested the aid of the secular arm. They were mostly issued by bishops, but also by archdeacons, deans and abbots, and the writs were drawn up by the cursitors.
Significations sometimes identify the excommunicate by reference to his father, his occupation or status, or the parish, place or county of his residence. The nature of the contumacy committed might be specified; the names of the judge or lawyers involved in the case might be mentioned.
Among the offences signified to Chancery, the non-payment of tenths is perhaps the most common, followed by matrimonial and testamentary cases, fornication, adultery, perjury and defamation. Cases of assault on clerks, sacrilege, necromancy, and suspicion of heresy are also included.
As well as significations of excommunication, the series also contains some certifications of absolution sent to Chancery by the bishop, requesting the supercession of an excommunicate's arrest.
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Arrangement (Information about the filing sequence or logical order of the record)
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Arrangement
Arranged chronologically by diocese.
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Related material (A cross-reference to other related records)
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Significations of excommunication for the county palatine of Chester are in CHES 38
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
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Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
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English and Latin
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
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217 file(s)
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Unpublished finding aids (A note of unpublished indexes, lists or guides to the record)
- There is a card index of signified excommunicates' names, arranged alphabetically within each diocese.
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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People became liable to signification once they had remained contumacious for forty days following excommunication. The Church had used its ultimate penalty without effect; further sanction - the writ for the arrest and imprisonment of the excommunicate by the sheriff - depended upon secular authority.
Accordingly, the judge presiding in the ecclesiastical court responsible would notify the diocesan bishop, and a signification would be sent out of the episcopal chancery. This took the form of a letter patent under the bishop's seal and was addressed to the king.
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Publication note(s) (A note of publications related to the record)
- Transcripts of some of the significations of excommunication and certifications of absolution in this series are printed in F D Logan, Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England (Toronto, 1968).
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C3645/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
1,513,580 records
Within the department: C
Records created, acquired, and inherited by Chancery, and also of the Wardrobe, Royal...
You are currently looking at the series: C 85
Chancery: Significations of Excommunication
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