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The Bar of the Ely Consistory Court in the Fourteenth Century: Advocates, Proctors, and Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

James A. Brundage
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Extract

The consistory court of the bishops of Ely by the fourteenth century regularly held its sessions in Cambridge, the largest and most prosperous city of the diocese. Ely itself was small, little more than a hamlet, and physically isolated. Recurrent flooding in the fens often cut off the roads leading into the Isle of Ely, and even at the best of times Ely tended to be rather out of the way. Although Cambridge was flat and lowlying, it rose just far enough above the level of the fenlands to be secure from all but the worst flooding, while the River Cam gave the city ready access to the commercial networks of eastern and southern England.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 541 - 560
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 The university probably, had something of the order of 400–700 members c. 1377, while Oxford, with 1,500 or more members, was well over twice as large: Aston, T. H., Duncan, G. D. and Evans, T. A. R., ‘The medieval alumni of the University of Cambridge’, Past and Present lxxxvi (1980), 12–13.Google Scholar

2 Edward, Miller, The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely: the social history of an ecclesiastical estate from the tenth century to the early fourteenth century, Cambridge 1951, repr. 1969, 80–3, 93–5, 111–12Google Scholar; Aston, Margaret, Thomas Arundel: a study of church life in the reign of Richard II, Oxford 1967, 171, 234 n. 3.Google Scholar

3 This was true even as early as the twelfth century; see, for example, the letter of Stephen of Tournai in 1190 congratulating Richard Barre on his promotion from archdeacon of Lisieux to archdeacon of Ely: Lettres d'Etienne de Tournai, ed. Jules de Silve, Paris 1893, no. 275, pp. 346–7. Stephen saw the move as a great step upward: ‘[T]ranslatus es a planeta Cyprio ad solem, ab obscuris ad lucem, a lubricis motibus ad splendoris soliditatem.’

4 The earliest known Official of Ely was named Hugh and held office under Bishop Eustace (1197–1215). Hugh was apparently the principal judge both for the bishop and also for the archdeacon. By 1220, when Master Robert of Ewerby had become the Official ofBishop John of Fountains (1220–5), t n e archdeacon had also begun to appoint separate judges for his court, and thenceforth this became the normal practise. While some English bishops occasionally exercised their jurisdiction in person through the Court of Audience, this happened rarely at Ely. See Owen, Dorothy M., The records of the bishop's Official at Ely: specialization in the English episcopal chancery of the later Middle Ages, in D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (eds), The Study of Medieval Records: studies in honour of Kathleen Major, Oxford 1971, 192–4;Google ScholarRose, Graham, ‘The administration of the diocese of Ely during the vacancies of the see, 1288–89 and I3O2–3’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. xii (1929), 49–74;Google Scholar and Aston, , Thomas, Arundel, 41–2. On Officials generally see Paul Fournier, Les Officialite's au Moyen Age: etude sur ι'organization, la competence et la procedure des tribunaux ecclesiastiques ordinaires en France de 1180 ά 1328, Paris 1880, repr. Aalen 1984.Google Scholar

5 Miller, , Abbey and Bishopric of Ely, 251; Owen, ‘Records’, 190–1.Google Scholar

6 Thomas Arundel was bishop of Ely from 1373 to 1388, when he became archbishop of York. In 1396 he became archbishop of Canterbury, but was soon embroiled in the political crises of the reign of Richard 11, whom he served three times as lord chancellor. Arundel found it wise to spend 1397–9 in exile on the continent. He returned to England and was restored to the see of Canterbury in 1399. Arundel died early in 1414. For the Ely phase of his career see generally Aston, Thomas Arundel.

7 When the Official's court acquired this title is not clear. The usage was presumably modelled on that of the papal consistory, which was beginning to assume regular judicial functions during the pontificate of Innocent 111 (1198–1216): Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: Die Kardinale unter Coelestine III, und Innocenz III. (Osterreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom, Publikationen des Historischen Instituts, sect, i, Abhandlungen, vi), Wien 1984, 297–301; see also the review of Maleczek's book by Kenneth Pennington in Zeitschrift der Savigny–Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichle, kanonistische Abteilung lxxiii (1987), 383. English writers described the courts of bishops' Officials as consistories with increasing frequency after 1240 and by the fourteenth century the usage had become well established: The Register of John Pecham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1279–1291, ed. Davis, F. N. and Decima, Douie (Canterbury and York Society lxiv–lxv, 1968–1969), 2. 186;Google ScholarRegistrum Roberti Winchelsey, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, A.D. 1294–1313, ed. Rose Graham (Canterbury and York Society li-lii, 1952–6), ii. 697–8Google ScholarArchbishop, Stratford, Constitutiones provinciales (1342) c. 8, in David, Wilkins (ed.), Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols, London, 1737, repr. Bruxelles 1964, ii. 699–700;Google ScholarColin, Morris, ‘A consistory court in the middle ages’, this JOURNAL xiv (1963), 152, as well as ‘From synod to consistory: the bishops' courts in England, 1150–1250’, this JOURNAL xxii (1970), II5–23.Google Scholar

8 EDR, /21;, now in Cambridge University Library. The contents of the Act Book are analysed and described by Owen, Dorothy M., Ely Records: a handlist of the records of the bishop and archdeacon of Ely, Cambridge 1971, 20–1, and Records of the Official at Ely, 199–201.Google Scholar

9 CUL, Add. MS 3468, analysed by Owen in Records of the Official at Ely, 197–8 and Ely Records, 28.

10 EDR, G/1/2;, described in Owen, Ely Records, 2.

11 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, MS 204/110;, ed. C. L. Feltoe and E. H. Minns (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, octavo ser. xlviii, 1917); Owen, Ely Records, 71.

12 A declaration that the judge had consulted legal experts in reaching his decision (de consilio iurisperitorum nobis assistencium) routinely prefaced final judgments; thus, EDR, /21;, fos 59V, 70V, 124r, etc.

13 EDR, G/1/2, fo. IIv, and D/2/1;, fo. 33r; Owen, ‘Records of the Bishop's Official at Ely’, 196.

14 BRUC, 513–14; for his career at York see also Swanson, R. N., A Calendar of the Register of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, 1308–1405 (Borthwick Texts and Calendars, Records of the Northern Province 8,9, 1981–1985).Google Scholar

15 BRUC, 83–4.

16 EDR, /21;, fos I 4, 34r, 37V.

17 Adam of Usk, Chronicon, A.D. 1377–1421, s.a. 1401, ed. and trans. Sir E. M. Thompson, 2nd edn, London 1904, 64.

18 EDR, /21;, fos 2gr, 34r, 35r, 37V.

19 His commission as Official appears in ibid., fo. ir.

20 Ibid. fo. 6r.

21 Ibid, fos 58r, 62V.

22 BRUC, 83–4.

23 Owen, Dorothy M., The Medieval Canon Law: teaching, literature and transmission, Cambridge 1990, 13.Google Scholar

24 EDR, D/2/1/, fos 32V, 33r.

25 Ibid, fos 33r, 47r, 53V–56BV, 67V, 80v–8Ir, 86r, giv, 97V, 104V, Io7r.

26 Ibid. fo. 75r.

27 Ibid. fo. gor; BRUC 421–2.

28 Cambridge Gild Records, ed. Mary Bateson (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, octavo ser. xxxix, 1903), 96, 122.Google Scholar

29 EDR, D/2/1, fo. 120r; G/1/2, fo. 30V; Owen, ‘Records of the bishop's Official’, 196.

30 EDR, G/1/2, fo. 39V. The bishops of Ely in this period – and indeed up to the nineteenth century – appointed the Masters of Peterhouse from a shortlist of two names chosen by the fellows of the College: Christopher, Brooke and Roger, Highfield, Oxford and Cambridge, Cambridge 1988, 93.Google Scholar

31 Owen, Medieval Canon Law, 13.

32 Aston, Thomas Arundel, 315–16; BRUC, 421–2.

33 EDR, D/2/I, fo. Ior; BRUC, 194

34 EDR, D/2/1, fos 62V, giv, g6v.

35 He and his wife, Margaret, enrolled in the Corpus Christi guild at Cambridge in 1352/3: Bateson, Cambridge Gild Records, 46.

36 VLAE, 24.

37 He appears as a proctor in EDR, D/2/1, fos 4r, 1 Iv, 94r, and as an advocate at fos 22v, 35r, 58r, 67 87r. For the separation of the functions of advocate and proctor see, e.g., William Lyndwood, Provinciate seu constitutiones Angliae I. 17 v. advocates and 1. 18 v. advocatus, Oxford 1679, 74, 76; Henry Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln (1320–40), Statuta consistorii episcopalis Lincolniensis (1334), §§3–4, in Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 572.

38 EDR, D/2/1, fos 5V, 18r, 20r, 20v, 21v, 23r, 23v–24r, 36r, 44V, 49V, 55V–56BV, 65V, 70V, 123V, 125r.

39 BRUC, 458–9 gives details of these appointments.

40 EDR, D/2/I, fos 84r, 87r, 88v, 13iv, i60r.

41 Ibid. G/1/2, fo. I3r; VLAE, 150. Both Cottenham and Potton on occasion had to sue in order to collect fees from their clients: EDR, D/2/1, fos 46V, II6r; and see below, p. 559.

42 BRUC, 213, 260.

43 He sat as a commissary at least part of every year covered by the Act Book; he appeared only a few times as a proctor: EDR, D/2/1, fos 8r, 9v, IIv.

44 Ibid, fos 9iv, g2r, 94r, I24r.

45 For details of his preferments see BRUC, 213; his appearances in other Cambridge records, other than of the consistory, are also few and far between: Bateson, Cambridge Gild Records, 106, 120.

46 Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury, c. 1200–1301, ed. Norma Adams and Charles Donahue, J r (Selden Society xcv, 1981), introduction, p. 22.

47 Thus, e.g. Master William de Quy appeared on 24 Apr. 1376 as proctor for Alan Ord of Quye (EDR, D/2/1, fo. 45V; BRUC, 467–68); similarly on 8 Jul. 1378 Johanna Brodyng appointed as her proctor in a marriage case Adam, vicar of St Clement's Church, Cambridge; he was probably her parish priest and appeared for her again on 23 Jul. 1380 (EDR, D/2/1, fos 94V, 143V; BRUC, 614). A rather different situation is represented by Thomas de Goldyngton, bachelor of canon law, who appeared just once in the Ely consistory court on behalf of Roger Toller, charged with detaining the tithe of a fish caught on the common bank known as Milnedam in the parish of St Mary–without– Trumpington–Gate, to the value of 6s. 8d. Goldyngton was regularly a proctor in the court of Canterbury and his solitary appearance in the Ely records seems to represent the temporary importation of an outside lawyer for a specific piece of business: EDR, D/2/1, fo. 112v; BRUC, 264. Similarly, Nicholas Werk of the diocese of Lincoln was temporarily admitted as a proctor at Ely in 1378: EDR, D/2/1, fo 92v.

48 It would be intriguing to know how much that income amounted to, but the Act Book yields little evidence on this score. Although Caprik sued successfully to recover unpaid fees from several deadbeat clients (EDR, D/2/1, fos 46V, 7gr, 79V, 91r, I 16r), the entries fail to show how much he recovered.

49 Ibid. fo. 62V; CUL, Add. MS 3468, fo. 94V.

50 He first appeared as a proctor on 30 Jan. 1376 and was subsequently listed as a proctor at least seventeen times before his formal admission on 26 Jan. 1377: EDR, D/2/I, fos 35V, 36r, 38V, 39V, 40V, 41r, 43V, 45V, 48r, 48V, 52V, 55AV, 55BV, 56Br, 57V, 6iv, 62r.

51 Wiltshire also appeared in 138I in a case in the royal courts: Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1377–8I, London 1914, 525 (4Rich. II, m. Id).

52 On the training of proctors see Owen's, Dorothy M. introduction to John Lydford's Book (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Joint Publications, 22), London 1974, 5–11, 15–20;Google ScholarHelmholz, Richard H., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge 1974, 147–8;Google ScholarBernard, Guenee, Tribunaux et gens de justice dans le bailliage de Senlis a la fin du moyen age (vers 1380–vers 1550), Strasbourg 1963, 205–6.Google Scholar

53 Pyttes's earliest appearance in the Act Book dates from 12 Apr. 1374: EDR, D/2/1 fo. 5V; thereafter he appeared intermittently but frequently (on at least thirty-five occasions) up to the point where the record ends in Mar. 1382.

54 Ibid. 144r.

55 Ibid. I57v.

56 Calendar of Close Rolls, I377–8I, 5I8, to Apr. I38I (4 Rich. II, m. 7d)).

57 Pyttes was himself a defendant a few years later in another action in the royal courts. In 1384 he was charged in King's Bench with having extorted I8d. from Thomas Whiston of Dry Drayton, ‘under colour of his office’. Pyttes pleaded a royal letter of pardon, dated 27 Oct. 1383 and for that reason was acquitted: Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, I38I–85, London I897, 333 (7 Rich, II, m. I2), and Aston, Thomas Arundel, 95.

58 Ibid. 307–8.

59 Kyllerwyke first appears on 10 June 1374 (EDR, D/2/1, fo. 7r) and his name recurs frequently as a proctor thereafter down to fo. 65V, where he appeared on behalf of Robert Couper. Then he abruptly vanishes from the record. He was described in a witness list (fo. 3Ir) as a cleric of the diocese of Lincoln.

60 Ibid, fos g8v, I05V, ii0r, II8r, 123r 124V, 129r, 134V, 144r.

61 Ibid. 131V.

62 Ibid. G/1/2, fo. 39V.

63 BRUC, 527.

64 Ibid. 664; Bateson, Cambridge Gild Records, 138, 146.

65 EDR, D/2/1, fo. IIv, 25r; G/1/2, fo. 75V. The fact that the bishops of Ely maintained a palace at Willingham might conceivably help explain William's apparent close association with Ely interests.

66 Ibid. D/2/1, fo. 62V. '

67 I have noted at least fifty–six appearances by Sutton between the time of his admission and the point where the record ceases in March 1382.

68 VLAE, 29. He had presumably received his degree shortly before: in 1389, when he was mentioned in the records of St Katherine's Guild, Cambridge, he was described simply as clericus: Bateson, Cambridge Gild Records, 88.

69 He first appears in EDR, D/2/1, fo. 5V (12 Apr. 1374); at 22V (4 May 1375) he was styled magister and at 29r was described as notary public and registrar of the archdeacon. He presumably came from Candlesby in east Lincolnshire; how he came to migrate to Cambridge is not known. John de Grebby, a commissary judge of the archdeacon's court and a close associate of Candlesby (see below, p. 552), came from a village close to Candlesby. I am grateful to Dorothy Owen for bringing these associations to my attention.

70 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1374–77, London 1913,

71 EDR, D/2/1, fo. 25r; Aston, Thomas Arundel, 93–5.

72 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1377–81, 1895, 10(1 Rich. II m. 22).

73 EDR, D/2/1, fo. 38V; Aston, Thomas Arundel, 125–6.

74 EDR, D/2/1, fos 56AV, 56BV, 64r, 65V.

75 Ibid. fo. 84r.

76 Ibid. fo. 58r.

77 Ibid, fos 59r, 62v–63r; Aston, Thomas Arundel, 77–8.

78 EDR, D/2/1, fo. 121r.

79 Leverton first appeared in the court records on 21 Apr. 1379: ibid. fo. 113V.

80 Ibid. fo. 131V; 2 Lyon (1274) c. 19 prescribed disbarment as the appropriate penalty for refusal to take the oath when required: Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and others, 2nd edn, Basel 1962, 300–1; Charles, Lefebvre, ‘La constitution Properandum et les avocats de la curie a la fin du XHIe siecle’, in 1274: Annee charnieremutations et continuites, Paris 1977, 526–7Google Scholar

81 See below pp. 556–7.

82 EDR, D/2/1, fo. 136r.

83 Ibid. fo. 139r–v. This case had already been in the courts for five years –its earliest entry dates from 1377, on appeal from the archdeacon's court: fo. 63V.

84 Dobson, R. B., The Peasants' Revolt 0f 1381, 2nd edn, London 1983, 239–42;Google ScholarVictoria History of the County of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, ed. L. F. Salzman and others, London, 1938–, iii. 9–12;Google ScholarAston, , Thomas Arundel, 142–3.Google Scholar

85 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1381–85, 143 (5 Rich. II, m. I6d).

86 Rotuli parliamentorum, 6 vols, London, 1783–1832, 5 Ric. II, iii. 106–9.

87 The bishop's consistory had met at Little St Mary's Church on Friday 14 June, the day before the riots began, but John Newton and the court's other officers apparently fled as soon as the disturbance broke out and the court did not hold session again until 19 Sept.: EDR, D/2/1, fo. 152V; Aston, Thomas Arundel, 138–9. In a decision handed down on 30 Oct. 1381 Candlesby was declared to have suborned perjury in the Bassingbourn case and was referred to as the ‘former registrar’; Pyttes was first named as registrar in the record for 21 Nov.: EDR, D/2/1, fos 154r, 157V.

88 Bishop Arundel received authorisation from Pope Gregory xi in 1375 to create six public notaries: ibid. G/1/2, fo. IIr.

89 Owen, ‘Records of the bishop's Official’, 198.

90 Bateson, , Cambridge Gild Records, 121–2; BRUC, 39;Google ScholarAston, , Thomas Arundel, 312–13.Google Scholar

91 EDR, D/2/1, fos IIIv, II8r.

92 Ibid. fo. 25V; Aston, , Thomas Arundel, 97, 121–2, 391.Google Scholar

93 EDR, D/2/1, fos 3iv, 39r.

94 Aston, , Thomas Arundel, 25–6; BRUC, 241;Google ScholarArthur, Gray, The Priory of St. Radegund (Cambridge Antiquarian Society xxxi, 1898), 96.Google Scholar

95 EDR, D/2/i, fo. g6v; Aston, , Thomas Arundel, 26, 77.Google Scholar

96 Richard, Wunderli,‘Pre–reformation London summoners and the murder of Richard Hunne’, this JOURNAL xxxiii (1982), 212.Google Scholar

97 EDR, D/2/1, fo. gr.

98 He was described in a witness list as apparitor of the archdeacon in 1376, but by 1378 he was clearly working for Scrope: ibid, fos 59r, 88v, 8gr.

99 Ibid. fo. 124.V.

100 Woodcock, B. L., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury, London 1952, 48–9;Google ScholarWunderli, , ‘Pre–Reformation London summoners’, 210–11. Apparitors collected fees directly from litigants: Petrus de Salinis, Lectura to C. 14 q. 5 c. 15 v. sicut officialis, in London, BL, Arundel MS 435, fo. 97rb:‘Officialem uocat hie executorem <loci>qui introducit reum et iudici facit apparere, unde et apparitor dicitur executor. Certumquid recipiebat a litigatoribus pro sportulis.’ This practise gave ample opportunity forextortion and peculation: Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 700;qui+introducit+reum+et+iudici+facit+apparere,+unde+et+apparitor+dicitur+executor.+Certumquid+recipiebat+a+litigatoribus+pro+sportulis.’+This+practise+gave+ample+opportunity+forextortion+and+peculation:+Wilkins,+Concilia,+ii.+700;>Google ScholarLyndwood, , Provinciate, 52;Google ScholarWilliam, Wickwayne, Archbishop of York (1279–85), Register, ed. William Brown (Surtees Society cliv, 1907), 211, 214–15, 505, 518. Chaucer's portrait of a summoner in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 623–68, is evidently true to life.Google Scholar

101 EDR, D/2/1, fos 88v, 89r;Aston, , Thomas Arundel, 116–17.Google Scholar

102 EDR, D/2/1, fos 13r, 20v, 22V, 43V, 46r, 491–, 66v, 82V. Most of these appearances were as substitute for Richard, Pyttes. Their frequency suggests that Pyttes and Hostler may have had some sort of standing arrangement, perhaps even a partnership.Google Scholar

103 The issues in the conflict between the bishop's Official and the archdeacon of Ely lie outside the scope of this paper. Aston, , Thomas Arundel, 83–132, gives an excellent account of the issues and the events leading up to this settlement. Thomas Arundel, while archbishop of Canterbury, effectively settled the conflict in his Laudum of 1401; for the text see VLAE, 180–96.Google Scholar

104 On the fees and incomes of practitioners see below, p. 558–9.

105 See my study of these oaths in ‘The ecclesiastical bar at Ely in the fourteenth century: the oath of admission’, in Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (forthcoming).

106 E D R, D / 2 / 1, fos 8 4 r, 8 7 r, 88v, i i 2 r, I 2 i r, 123V, etc.

107 E.g. ibid, fos 37V, 59V, 58 61r, 62r, 62V, etc.

108 Ibid, fos 7r, 1 iv, 22v, 35r, 67r, 87r, 94r, g8r, 104V, 1 i6r; VLAE, 24; BRUC, 162. He may have been related to Robert of Cottenham, admitted as a proctor of the archdeacon's court in 1306: VLAE, 24.

109 EDR, D/2/1, fos n6r, 125V, 131V; BRUC, 517.

110 EDR, D/2/1, fos 138V, 150r–v, 157V, i58r, 160r, i6ir; VLAE, 149; BRUC, 254–5;Calendar of Patent Rolls 1381–85, 333.

111 Fournier, Officialite's, 134–5.

112 WoodcockGoogle Scholar, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, 27–8, 34–5, 41.

113 Likewise at Lincoln in the fifteenth century the courts of the archdeacons were consolidated with the bishop's commissary court: Colin Morris, ‘The commissary of the bishop in the diocese of Lincoln’, this JOURNAL X (1959), 62'3.

114 Aston, ,Thomas Arundel, 55–6.Google Scholar

115 Ibid. 56–7.

116 E.g. EDR, D/2/1, fos 55AV, 104V. An Ely formulary book furnishes the texts of some routine documents for implementing these orders: ibid. F/5/33, fos 6r, 1 iv–12r.

117 Ibid. D/2/1, fo. 52r.

118 Ibid. fo. 90v.

119 Hugh got a fee of 4J: ibid. fo. 114.V.

120 Marcia Stentz of the University of Toronto in a paper on ‘The economics of law in the fourteenth century’, at the Twenty–Fourth International Congress on Medieval Studies, 6 May 1989, estimated Foxton's income as registrar at approximately £10–15 Pe rannum, and the leading proctor's incomes at between £3 and £6 annually. Advocate's incomes are more difficult to estimate than those of proctors, since they left few traces in official records. On the incomes of practitioners at York see David Dasef, ‘The lawyers of the York Curia, 1400–1435’, unpubl. BPhil. diss., York 1976, 75–6.

121 EDR, D/2/1, fos 6v, 37r, 97V, ii3r, 114V.

122 Ibid, fos 49V, 52r.

123 Ibid. fo. 131V.

124 See also n. 41 above.

125 EDR, D/2/1, fos i6ir, i62r.

126 Ibid. fo. 162V: ‘Cum in causis salariorum ministrorum iurisdiccionis ecclesiastice, ubi uidelicet Examinator, Aduocatus, procurator seu Registrarius aut alius officiarius seu minister quiscumque cuiuscumque curie ecclesiastice pro labore seu patrocinio per eos in causis ecclesiasticis impensis a suis clientulis salarium petunt et propter hoc coram eiusdem curiam presidentibus in iudicio conuenerunt iuris solempnitatem non expediat uel deceat obseruari. Nos, Johannes de Neuton, doctor legum, Officialis Eliensis, nullam certam formam per quam in huiusmodi causarum processibus in Consistorio Eliensis hactenus procedi consueuerat inuenimus usitatem, uolentes certam formam per quam in huiusmodi causis sumarie et absque prolixioris litigii diffugio et subtili ordinis iuridicarii obseruaccione procedi ualeat, in dicto Consistorio Eliensis de cetero deseruari, Ordinamus et statuimus de consilio et assensu iurisperitorum in Consistorii presencium ac ministrorum eiusdem Curie seu Consistorii quod in causis huiusmodi de cetero non exigatur libellus in scriptis, sed summarie peticio in actis redigenda iuxta quam pronunciacio sequi debet.’

127 Bishop Burghersh, Statuta consistorii episcopalis Lincolniensis(1334) §4, in Wilkins,Concilia, ii. 572; Morris, ‘Consistory Court’, 156–7; Dasef, ‘Lawyers’, 56–7; Register of Waller de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1307–1326), ed. F. C. Hingeston–Randolph, London 1892, 116–17.

128 Woodcock, , Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, 42. T h e Rochester consistory likewise had numerous proctors, some of whom were clearly professional, but no advocates. The Rochester proctors almost certainly performed both functions; see the Ada of the Rochester Consistory Court, 1347/8, in Registrant Hamonis Hethe, diocesis Roffensis, A.D.1319–1352, ed. Charles Johnson (Canterbury and York Society xlviii–xlix, 1948), ii.911–1043. For further reflections on this problem see Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, 150.Google Scholar

129 See above, pp. 544–6, 550.