| Description | The court books of the ecclesiastical courts are daily records of cases heard in those courts. The information given is of a routine nature and relates to the stages reached in the process of cases heard in court.
B/C/1: Instance and office promoted cases, 1464-1479
B/C/2: Instance and office promoted cases, 1534-1865, with gaps for October 1526-July 1527, 1535-1543, 1550-1557, and March 1641/2-September 1661. There is a volume for 1661-1663 in Worcestershire Record Office (829BA2923)
B/C/3: Office cases, 1582/3-1641. This series apparently relates to offences discovered at visitation. This probably developed from the acta entered into some of the visitation books. Entries from 1582/3 are in the rear of B/C/3/10; B/C/3/1 begins in 1591; part of an office court book covering May 1641-November 1642 is with the cause papers (B/C/5) for 1641. There is also a single gathering containing office cases, 1573-1576 (B/C/3)
B/C/4: Series of supplementary court books comprising almost exclusively draft court books one covering 1622-1624, and six covering 1777-1779, 1782-1784, 1797-1798 and 1818-1826. These all duplicate periods covered by volumes in B/C/2, but a detailed comparison has yet to be made. There is also an "office-book", otherwise "the Black Book", the main contents of which are ordinations of vicarages, grants of advowsons and other deeds relating to the property and rights of benefices [there is another "black book" B/C/10iv]. There is in addition a volume of licences, faculties, dispensations and court citations and decrees from 25 September 1635 (when Archbishop William Laud's visitaion ended) to 16 December 1637. The great majority of entries relate to marriage licences. although there are also types of entries, mainly absolutions and dimissions of offenders and penance enjoined.
Many books begin in the middle of the record of one day's proceedings. Dates noted are those of the first and last Court days dated in the text. Many contain enclosures, some annexed. Most volumes after B/C/2/70 have stiff covers. |