The Court of the Archdeacon, or Archdeaconry Court, is an obsolete

ecclesiastical court In organized Christianity, an ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Histo ...

of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. The court was presided over by a lawyer, and its territorial jurisdiction extended over an archdeaconry (a subdivision of a diocese, headed by an

archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

). In many matters its jurisdiction overlapped with that of the Consistory Court (the court of the

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

of the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

), and an appeal lay from the Archdeacon's Court to the Consistory Court, so in practice by the nineteenth century suitors used the higher rather than the lower court, and the Archdeacon's Court had become obsolete. The Archdeacon's Court had jurisdiction over both clergy and laity. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries much of the business of the court involved offences against public morality, such as adultery and fornication, lewd behaviour, and also slander, giving rise to its popular nickname of "The Bawdy Court". Some of the more serious matters that the court had dealt with (including ensuring that fathers made financial provision for children born outside marriage) eventually came under the criminal or civil jurisdiction of the justices of the peace.

References

Church of England legislation Ecclesiastical courts {{England-law-stub