Chichester archdeaconry depositions 1603-1608

摘要

Archdeaconry depositions for the early modern period can be an invaluable source of information but also bring to life our forebears, shedding light on their lives, disputes, and relationships with family members and neighbours. As this latest volume of archival records from the Sussex Record Society attests, these records are not about national or international events; instead, they are concerned with local events and disputes that may appear to us to be mundane but were of great importance to the individuals who brought cases, appeared as witnesses in them, or who were the defendants in them. Whereas the tripartite mechanism of criminal justice - the Assizes, Quarter Sessions, and petty sessions or more informal sessions of the local magistracy - dealt with felonies and misdemeanours, it was the ecclesiastical or consistory church courts that dealt with those areas where secular law had no jurisdiction. In the early modern period, particularly during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the ecclesiastical courts were particularly busy enforcing personal morality. Such offences against morality were dealt with by churchwardens or clergymen and sent to be heard at the church courts. Because of the nature of many of these offences, the courts became known as 'Bawdy Courts', and the cases they heard included what we would today refer to as anti-social behaviour (drunkenness, fighting, name calling), sexual misbehaviour, and failing to attend church on Sundays.