Catalogue description Prerogative Court of Canterbury: Original Files 16th century: Exhibits

This series contains at least one example of almost every type of common-form document found among the surviving records of the court at this period except bonds and citations which were separately filed.

The documents contained within these files are of many types, notably allegations, counter-allegations and answers, articles, additional allegations, interrogatories and depositions, returns to commissions in partibus, and all other documents exhibited, including letters and orders from other courts. Copies of wills and inventories only appear if they were needed to illustrate some particular point at issue in a cause.

Includes detached labels relating to the files of Exhibited Matter found in the course of sorting.

These are the only surviving portions of files of this type. They have been preserved in file form to show the diversity of exhibited material.

The unbound material of the PCC in the 16th century - that is, all the documents (both parchment and paper) returnable to that court and all exhibited material - appears to have been kept by the Registrar in a series of files. The origin and development of the filing system cannot now be traced because severe losses from, and damage to the records over the years have meant that few original files survive in anything like complete form. Indeed, the majority of surviving records once thus filed are now disarranged and separated, and there is no possibility of reconstructing the file series.

From detached original labels to the files, and from the fragments of files themselves, it appears that from at least the 1520s the records were kept in some five series:

• Series 1: Citations - including subsequent related action such as the excommunication of contumacious persons;
• Series 2: Proxies - the official documents appointing proctors of the court to conduct cases on behalf of the parties to the causes;
• Series 3: Bonds recognisances demanded of executors, administrators and the like as security for the faithful fulfillment of the duties assigned by the court;
• Series 4: Exhibited Matter - every type of allegation and reply in causes, and many other documents;
• Series 5: Filed copy wills and sentences

The remains of files from series 4 have been specially repaired to form the present series because they provide the best picture of the court in operation and the diversity of its records.