Catalogue description Palatinate of Durham: Chancery Court: Interrogatories, Depositions, Commissions, etc

This series consists of interrogatories and depositions relating to equity proceedings in the Durham Chancery Court between 1557 and 1804. It also contains a number of the commissions or writs issued by the court authorising the taking of the depositions. The following types of documents may be encountered in this series:

• Commissions: In order for private individuals to act on behalf of the crown and take evidence on oath from deponents a delegation of royal authority was necessary. This was given in a commission of dedimus potestatem. It was produced in the name of the sovereign and addressed to the commissioners. By convention there were four of these, two chosen by each side in the dispute. A minimum of two of the named commissioners was required to put the commission into effect. From early in the eighteenth century the commissioners and their clerks were required to swear oaths of secrecy and impartiality and copies of the oaths, which were in English, were sent out with the commission. On the reverse of the commission was a note recording its execution signed by the commissioners. (In the earliest files this certificate of execution was sometimes on the reverse of the depositions or formed a separate document). The Examiner and his deputy did not require commissions to take depositions as they were empowered to do so by virtue of their office.
• Interrogatories: These were the numbered questions which were read to the witnesses by the commissioners. They were in English and usually written on parchment. Separate lists of questions were drawn up by the solicitors acting for each party. The commissioners were not allowed to add any questions of their own. From the earliest files many of the interrogatories were signed by counsel before being sent to the commissioners and this became normal practice from early in the seventeenth century. On occasion the commissioners signed the interrogatories.
• Depositions: These were the answers given by the witnesses to the interrogatories put to them by the commissioners. Each deponent was sworn to tell the truth and examined in isolation. Deponents were not to reveal their answers before all the testimony was made public (or published) by the court at a later stage in the passage of the suit. The questions were read one at a time and the answers recorded in English by a scrivener. In the early years of the court the depositions were recorded on either paper or parchment but increasingly parchment was used. Early in the life of the court deponents did not often sign their depositions but from late in Elizabeth's reign, which is when the records begin to survive in quantity, signatures or marks (where the deponent could not write) become increasingly common. The commissioners signed the depositions, often on each page. At the beginning of each deposition the name, residence, age and occupation of the deponent is recorded.

Palatinate of Durham, Chancery Court, 1333-1836