Understanding Depositions

In the late medieval and early modern Church Courts, depositions were examinations for uncovering evidence, and they represent only one stage of a cause (a legal case) that was making its way through the court. A deposition was the oral testimony of a witness which was given under oath. Testimony was recorded in a written transcript by a court clerk or official (not the judge) during meetings arranged for examining the witnesses. Each witness was examined on the same set of questions (the articles) which had been prepared from the formal complaint (the libel) made by the plaintiff or their proctor, which initiated a case. Defendants might object to some of the information or missing information in the libel and could require the court clerks to ask witnesses further questions (called exceptions). Once all the witnesses had been questioned on articles (and exceptions if there were any) and their responses recorded, the file of depositions went to the judge, who reviewed them before the court hearing. Frequently the libels and the articles have been lost and only the depositions survive in the court books that preserve the day-to-day work of the courts. Due to damage or loss of court books there are many cases where the final judgement is also unknown. 

Depositions are valuable resources for historians because they record a great deal of information about non-elite pre-modern people, especially women, from a time where most of the surviving records concern elites and men. Information about people's professions, age, place of birth, and social condition were often recorded in these documents. Because they record oral testimony, depositions can also contain interesting incidental information, such as details of everyday life, personal possessions, interpersonal grievances, sexual relationships, and notions of honour. Readers will observe, however, that some witnesses provide nearly identical testimony on behalf of their party, making it clear that their statements were conditioned. This could be the result of summarizing by the court scribe. It could also be the result of prior planning among the witnesses. 

All this valuable historical data in depositions is often very hard to read in the original Latin and Late Middle English in which it was recorded. Full of highly abbreviated standard terms, crossed out errors, and cramped interlineal additions, these depositions suggest that scribes rushed to record testimony and relied on their fellow court officials and judges to recognize stock phrases and standard legal terms. Despite their challenges, Church Court depositions are an important and interesting resource for scholars of late medieval and early modern England. 

Further Reading:

Cox, Patricia. "Chester Consistory Court" https://www.chestercausepapers.org.uk/about-the-project. (Contains an excellent discussion of church court process.)   

Helmholz, R. H. “Judges and Trials in the English Ecclesiastical Courts.” In Judicial Tribunals in England and Europe, 1200-1700: The Trial in History, Vol. I, edited by Maureen Mulholland and Brian Pullan, 102–16. Manchester University Press, 2003. http://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=341349.

Helmholz, R. H. Selected Cases on Defamation to 1600. Publications of the Selden Society. London: Selden Society, 1985.

Helmholz, R. H. The Canon Law and Ecclesiatical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s. Oxford History of the Laws of England Ser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.07841.0001.001.

Morris, Colin. “A Consistory Court in the Middle Ages.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14 (1963): 150-59.

Outhwaite, R. B. The Rise and Fall of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511585807.

Parker, Sandra Lee, and L. R. Poos. “A Consistory Court from the Diocese of Rochester, 1363-4.” English Historical Review 106 (1991): 652-65.

Poos, L. R. “Sex, Lies, and the Church Courts of Pre-Reformation England.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1995): 585-607.

Woodcock, Brian L. Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts of the Diocese of Canterbury. London: Oxford University Press, 1953

Wunderli, Richard M. London Church Courts and Society on the Eve of the Reformation. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1981.