BANNS OF MARRIAGE

VARIOUS Conditions as to banns were inserted in the Worcester marriage licences. In the Throgmorton-Sutton licence, previously referred to, publication is altogether dispensed with the only instance I have found in the registers. In many of the older licences one proclamation, sometimes at the door of the church at the time of the marriage, is ordered, and this appears to have been the usual practice. In some cases the day before the ceremony is named for the banns, while in another they are to be "twyst lawfully first asked and proclaymed." Other variations give "once in the accustomed manner; once in the parish of each of the parties before the day of solemnization; or "only in one of the parishes where the said parties abide at this presente." In other cases the banns are to be fully published, or "according to the sacred canon," or on any Sunday, Saint's day, or Festival before the ceremony.

In marriages without licence the law as to the full publication of banns was considered to be complied with if they were proclaimed on three separate Sundays or Holy-days.

X

MARRIAGE OF MINISTERS

IN Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions of 1559, No. xxix., it is stated that certain rules had become necessary "because there hath grown offence and some slander to the church by lack of discreet and sober behaviour in many ministers of the church both in choosing of their wives and indiscreet living with them." The following example of the remedy which was applied, interesting on account of the signature of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charelcote, is addressed to the registrar of the diocese, Robert Warmstry :

Whereas yt is set downe by the Quenes Majesties Injunctions that no mynister shall take to his wyfe, any manner of woman without certyfyinge the Bysshoppe or his deputie, by two Justices of the Peace of the same shyre, dwellinge next to the place wheare the same woman hathe made hir most aby dinge before hir marriage. Theese are to certyfie you that Jone Hytchcoke hathe dwellyd in Charlcott these fowre yeares last past, duringe wch tyme wee coulde never knowe, nor heare, but that hir conversation of lyvinge hathe bine honest and good. In wytnes whearof wee have subscribid our names the xyth of this instant of September anno dni 1583.

Your frindes-Thomas Lucy
Humphrey Peyto.

A licence was probably granted in all such cases in token of the bishop's approval. At the foot of a certificate as to the

BISHOP'S CONSENT TO A MARRIAGE 207

proper living" of Ellen Pirton, one of the few documents of this kind which have been preserved at Worcester, the bishop signifies his consent to her marriage with Richard Stone, Parson of Redmarley D'Abitot, and adds: "he is desyrouse to be married at Poyck or within the denerye thereof which I am contented he shall doe." 1

The certificate and a bond dated May 2nd, 29 Elizabeth, are in the bundle of Wills and Bonds for the year 1587. Worcester Probate Registry.

XI

THE RECORDS OF THE CONSISTORY

COURT

THE Act and Deposition books are records of the proceedings of the Worcester Consistory Court, which was formerly held at the Western end of the South aisle of the Cathedral. In Shakespeare's day Dr. Cosin was the Judge, and the matters submitted to his decision included testamentary, matrimonial, tithe, and defamation cases, the depositions containing much interesting matter relating to the counties of Warwick and Worcester, with many references to names of persons and places well known in connection with the Shakespeare families.1 In this court Mrs. Hall, the poet's elder daughter, proceeded against John Lane, Junr., for defamation, and a minute in the Act Book No. 9 records Lane's excommunication.2 The Visitation books contain the records of less serious matters presented to the Vicar General or his deputy. "Whereas by the ancient custom, the said Archdeacons or their Officials should visit, or keep their Courts, or Generals, as they call them, but twice every year, viz., at Easter and Michaelmas. At which times they did in times past punish matters of less importance (then detected) by their own authority. And such causes as were of greater weight, they did make known to the Bishop or his Vicar General. Who thereupon did call the said offenders to the Bishop's Consistory (kept ever in one settled place,) there to be censured. Or else the Vicar General did twice

The Consistory Court is now held at irregular intervals in the Chapter House, but these matters are not now within its jurisdiction.

2 For an account of this case, see Outlines, i. 242.

WORCESTER DIOCESAN RECORDS

209

every year in proper person ride into the Archdeaconry. Or in his absence did then depute one grave Minister or more (who were called correctores morum, &c.) for the hearing and determining of the same offences there presented. Who did render account of such his doings unto the Bishop, or to the Vicar General." The entries in the Visitation books mainly refer to citations for such offences as teaching without licence, 2 sowing discord betwixt neighbours, "detect for a scoulde,' working on Festival days, playing "foteball" in prayer time, clandestine marriage, playing a fiddle on Low Sunday, and living from a wife. In 1615 Richard Castle of Stratford and his wife were cited "for being married by Mr. Ward contrary to the order of the Book of Common Prayer," the irregularity being the omission of the ring. The complaint against Thomas Quyney and his wife, Shakespeare's younger daughter, for marrying without licence is entered in the book from which the above examples are taken.

The series of Visitation Books is not complete, the volume covering the period of Shakespeare's early life having been lost, together, no doubt, with many references to Stratford people and their offences against the Church laws, and other information illustrative of old manners and customs.1

To the fortunate circumstance that the sixteenth century marriage licence bonds were considered of sufficient importance to be filed with the wills we owe the preservation of one of the most valuable of Shakespearean relics from the fate of very many of the records of what must have been a busy registry in Elizabethan times. Some idea of the mass of papers which was then accumulated may be formed from one part of the business despatched on November 27th, 1582, the date of Shakespeare's licence. In addition to the ordinary probate, licence, and other business, the Act Book records the minutes

1 Strype, Life of Whitgift, iii. 375.

On June 14th, 1616, Richard Hunt of Stratford-upon-Avon was cited for teaching without licence.

See p. 67.

For an allusion to Shakespeare found in a manuscript book of precedents, etc., see this Appendix, No. XL.

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