Definition
The Court of Chivalry (also called the High Court of Chivalry) was an ancient English tribunal with jurisdiction over disputes concerning matters of arms, heraldry, honor, and military conduct. It operated outside the common law courts and heard cases involving the right to bear coats of arms, questions of precedence, and disputes arising from deeds of war — whether occurring within or beyond the realm of England.
As a court of civil jurisdiction, the Court of Chivalry was originally held jointly before the Lord High Constable and the Earl Marshal of England. Following the attainder of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Henry VIII — which effectively ended the continuous tenure of the Lord High Constable — the court thereafter sat before the Earl Marshal alone. In its criminal capacity, it could hear matters touching the honor of the sovereign and offenses against the laws of arms.
The court's jurisdiction was notably extraterritorial in scope: it claimed cognizance of military contracts and armorial disputes arising abroad as well as within England, which distinguished it sharply from ordinary common law courts confined to domestic causes.
By the eighteenth century the court had largely fallen into disuse. Blackstone noted it as dormant. It sat famously in 1954 in Manchester Corporation v. Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd., its first known sitting in centuries, adjudicating a dispute over the right to bear arms — a remarkable episode demonstrating that the court, though moribund, was never formally abolished.
Common Confusion
The Court of Chivalry is sometimes confused with ecclesiastical courts or with courts of honor in the continental European tradition. It was neither. It was a distinct English royal tribunal, civil and criminal in character, whose subject matter concerned armorial and martial rights rather than religious or canonical questions. It should also not be confused with the general concept of chivalric codes or informal codes of knightly conduct; as a court, it was an actual adjudicative body capable of issuing binding judgments.
Recognized Forms
/ SUBTYPES
The court exercised two recognized capacities:
Civil jurisdiction: Disputes over the right to bear coats of arms, questions of heraldic precedence, and contracts touching deeds of arms and war.
Criminal jurisdiction: Offenses against the laws of arms, including matters of honor implicating the sovereign or the military order.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter the Court of Chivalry primarily in three contexts: English constitutional history, heraldic law, and the broader history of prerogative courts.
The court sits outside the common law tradition entirely. Cases and records pertaining to it will not appear in the Year Books or the standard common law reporters. Researchers should look instead to the College of Arms records and to proceedings documented in the Earl Marshal's records held at the College of Arms, London. Coke's Fourth Institute (4 Inst. 123) remains the essential historical legal authority on its constitution and jurisdiction.
The most significant research trap is treating the Court of Chivalry as purely historical. The 1954 sitting — genuine, not ceremonial — confirmed that the court retains a technical legal existence in English law. Researchers working on English heraldic disputes or armorial rights should not automatically assume the court is entirely without modern relevance.
The jurisdictional reach of the court beyond the realm is a point of historical interest for researchers studying early theories of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the laws of war. The court's capacity to hear matters arising outside England reflects medieval and early modern assumptions about the universality of the laws of arms that do not map neatly onto modern conflict-of-laws frameworks.
The court's absence from most American legal dictionaries and its minimal treatment in standard common law sources means researchers relying exclusively on American secondary literature will find almost no guidance. English sources — particularly Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 68, 103, 105) and Stephen's Commentaries (4 Steph. Com. 329) — are the necessary starting points.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier and Burrill are in agreement on the court's fundamental character and jurisdictional basis. Both identify the dual presidency of the Lord High Constable and Earl Marshal as the court's original constitution, and both note the subsequent transition to the Earl Marshal alone. Burrill is more precise in supplying the primary authorities — Coke's Fourth Institute and Blackstone's Commentaries — and explicitly notes that the court "has grown out of use," a characterization that was accurate as of the time of writing but is slightly overstated as an absolute matter given the 1954 revival.
Bouvier's entry under CHIVALRY, TENURE BY is separately listed and concerns knight-service tenure rather than the court itself — a distinction researchers should observe carefully. The two entries address related but distinct concepts: one is a form of feudal land tenure, the other an adjudicative institution.
Neither source addresses the court's criminal jurisdiction with any depth, and neither anticipates the question of the court's continuing theoretical existence. Historical dictionary entries should therefore be supplemented with Blackstone and Coke for any serious research purpose.
Jurisdictional Note
The Court of Chivalry is an English institution with no direct counterpart in Scottish, Irish, or American law. Researchers working in American legal history will encounter it, if at all, only as background to discussions of prerogative courts or the reception of English law. In England and Wales, the court technically retains existence; jurisdiction over armorial matters in practice runs through the College of Arms under Letters Patent rather than through active court proceedings.