Definition
Courts Christian is the historical English designation for the ecclesiastical courts — tribunals of the Church of England that exercised jurisdiction over religious and moral matters, as distinguished from the civil and common law courts of the Crown. The term derives from the Latin curiæ christianitatis (courts of Christianity) and reflects the institutional separation, in medieval and early modern England, between the judicial authority of the Church and that of the state.
These courts had jurisdiction over a wide range of matters including marriage, divorce, legitimacy, defamation of a spiritual nature, probate of wills, tithes, and the conduct of clergy. Their procedures derived from canon law and civil (Roman) law rather than the common law of England, and they were presided over by ecclesiastical officials — including bishops, archdeacons, and their deputies — rather than royal judges.
Common Confusion
Courts Christian should not be confused with the courts of equity or civil law courts of England, though all three diverged from common law procedure. The distinction that mattered historically was jurisdictional and institutional: Courts Christian were ecclesiastical, deriving authority from the Church, while equity courts (Chancery) and civil law courts (Admiralty, for example) were royal courts operating outside the common law but within the Crown's authority. Conflating these in historical research leads to misreading jurisdictional disputes — including the recurring clashes between common law courts and ecclesiastical courts over the boundaries of their respective competencies.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is primarily a research navigation tool rather than an operative legal concept in modern law. Researchers will encounter "Courts Christian" in historical English legal materials — particularly in Blackstone, Coke, and documents predating the rationalization of English court structure in the nineteenth century — as a synonym for the ecclesiastical courts generally.
Several traps await the historical researcher. First, the jurisdiction of Courts Christian was not static. The boundaries between ecclesiastical and common law court authority were actively contested from the medieval period through the Reformation and beyond. What fell to Courts Christian in one era might be absorbed by common law or prerogative courts in another. Probate jurisdiction, for instance, was exercised by ecclesiastical courts until the Court of Probate Act 1857 transferred it to a new civil court.
Second, the term appears in primary sources where the author is drawing a pointed jurisdictional contrast — often in the context of prohibitions, writs by which the common law courts restrained ecclesiastical courts from exceeding their jurisdiction. Understanding the polemical or procedural context of the phrase is essential to interpreting documents that use it.
Third, American legal researchers will find this term irrelevant to domestic law. The United States has no established church and no ecclesiastical court system with civil jurisdiction. References to Courts Christian in American sources are invariably historical and comparative, not operative.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Bouvier and Burrill treat Courts Christian as a bare cross-reference to ecclesiastical courts, offering minimal independent definition. Burrill is the more useful of the two, supplying the Latin source term (curiæ christianitatis) and citing Blackstone's Commentaries (1 Bl. Com. 83; 3 Bl. Com. 64) and Stephen's Commentaries (3 Steph. Com. 430), as well as Coke's Institutes (2 Inst. 488) and Cowell's legal dictionary. These citations confirm the term's deep roots in English legal literature and its consistent use as a shorthand for the ecclesiastical court system as a whole.
Neither dictionary addresses the internal structure of Courts Christian, the evolution of their jurisdiction, or their eventual displacement. Researchers relying solely on Bouvier or Burrill will get a label and a redirect, not a history. Blackstone's Commentaries, particularly Book III, and Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law provide substantially richer accounts of how these courts operated, what they decided, and how they related to the temporal courts.
Jurisdictional Note
Courts Christian as an operative judicial institution belong exclusively to English legal history. Commonwealth jurisdictions that inherited English ecclesiastical law have generally secularized the relevant subject matter (marriage, probate, defamation) into civil courts. In England and Wales, the Church of England retains a vestigial system of ecclesiastical courts for internal church matters, but these have no general civil jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses Courts Christian or the English ecclesiastical court system. Researchers working on related modern jurisdictional questions may consult: Family Court Jurisdiction and Unified Family Courts (The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia, family_214), for the modern treatment of marriage and family matters formerly within ecclesiastical jurisdiction.