Definition
A commission of delegates was a historical English legal body constituted by royal commission under the great seal, directed to certain persons — typically lords, bishops, and judges — to hear appeals from sentences rendered in ecclesiastical causes by an archbishop. The commission sat in the Court of Chancery and exercised appellate jurisdiction over ecclesiastical court decisions on behalf of the Crown. It was not a standing court but a body convened ad hoc for a particular appeal.
The commission was abolished in practice when the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council assumed its appellate functions, consolidating ecclesiastical and certain other appellate jurisdiction in a permanent body.
Common Confusion
The phrase "of delegates" can suggest a general body of appointed representatives, but as a legal term of art it refers specifically to this narrow English appellate commission over ecclesiastical causes — not to any general legislative or contractual delegation of authority. It should not be confused with modern delegation doctrine in contract law (the transfer of duties from one party to another) or with constitutional delegation principles. The word "delegates" in this phrase names the appointed commissioners, not a general class of legal actors.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical English ecclesiastical law, church-state relations, or pre-nineteenth century appellate procedure will encounter this commission in primary sources. Several research points deserve attention:
First, the commission was displaced — not abolished by statute in a single clean moment — as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Act 1833 reorganized appellate jurisdiction and rendered the commission obsolete. Sources predating 1833 will treat the commission as operative; sources after that date will refer to it in the past tense or note the transfer of jurisdiction.
Second, because the commission was convened under the great seal for individual appeals rather than operating as a continuous court, researchers should not expect to find a unified body of reported decisions from a "Court of Delegates" in the same way they would find decisions from Westminster courts. Reports of specific delegate commissions appear scattered across ecclesiastical law compilations rather than in standard common law reporters.
Third, the commission's jurisdiction was limited to ecclesiastical causes. Researchers should not infer that it had any general civil or criminal appellate role. Confusing its scope with broader royal commission appellate bodies would produce research errors.
Fourth, Law Mind corpus materials referencing delegation of duties in contracts or trusts — while using related vocabulary — are operating in an entirely distinct legal tradition. A researcher following the word "delegates" across the corpus must distinguish this historical ecclesiastical commission from the modern private law doctrine of delegation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the essential description: the commission was directed to lords, bishops, and judges of the law to hear appeals in ecclesiastical causes originally determined by an archbishop, and it sat as an extension of royal appellate authority exercised through Chancery. Black's correctly identifies the displacement of the commission by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, attributing the description to Brown (likely Bouvier's or a contemporaneous legal dictionary source).
The entry is spare, which accurately reflects the term's status as a historical relic by the time American legal dictionaries were being compiled. No American jurisdiction developed an equivalent institution, and the term appears in American legal dictionaries primarily for completeness in covering English legal history rather than as a practically operative concept.
What historical sources understandably do not address: the procedural mechanics by which individual commissions were convened, how commissioners were selected for a given appeal, or the relationship between delegate commission decisions and subsequent Privy Council jurisprudence on the same ecclesiastical questions. Researchers needing that level of detail will need to move beyond general legal dictionaries into specialized ecclesiastical law histories.
Jurisdictional Note
This is an exclusively English legal institution with no American counterpart. United States courts and legal practice developed no equivalent commission. The term appears in American legal sources only in historical or comparative context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia: Delegation of Duties — General Principles and Non-Delegable Duties (contracts_104)
The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia: Delegation of Duties — Liability of Delegator After Delegation (contracts_105)
Note: These entries address modern contractual delegation doctrine, a conceptually distinct topic. Cross-reference is provided for researchers who encounter the term "delegates" in a contracts context and need to confirm they are dealing with a different body of law entirely.