Definition
A special license, in its primary historical legal sense, is a license granted by a superior ecclesiastical authority that dispenses with the ordinary procedural requirements for marriage — permitting the ceremony to occur at any time or place, regardless of the restrictions that would otherwise apply under general licensing rules. In English law, this license was granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and stood apart from ordinary marriage licenses, which were more limited in their permissions and subject to territorial and temporal constraints.
More broadly, "special license" may be used in other legal contexts to describe any license that departs from standard or general licensing requirements — authorizing conduct that a general or ordinary license does not cover, or waiving conditions that would otherwise be prerequisites for the general license.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Special license" does not appear as a standard Wiktionary entry. In ordinary modern usage, the phrase functions descriptively — a license that is special, i.e., particular or exceptional, as opposed to a general one.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not carry a dedicated entry for "special license" but defines "license" broadly as permission granted by competent authority to do an act that would otherwise be unlawful.
The legal term carries a precise institutional meaning that the ordinary phrase does not suggest. In historical English law, a special license was not simply any unusual or elevated license — it was a specific ecclesiastical instrument, issued by a specific office, with specific legal effects on the solemnization of marriage. A researcher encountering the phrase in a general context should not assume it refers to this technical meaning, and vice versa.
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Common Confusion
Special license is sometimes conflated with an ordinary marriage license or with a license by banns. The distinctions matter. A license by banns required public announcement in church on three successive Sundays before a marriage could proceed. An ordinary marriage license dispensed with banns but still carried restrictions as to place and sometimes time. A special license — issued only by the Archbishop of Canterbury — removed all such restrictions, authorizing marriage at any hour, in any place. This hierarchical distinction is important when reading historical family law sources, ecclesiastical court records, or commentary on English marriage law.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical English family law or ecclesiastical law sources will encounter "special license" as a term of art referring exclusively to the Archbishop of Canterbury's dispensation. It is not interchangeable with "ordinary license" or "license after banns," and historical sources — including Blackstone and Stephen's Commentaries — treat the three pathways to lawful marriage as meaningfully distinct.
The primary trap in corpus research is anachronism and jurisdiction-transfer. American legal sources do not use "special license" in the English ecclesiastical sense because the American legal system has no Archbishop of Canterbury and no inherited ecclesiastical marriage jurisdiction. When American sources refer to a "special license," they typically mean something context-specific — a license authorizing conduct beyond the scope of a general permit, or a license granted under special statutory authority. These uses share the adjective but not the legal content.
A second trap: historical sources that discuss "special license" in passing may be citing Stephen's Commentaries or Blackstone without flagging the English-law specificity. Researchers using Law Mind sources to understand American marriage licensing law should route to the general licensing framework rather than treat the ecclesiastical special license as a structural template.
For researchers working on licensing more broadly — occupational, commercial, or intellectual property — the term "special license" may appear in administrative law sources as a shorthand for any license granted outside the standard administrative pathway, but this usage is informal and not technically defined. Do not treat it as equivalent to the English ecclesiastical meaning.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus are in agreement on the core definition: a special license is one granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to authorize a marriage at any time or place. Bouvier and Rapalje & Lawrence both cite Stephen's Commentaries (2 Steph. Com. 247 / 2 Steph. Com. (7th ed.) 247, 255) as the primary authority. Black's confirms the English law provenance without elaboration.
None of the historical dictionaries address the broader administrative or commercial usage of "special license" as a generic term for a non-standard license. This absence is itself useful data: the historical legal dictionaries treat the phrase as a term of art with a fixed, narrow meaning, not as a general descriptive category. Researchers should be alert to the fact that modern usage has drifted while the historical record has not.
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Jurisdictional Note
The ecclesiastical special license is a concept of English law with no direct American equivalent. In the United States, marriage licensing is governed by state statute, and there is no office corresponding to the Archbishop of Canterbury. American jurisdictions may have expedited or waived-requirement licenses in certain circumstances (e.g., terminal illness), but these are creatures of state statute and should not be labeled or researched as "special licenses" in the English ecclesiastical sense.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Marriage — Licensing Requirements and Solemnization (The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia)
Licensing — Constitutional Basis, Due Process, and Equal Protection in Occupational Licensing (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)
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