Ecclesiastical Courts. In the early Christian church there were courts, presided over by bishops and presbyters, which dealt with questions of discipline, and with disputes which arose among the brethren. It is to these courts that St Paul refers when he condemns those who go to law with a brother 'before the unbelievers, and not before the saints.' When Christianity became an established religion, these courts changed their character. The state permitted church courts to exercise jurisdiction over the whole civil community in ecclesiastical matters, and in matrimonial and other causes which had to be decided by the 'law Christian.' In England and elsewhere the goods of a deceased person were distributed, or his will was proved, in the court of the 'ordinary' ecclesiastical judge, usually the bishop of the diocese: this was done, because a part of the goods went by custom to the bishop, to be spent for pious uses. The early history of the English church courts is obscure; such information as we possess will be found in the report presented to parliament by a Royal Commission in 1883. These courts became in time a fruitful source of disputes between the crown and the see of Rome. After a long struggle, the crown prevailed: clergymen were made subject to the law of the land; the king's court maintained its right to prohibit ecclesiastical judges from going beyond their jurisdiction; appeals to Rome were forbidden, under penalty of Præmunire (q.v.). At the Reformation the king was acknowledged as the legal head of the church, charged as such with the administration of the 'law spiritual;' the final appeal was to delegates or commissioners of review appointed by him. The final appeal in ecclesiastical cases is now to the Judicial Committee of the Privy-council. Modern legislation has greatly diminished the importance of church courts; their jurisdiction in matrimonial and testamentary causes is gone; and Acts of Toleration prevent them from exercising coercive powers over the general community (see CONVOCATION, DOCTORS' COMMONS, and DIVORCE). Under the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, a new ecclesiastical judge was appointed to try offences in the matter of ritual. There is a party in the church which objects to the jurisdiction of this judge and of the Judicial Committee on the ground that their decisions are not those of ecclesiastical courts in the proper sense of the term. The Bishop of Lincoln's case, tried in 1889 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the assistance of four bishops, raised the interesting question, by what court a bishop may be tried for alleged offences against the law of the church.
In Scotland, the church judicatories are kirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies. The 'spiritual independence' of these tribunals has been the theme of much controversy, especially at the time of the Disruption of 1843 (see FREE CHURCH). The Commissary Court and the Court of Teinds are semi-ecclesiastical in their character. Both in England and in Scotland, dissenting churches have courts of their own; the jurisdiction of such courts depends entirely on contract or voluntary submission. See Sir R. Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (2 vols. 1873-76), and T. E. Smith's Summary of Law and Practice in Ecclesiastical Courts (3d. ed. 1888).