An interesting talk on Consistory Court Records by Robin Whittaker, who previously was an Archivist and Researcher at The Hive.

Church court records are largely of use to the family historian researching the 16th to 18th centuries, although some of their major functions continued into the middle of the 19th century until they were assumed by the civil courts.  The church courts throw valuable light onto the family lives of our ancestors, who often got up to all sorts of unmentionable activities.  These courts often dealt with moral matters and cases of sexual impropriety and are so rich in wicked stories that they earned the nickname ‘bawdy courts’.  It has been suggested that an appearance in the church courts of the 18th century would be akin to points on your driving licence today.  Appearances before a court were so common that some dioceses pre-printed schedules of penance for fornication, leaving spaces for the names of the parties to be entered in.  The witnesses who gave evidence about their neighbours before the courts also gave important information about themselves, including their names, ages and all the places they have lived in.