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Guide to Users

Procedure

Procedure in the High Court of Chivalry was similar to that used in the Court of Star Chamber and equity courts, such as the Court of Requests or Chancery. Plaintiffs would initiate proceedings by a libel, the equivalent of a bill of complaint; facts would be ascertained through presenting documentary evidence, or, more commonly, issuing interrogatories and taking depositions from witnesses. This material would then be referred back to the judges of the court who would pronounce on guilt and innocence. The main difference from common law procedure was that there was no use of juries.

To begin with, when the court was established on a regular footing in 1634, procedures were worked out as it went along, with the lawyers and court officials adapting to the influx of business. Early proceedings were recorded in English as well as Latin; but by October 1634 the record was being kept exclusively in Latin, the language of the civil law and its routine had settled into the form described in more detail by G.D. Squibb in his The High Court of Chivalry (Oxford, 1956), chp.13.

 
G.D. Squibb's classic 1959 study The High Court of Chivalry

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