Doctors' Commons
The Doctors' Commons , officially College of Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts since 1768, was an English legal association based in London, which existed from 1511 to 1865.
From the English church courts ( ecclesiastical courts ) and the Seeger layers ( admiralty courts ) was not the common law , but the canonical and the Roman law , as was common in continental Europe applied. The lawyers practicing in these courts have been specially trained in these areas of law at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The graduates formed the Doctors' Commons. They were admitted to the community under the rules of the Archbishop of Canterbury and approved to practice as a lawyer. They served a similar role in court as the common law barristers .
At the same time there were lawyers organized in the Inns of Court for common law .
In the 19th century, the strict separation of Roman law and common law as well as the exclusive power of representation in court were given up with the Probate and Matrimonial Causes acts of 1857, the High Court of Admiralty Act 1859 and the Judicature Act of 1873, which also led to the dissolution of the Doctors' Commons in 1865.
literature
- Baker, JH: An Introduction to English Legal History . Butterworths, London 1990, ISBN 0-406-53101-3 .
- Baker, JH: Monuments of Endlesse Labor: English Canonists and Their Work 1300-1900 . Hambledon Press, London 1998, ISBN 1-85285-167-8 .
- Outhwaite, RB & Helmholz, RH: The Rise and Fall of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500-1860 , (Cambridge Studies in English Legal History). Edition, Cambridge University Press, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-86938-6 .
- Squibb, GD: Doctors' Commons . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1977, ISBN 0-19-825339-7 .