The influence of the church touched almost every aspect of sixteenth-century life

Welcome to this database of the cause papers from Chester Consistory Court.

The aim of this project is to make available online images of the surviving sixteenth-century cause papers relating to causes heard in the church court at Chester (series EDC 5) together with a transcription of each and a translation of those in Latin plus a searchable database of people, places and subjects. Please note that the majority of the surviving cause papers concerning probate matters are filed with the wills (series WC) and will not be included. In addition, until early in 1574 depositions and personal answers were entered into Deposition Books (series EDC 2), which are also not included here. Thereafter, they were recorded on sheets of paper now filed with the cause papers.

By using the search and filter functions at the top of the page you can find out more about the court and its procedure and browse or search the database.

By making available transcripts of the original papers with images of the papers themselves and also providing translations, it is hoped that this difficult, but fascinating, source will be made more accessible which will open up this rich and complex collection to a wider audience.