Love Lost and Found in the Church Courts

APPENDIX: EDITORIAL METHOD

The editorial method adopted is as follows. I have prefixed each case with a summary setting out the central issues. For each witness, I have included the date of examination, and (in italics) the biographical details as given in the statement at the start of each deposition which lists the places where the witness has lived and his or her age. To this I have added their personal financial value when recorded in the deposition and have indicated whether they made a mark or a signature. I have tried to adopt consistent conventions in transcribing, and in summarising or making omissions. In transcribing I have omitted repetitious legal and formulaic phraseology such as 'aforesaid', 'this examinate' – and a host of others. Spelling is modernised except where an archaic form is significant. Personal names occur in a bewildering variety of forms; I have rendered them by the most appropriate form or pronoun for the context. As the original is largely unpunctuated, I have inserted minimal punctuation to make reading easier. Latin phrases are translated or more frequently paraphrased, and are printed in italics. The arrangement for omissions stems from the court procedure. The 'libels', 'interrogatories', 'additional positions', 'allegations' and other items used in examinations are made up of a strict sequence of numbered paragraphs ('articles'). I have retained this numbering. The statements of the first witness in each case are presented in full (though adopting the transcription conventions outlined above). The depositions of the subsequent witnesses are reduced to those statements which produce new or significantly different information: the article numbers make it possible to refer back to the equivalent place in the first deposition. Where irrelevant matter within the individual paragraphs of the responses has been omitted this has been indicated by an ellipse.

Peter Wilkinson September 2014.