The volume of records available for the study of later medieval marriage litigation is considerable. The survival rate of the Church court records is far below that of the royal courts, for which plea rolls in virtually unbroken sequence exist from the end of the twelfth century. But what does remain is not inconsequential. At least some pre-1500 court records have come down from the dioceses of Canterbury, York, Bath and Wells, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, London, Norwich and Rochester. The two metropolitan sees, Canterbury and York, have quite extensive collections. Some of the other dioceses, Norwich for example, are represented in only a scrappy way. But, taken together, the records are good enough to tell us a great deal about the practice of the courts.

Students of law and history are only beginning to give these records the attention they deserve. Brian Woodcock's excellent introductory monograph on the diocesan courts at Canterbury appeared over twenty years ago. Unfortunately, that careful scholar did not live to continue his work, or even to see his book through the press. And only in recent years has a considerable number of studies on the English Church courts begun to appear. All of them show something of the richness of the surviving court records. Those records will be a rich store for legal and social historians for many years to come.