Talk:Royal peculiar

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton ceased to be a Royal Peculiar in 1846. I suspect that some of the others (added by an anonymous user) also have. --RFBailey 17:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This shows how confusing the subject is; the diocesan page here shows Wolverhampton, and a few other places, as Royal Peculiars, and some ordinary Peculiars as well. Moonraker12 15:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wimborne Minster did too according to their website. 195.92.43.117 13:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Why is this article at Royal Peculiar and not at royal peculiar? Is the capitalisation some kind of royalist peculiarity? If there is no good reason for it, naming conventions suggest that we should use the latter capitalisation. — Gareth Hughes 13:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Royal Peculiar (both capitalized) is the way it is in all the sources I've seen. Moonraker12 15:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Lists

The listing of historic, but not current, peculiars has been eliminated.82.43.116.249 11:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Temple Church

The article for Temple Church links to this website as a source for the proposition that it is a royal peculiar: https://www.innertemplelibrary.org.uk/inner-temple/history/temple-church/ The other source we have, Briden, Timothy (2013). Moore's Introduction to English Canon Law: Fourth Edition. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4411-6868-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) p. 61, says that it does not "appear to be" a royal peculiar, which sounds like the author is uncertain. I propose to amend the article to say that the Temple is a royal peculiar. After all, they should know. Richard75 (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford was added on 10 January 2013 by an IP account editor and referenced to Biden 2013 page 60. However all the reference says is that Christ Church is both a college and a cathedral. As page 61 says that Temple Church and Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn chapels "appear to be peculiars", I think this suggests that Christ Church is not. Unfortunately I can't see page 62 which covers college chapels. @Wilfridselsey:, @Richard75: do you have any further evidence? TSventon (talk) 14:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

In respect of the college chapels, Moore's p.62 says "Though they are not usually called peculiars, the colleges in the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge claim to be outside the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Oxford and Ely respectively and to have each its own ordinary. Usually the Governing Body of the college. In the case of the older colleges the claim might with difficulty be substantiated along the lines of the fiction of the lost grant. With the more modern colleges this line of argument would become even more difficult. There is, however. no doubt that in practice the colleges behave as though they are extra-diocesan, and their claim does not appear ever to have been overtly contested. Nor is it in any way clear whether the ordinary is, in respect of the chapel, visitable by the Visitor of the college, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or both. or neither."  ??? Wilfridselsey (talk) 13:51, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately not, I just relied on the person who cited the source having read and understood it. Let's either take the whole thing out, or delete the source and add a citation needed flag. Richard75 (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

This article makes it seem likely that it is a royal peculiar, but it doesn't specifically say so. I'll try to find a better source. Richard75 (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I have found a couple of sources

• [1] link on Church of England website to parish boundaries: Christ Church is an extra parochial place, as are Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn
• [2] cathedral verger tells rotary that Christ Church is a peculiar. TSventon (talk) 21:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for finding these. We still don't know if it's a royal peculiar or a non-royal one though. Richard75 (talk) 21:35, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article for the church includes this sentence and source: "The Visitor of Christ Church is the reigning British sovereign (currently Queen Elizabeth II), and the Bishop of Oxford is unique among English bishops in not being the Visitor of his own cathedral." [3] (.pdf file) (It cites page 19 but that's wrong, it's on page 5.) So now I'm confused: if the Queen is the visitor, that sounds like a royal peculiar, but on the other hand if it's a cathedral and it has a bishop then that sounds like the exact opposite of what a peculiar is, which I understood to be a church which doesn't belong to the bishop of the diocese it's in. Richard75 (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

There is a detailed and seemingly well-informed article here (bmsf.org.uk) which lists 13 royal peculiars and seeens to be intended to be a complete list. CC Oxford isn't on it. (Neither is Temple Church though, even though I think we have a good source for that -- the website of the people who own it.) Richard75 (talk) 21:58, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

There's also Crockford's which appears to be an official C of E website, which doesn't mention Oxford but does mention the Inns of Court and also somewhere in Sandhurst. Richard75 (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

@Wilfridselsey: Thanks for the quote, could we replace Christ Church with something like "Oxford and Cambridge colleges claim to be "outside the jurisdiction" of their local bishops, but are not usually called peculiars" and reference to Moore?

@Richard75: I would regard Crockford's Clerical Directory as a reliable source but not the British Monarchist Society. Wikipedia follows what reliable sources say about a subject, so we need to find a reliable source saying Christ Church is a peculiar or a Royal Peculiar rather than make our own decisions based on the evidence we find. TSventon (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

The jurisdiction and privileges of the " peculiars " were abolished by statutory powers given to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Acts 1836 and 1850, by the Pluralities Act 1838, the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Act 1847, and other statutes. The London Gazette publishes the outcomes of Ecclesiastical courts so you can find out when "peculiars" were revoked. Also you can use the Clergy Database (select "Royal peculiars, exempt jurisdictions" in the Jurisdiction Diocese drop down box). Having said that I have not been able to clarify the Christ Church situation. I rather think that the Moore's is probably the best source.Wilfridselsey (talk) 20:29, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

@Wilfridselsey: do you think Moore's page 60 is a source for Christ Church being a peculiar? All it says is that Christ Church is both a college and a cathedral. TSventon (talk) 06:59, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@TSventon:

@Richard75:

Moore's says of Christ Church, that it's constitution "is peculiar to itself" which is a bit ambiguous. However if you read the constitution (available here) you can see that the "visitor" is the Crown, several of the canon's are professors of the college, and it is actually a Cathedral and a college. It is pretty obvious that it is extra diocesan, thus a peculiar, but is one of a kind! Moore is pretty ambiguous on non-Royal peculiars anyway. He suggests that a lot of them that remain would not stand up to legal challenge. Maybe we should consider reorganising this page really. The easiest solution would be to just stick with the Royal Peculiars and remove the rest. Alternatively, we could split the ==Notes== section into two sections, with a Citations section replacing the existing Notes and creating a new notes section. In the new notes really to highlight some of these anomalies?? Wilfridselsey (talk) 10:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Moore's includes Christ Church in a section on cathedrals and I think "its constitution is peculiar to itself" just means that it is unique, so I don't think it implies Christ Church is a peculiar. I agree with your reasoning that "it is pretty obvious that it is extra diocesan, thus a peculiar" but think that is original research which should not be included in a Wikipedia article. I would separate the "Non-royal peculiars" into "Other peculiars" and "Other former peculiars" and add some details to the items listed rather than to a new notes section.

On the subject of legal challenge to peculiar status, have you seen "Cases of Supposed Exemption from Poor Rates, Claimed [by the Inns of Court] on the Ground of Extra-parochiality", published in 1831 (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iLADAAAAQAAJ)? TSventon (talk) 11:26, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn chapels

I'm also having doubts about these chapels, for which the same source is cited, because they're not on this list at the Diocese of London website: [4] Richard75 (talk) 18:42, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't questioning the source, only its interpretation in the case of Christ Church. The list of "Royal Peculiars and Extra Diocesan Churches" includes Temple Church (as a church) but (presumably) not extra diocesan chapels such as those of Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. TSventon (talk) 21:30, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Christ Church, Bath

Christ Church, Bath is listed in this article as a peculiar, but it cites this article, which only says it's a proprietary chapel and then goes on to say "...sometimes known with slight amusement as a “Peculiar in Ordinary”..." So it probably doesn't belong on this list, and I think this whole list is now suspect. Richard75 (talk) 21:17, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that this document is a bit more informative. They describe themselves as "Peculiar in ordinary" which they define as being outside the local parish system but under the bishops jursitriction. Christ Church is a privately owned chapel that is opened to the public. BTW - the Royal-peculiars are also proprietary chapels, however the priest is under the juristriction of the monarch, hence not the local bishop, thus they are "peculiar". With Christ Church the priest is licenced by and is under the juristriction of the local bishop, therefore if the priest is under the juristriction of the local diocesan bishop, then it is not a peculiar. If the chapel owners have rights over the choice of priest then it could be classed as an Advowson. I think that we should keep Christ Church, Bath in the list but have a note of explanation. Wilfridselsey (talk) 19:50, 18 November 2019 (UTC)