Harris on Secularizing a Religious Legal System: Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Early Eighteenth Century England

Troy L. Harris, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, has published Secularizing a Religious Legal System: Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Early Eighteenth Century England. Here is the abstract.

The constitutional position of the English ecclesiastical courts remained a divisive subject after 1688, as demonstrated by a range of printed sources from the early eighteenth century including visitation charges, law books, and political pamphlets. This theoretical debate culminated in challenges to ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Parliament and Hardwicke's famous decision in Middleton v. Crofts, which represented a significant advance toward a contractarian view of religious authority.

The full text is not available for download from SSRN.