Prerogative court

A prerogative court is a court through which the discretionary powers, privileges, and legal immunities reserved to the sovereign were exercised. In general, this includes, in the case of England, all courts initially part of the King's Court (Curia Regis); these were the King's Bench, Common Bench, Court of the Exchequer, Court of Requests, Court of Chancery, and the Court of the Star Chamber.

In France, more commonly known as cour souveraine (literally "Sovereign's court") or cour supérieure from 1661, referred to any prerogative courts of last resort in monarchical France. Among them included the King's Council, the Court of Accounts, the Cour des aides, the Cour des monnaies, and Paris and provincial Parlements.

The term also applied to one of the English provincial courts of Canterbury and York having jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons. They had jurisdiction to grant probate or administration where the diocesan courts could not entertain the case owing to the deceased having died possessed of goods above a set value in each of two or more dioceses. The jurisdiction of the prerogative courts was transferred to the Court of Probate in 1857 by the Probate Court Act, and is now vested in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice by the Judicature Act.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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