Thread: Marriage by banns or liscense. Is there a difference?

Is there any differnce in record content if someone is married by banns or by liscence? If someone is married by liscence, would there be a record of application? The year was 1817.

I believe that banns are a peculiarity of the English church system.

It derieves from old English and means to summon.



Effectively when someone wanted to get married in church banns have to be read openly from the pulpit to announce that two people wished to get married on the three consecutive Sundays before the intended wedding.

This was to allow objectors the right and duty (they were summoned) to attend the church to say why they could not legally be married.



Appart from the usual, under aged, already married it would also include they were betrothed to someone else or they had taken a vow of chastity (ie either in a religious order or else made a vow to god, how could the church ignore such a vow).



Banns had to be read in the parish churches of both parties, which is why many minors eloped to Scotland.



Thus Banns are a church directive.



A license on the other hand is a legal exemption to the church requirements. It could be used for rush weddings. I expect since the participants would be expected to be of higher status in order to go to court, that anyone likely to know that there was no legal impediment would see them in the papers under the courts and act accordingly, although perhaps by going to court you were legally declaring there was no impediment to the marriage and therefore, if you did have one and got married then it would not only have no legal status but also that the parties would be guilty of a civil/criminal offence making a false declaration?



License is therefore a legal, more expensive but quicker solution, if you can't wait 3 weeks!



Sorry I misread your post:



There should be records that a license was produced.

My question would be would a license be before a judge or a registrar?

If it is a judge then you would have to check court records with probable luck.

In the later case since registrars could be any literate man in good standing, I wonder whether the record keeping could be less regid, I wonder whether they would end up in court or county archives.



The British government website has information on white papers etc going back centuaries and I am sure if you had the time you might find the true answer there or links towards it, the problem is reading Lords go on you wonder whether any legal decisions are possible.



You could try the National Archives online as they have some legal records, divorce, wills probates etc there, type in the surnames and see if you get a hit, sorry I was off your post but hopefully it might be usefull since you are in Australia and may not be aware of the English system, the only thing I coud add is liscences were often obtained to get married so you could jump on a ship and run away, if the person sailed to Australia a couple of days later you probably have the reason.

Thanks Phil. I think the `cant wait 3 weeks` might apply here

Hi Seeker



This may help guide you too



http://www.ancestryaid.co.uk/guide/bmd_records.php

Thanks Chris.

Thanks David. Would he have had to travel to London [Westminster} They were not opposed to a bit of movement.

You can get a licence from a bishop. You only need the Archbishop if you are applying for a special licence.



usual reason for a license was that it could be quicker (though the licence was valid for 3 months) and also quieter - without banns, there's no drawing attention to it. Quite often 2nd marriages were by licence as well as marriage where the bride was pregnant.

Thank You. Yes, the bride was pregnant.

Cheers

Don't worry about that unduly. The majority of brides in my family tree, whether married by banns or licence, were pregnant. And some of them married after the birth of their first child.