Ecclesiastical Delegates

The Ecclesiastical Delegates are presented as the last appellate stage in the ecclesiastical legal process described by Mr. Spenlow. In his account, advocates who have watched a case proceed through the lower courts become its judges at the final stage, a reversal that makes the institution both a part of the system’s formal machinery and a target of the novel’s institutional satire.

Place in the Court System

Mr. Spenlow sketches an appeal moving first through the Consistory Court and then to the Court of Arches. The Arches, he says, uses the same room, bar, and practitioners as the Consistory, but sits under a different judge; the judge of the Consistory may appear as an advocate on another court day. If a party remains dissatisfied, the case proceeds to the Ecclesiastical Delegates. Mr. Spenlow also describes a further appeal to the Lords in the example of a disputed will, placing the Delegates within a wider ladder of review.

Membership and Function

In Mr. Spenlow’s caricature, the Delegates are advocates who have had no business of their own while the case was argued in the Consistory and the Arches. They have watched the proceedings, heard the arguments, and observed the course of the case; at the final appeal they sit as judges. The arrangement gives them an appellate function, but the account makes their supposed detachment ironic: they are not newcomers to the dispute, but practitioners already familiar with its conduct and participants.

Professional Setting

The Delegates appear among the named jurisdictions encountered by David when he visits the offices of Spenlow and Jorkins. The office’s papers include causes assigned to the Consistory Court, the Court of Arches, and the Delegates, alongside files for other courts. This documentary setting makes the appellate structure part of the everyday paperwork of the profession, rather than an abstract constitutional diagram. Mr. Spenlow presents that system to David while explaining the privileges and supposed exclusiveness of proctors’ work.

Satire and Narrative Significance

Mr. Spenlow praises the courts’ compactness, describing repeated hearings among a small circle of practitioners as orderly and convenient. His description of the Delegates sharpens the comedy: advocates watch the case being argued in earlier courts, then take the judicial role at the end. David listens respectfully but remains doubtful about Mr. Spenlow’s broader claims for the Commons. The Delegates therefore embody the tension between formal procedure and impartial justice in this account: appellate review exists, yet the very continuity of personnel that makes the system compact also invites skepticism about its independence.