PECULIARS (Court of), is a branch of, and annexed to, the court of ARCHES. It has a jurisdiction over all those parishes dispersed through the province of Canterbury in the midst of other dioceses, which are exempt from the ordinary's jurisdiction, and subject to the metropolitan only. All ecclesiastical causes, arising within these peculiar or exempt jurisdictions, are originally
cognizable by this court; from which an appeal lay formerly to the pope, but now by the stat. 25 H. VIII. c. 19. to the king in chancery.