in the canon law, signifies a particular parish or church that has jurisdiction within itself for granting probates of wills and administrations, except from the ordinary or bishop's courts. The king's chapel is a royal peculiar, exempt from all spiritual jurisdiction, and referred to the visitation and immediate government of the king himself. There is likewise the archbishop's peculiar: for it is an ancient privilege of the see of Canterbury, that wherever any manors or advowsons belong to it, they forthwith become exempt from the ordinary, and are reputed peculiars: there are 57 such peculiars in the see of Canterbury.

Besides these, there are some peculiars belonging to deans, chapters, and prebendaries, which are only exempted from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon; these are derived from the bishop, who may visit them, and peculiar to whom there lies an appeal.

Court of PECULIARS, is a branch of, and annexed to, Pedantry, 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.