The Court of Arches was the court of appeal for civil cases of the consistory courts of the dioceses of the province of Canterbury. Until 1874, it included the province of York. . The Court of Arches dealt with four main types of cases: 1. Matrimonial: suits relating to clandestine marriages, validity of marriage contracts, or to nullify marriages . 2. Testamentary: the largest proportion of cases brought before the Court of Arches were disputed inheritances,...

Records are not in strict chronological order within each year. Original wills, administrations, and inventories are grouped alphabetically by the first letter of the surname, then chronologically by year. Wills proved and registered include separate indexes at the beginning of each volume. Administrations include bonds and inventories only, no wills. They are grouped alphabetically by the first letter of the surname, then chronologically by year,...

The first seven registers of copy wills (1374-1488) contain both wills, probate acts and acts of administration as well as a number of non-testamentary entries. In the year 1489 the registration of wills is separated from the probate acts and acts of administration. Original wills, 1579-1649 are arranged chronologically. Starting in 1728 the wills are usually arranged by year, month, then alphabetically by the first letter of the surname. Some wills...

Some parts of these records are in Latin.