Brawling (legal definition)

Brawling (probably connected with German language brüllen, to roar, shout), in law, was the offence of quarrelling, or creating a disturbance in a church or churchyard. Brawling was covered in ecclesiastic courts until 1860. It has rarely been prosecuted since then.

During the early stages of the Reformation in England religious controversy too often became converted into actual disturbance, and the ritual lawlessness of the clergy very frequently provoked popular violence. To repress these disturbances the Brawling Act 1551 was passed in 1551, by which it was enacted: "that if any person shall, by words only, quarrel, chide or brawl in any church or churchyard, it shall be lawful for the ordinary of the place where the same shall be done and proved by two lawful witnesses, to suspend any person so offending, if he be a layman, from the entrance of the church, and if he be a clerk, from the ministration of his office, for so long as the said ordinary shall think meet, according to the fault."

An Act of 1553 added the punishment of imprisonment until the party should repent. The Brawling Act 1551 was partly repealed in 1828 and wholly repealed as regards laymen by the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860. Under that Act, which applies to Ireland as well as to England, persons guilty of riotous, violent or indecent behaviour, in churches and chapels of the Church of England or Ireland, or in any chapel of any religious denomination, or in England in any place of religious worship duly certified, or in churchyards or burial-grounds, were liable on conviction before two justices to a penalty of not more than £5, or imprisonment for any term not exceeding two months. This enactment applied to clergy as well as to laity, and a clergyman of the Church of England convicted under it could also be dealt with under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892 (Girt v. Fillingham, 1901, L.R. Prob. 176).

When Mr J. Kensit during an ordination service in St Paul's Cathedral "objected" to one of the candidates for ordination, on grounds which did not constitute an impediment or notable crime within the meaning of the ordination service, he was held to have unlawfully disturbed the bishop of London in the conduct of the service, and to be liable to conviction under the Act of 1860 (Kensit v. Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, 1905, L.R. 2 K.B. 249). The public worship of Protestant Dissenters, Roman Catholics and Jews in England had before 1860 been protected by a series of statutes beginning with the Toleration Act of 1689, and ending with the Liberty of Religious Worship Act 1855. These enactments, though not repealed, were for practical purposes superseded by the summary remedy given by the Act of 1860. In Scotland disturbance of public worship is punishable as a breach of the peace (Dougall v. Dykes, 1861, 4 Irvine 101).

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