Doctors' Commonsn.
/ˌdɒktəz ˈkɒmənz/, U.S. /ˌdɑktərz ˈkɑmənz/ (a) The college of lawyers founded in the late 15th cent. and incorporated in 1768 under the name of ‘The College of Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts’. Now historical. (b) The complex of buildings to the south of St Paul's Cathedral in London erected by this college in the mid 16th cent., containing a members' dining hall (cf. commons n. 5) in addition to the ecclesiastical and Admiralty courts; (later) the site on which these buildings formerly stood after their demolition in 1867.As well as practising in the ecclesiastical and Admiralty courts, members of the college also transacted legal business relating to wills, marriage licences, and divorce proceedings, and it is this sphere of operation to which most later literary references to Doctors' Commons relate. Membership was restricted to those holding doctoral degrees in law from Oxford or Cambridge. The college ceased to operate in the mid 19th cent. but it remained in legal existence until the death of the last surviving member in 1912.
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1600 T. Dekker Shomakers Holiday sig. C My lord Mayor your father, and maister Philpot your vncle, and maister Scot your coosin, and mistris Frigbottom by Doctors Commons, doe all (by my troth) send you most hearty commendations.
1645 B. Whitelocke Diary 9 Oct. (1990) 181 He went to Doctors Commons as a Counsell for the Judge of the prerogative Court.
1680 J. Godolphin Repertor. Canon. (ed. 2) App. 10 Doctors of the Civil Laws to the Number of Thirteen in all, assembled together in the common Dining-Hall of Doctors Commons in London.
a1691 P. Pett Let. in Bp. T. Barlow Genuine Remains (1693) 365 A Dignitary of our Church..had been at Doctors-Commons; and there fee'd one of the Doctors who is a Judge of one of those Courts where Matrimonial Causes are conusable.
?1705 E. Hickeringill Vindic. Char. Priest-craft 6 Another calls to the Bumbailiffs, the Jaylors, Doctor's-Commons, and the Hangman.
1709 S. Centlivre Busie Body iv. iv. 52 With this Proviso, that he to Morrow morning weds me. He is now gone to Doctors Commons for a License.
1768 J. Cremer Jrnl. 19 July in R. R. Bellamy Ramblin' Jack (1936) 205 I youst to be theair some time till Suepeeaned to town to Doctor's Commons as a Wittness.
1819 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto I xxxvi. 21 No choice was left his feelings or his pride Save death or Doctors' Commons.
1905 R. Needham & A. Webster Somerset House vii. 259 During the summer of 1874 many tons of the huge folio volumes, which for years had darkened the walls at Doctors' Commons, were transferred to the new depository.
2017 Dickens Stud. Ann. 48 299 A cockney fishmonger named Sam Weller, who appeared as a defendant in a case heard at Doctors Commons when Dickens was reporting there in 1829–31.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2022).
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