Note 1305 — Chapter X · RISE OF CIVIL MARRIAGE

Cf. Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 322, 330. After the restriction was removed in 1656, marriages were frequently solemnized before the mayor and the minister of the parish jointly: Burn, Parish Registers, 162, 163, note; Waters, Parish Registers in England, 16. In 1658, according to the register of St. Giles in the Fields, a marriage was celebrated by William Jervis, D.D., before witnesses, and then follows this entry: "That also the sd. marriage ... hath its consummation before John Lord Berksted, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London" according to the act of parliament, and before Sir Jno. Sedley of the county of Kent. Apparently this was a double celebration: Notes and Queries, 3d Series, I, 228. For this case see also Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals, II, 71, who affirms that usually the "wedding was religiously solemnized in church, after or before the performance of the purely civil affirmation in the magistrate's parlour, ... in accordance with the instructions of the 'Directory of Public Worship;'" and it seems that the celebration was sometimes conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer: Lathbury, Hist. of the Book of Common Prayer, 310.