prerogative court

Prerogative \Pre*rog"a*tive\, n. [F. pr['e]rogative, from L.
   praerogativa precedence in voting, preference, privilege, fr.
   praerogativus that is asked before others for his opinion,
   that votes before or first, fr. praerogare to ask before
   another; prae before + rogare to ask. See {Rogation}.]
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   1. An exclusive or peculiar privilege; prior and indefeasible
      right; fundamental and essential possession; -- used
      generally of an official and hereditary right which may be
      asserted without question, and for the exercise of which
      there is no responsibility or accountability as to the
      fact and the manner of its exercise.
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            The two faculties that are the prerogative of man --
            the powers of abstraction and imagination. --I.
                                                  Taylor.
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            An unconstitutional exercise of his prerogative.
                                                  --Macaulay.
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   2. Precedence; pre["e]minence; first rank. [Obs.]
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            Then give me leave to have prerogative. --Shak.
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   Note: The term came into general use in the conflicts between
         the Crown and Parliaments of Great Britain, especially
         in the time of the Stuarts.
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   {Prerogative Court} (Eng. Law), a court which formerly had
      authority in the matter of wills and administrations,
      where the deceased left bona notabilia, or effects of the
      value of five pounds, in two or more different dioceses.
      --Blackstone.

   {Prerogative office}, the office in which wills proved in the
      Prerogative Court were registered.
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   Syn: Privilege; right. See {Privilege}.
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PREROGATIVE COURT, eccl. law. The name of a court in England in which all 
testaments are proved and administrations granted, when the deceased has 
left bona notabilia in the province in some other diocese than that in which 
he died. 4 Inst. 335. 
     2. The testamentary courts of the two archbishops, in their respective 
provinces, are styled prerogative courts, from the prerogative of each 
archbishop to grant probates and administrations, where there are bona, 
notabilia; but still these are only inferior and subordinate jurisdictions; 
and the style of these courts has no connexion with the royal prerogative. 
Derivatively, these courts are the king's ecclesiastical courts; but 
immediately, they are only the courts of the ecclesiastical ordinary. The 
ordinary, and not the crown, appoints the judges of these courts; they are 
subject to the control of the king's courts of chancery and common law, in 
case they exceed their jurisdiction; and they are subject in some instances 
to the command of these courts, if they decline to exercise their 
jurisdiction, when by law they ought to exercise it. Per Sir John Nicholl, 
In the Goods of George III.; 1 Addams, R. 265; S. C. 2 Eng. Eccl. R. 112.