The court of High Commission was a judicial body established in England in 1558 to enforce religious conformity and to regulate various matters including printing, marriage and the behaviour of the clergy. Initially formed as a royal commission in the reign of Henry VIII, it went through many iterations before becoming an officially independent ecclesiastical court in the 1580s, and operated as such until its dissolution by the Long Parliament in 1641. During the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign it was used primarily against Roman Catholics but, by the late 1620s, its jurisdiction and freedom of operation had expanded far beyond other ecclesiastical courts of the day. The court was not limited geographically; it required only a quorum of specified members to constitute a sitting, and could often be in session in multiple locations throughout England.1 The discussion in this paper focusses primarily on the five-year period from 1630 through until 1635 and on the functions of the court as it sat in London during that time. By 1630 the High Commission can be considered to have reached its ‘maturity’—that is, to be exercising the greatest degree of authority in its history. By focussing on the court at its peak we can better understand the social role that it evolved to fill. It is also worth commenting here that the lack of accessible records for the earlier iterations of the court make research challenging. Further investigation is, however, certainly needed and, although beyond the scope of this paper, it would be of great interest to compare differences in process and jurisdictions over time