appointed under two statutes of Elizabeth to examine and rectify
abuses of charitable bequests has been published by the Record
Office. Forests (Chancery) contain perambulations and proceedings
before the justices in eyre of the forest. The perambulations
for certain counties have been printed by G. J. Turner in Select
Pleas of the Forest (Selden Society).
Scottish Documents.—Five rolls relating to the policy of Edward I. towards Scotland. The first two contain the proceedings touching the claims to the crown of Scotland and are printed in Foedera, vol. ii. p. 762 (Record edition); the remaining three, known as Ragman Rolls, contain in triplicate the submissions of the Scottish nobility to Edward I., and were printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1834. Other chancery documents relating to Scotland are described in J. Bain’s Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland. Most of these together with the earlier Forest proceedings are included in the Miscellanea of the Chancery, which contains numerous other detached documents and rolls. Many of those relating to foreign aliairs are printed in the Foedera.
(2) Chancery Judicial.—These may be divided into Proceedings, or Bills and Answers, &c., filed by the parties; Decrees and Orders of the court; and Affidavits and other documents connected with the course of the action. The series known as Early Chancery Proceedings (Richard II. to Philip and Mary), comprising documents of all three classes, is arranged roughly in chronological order. The Record Office has published three volumes of a descriptive list (Nos. XII., XVI. and XX.) of the whole of this series; and the first two bundles have been printed in full in the Record Commission's Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery, Elizabeth; other specimens are printed in Select Pleas of the Chancery (Selden Society), edited by W. P. Baildon. For the reign of Elizabeth the Proceedings are arranged alphabetically under the plaintiff’s name in two series. Series I. is calendared in the Record Commission volumes already mentioned for Series Il.; the Record Office has published a descriptive list (Nos. VII. and VIII.) covering the years 1558–1621. To the Bills and Answers of the reign of Charles II. Messrs Phillimore and Fry have published in the Index Library of the British Record Society an index taken from Topham’s manuscript index in the Record Office. The same society has reproduced in an alphabetical form an index to the proceedings in Reynardson’s division for the years 1694–1714. These last indexes contain only the surnames of the parties, without reference to the nature of the suit. Decrees and Orders (36 Henry VIII. to the present time) are the entry-books of the orders of the court; with them may be classed the Reports and Certificates of the masters and chief clerks. The Affidavits, &c., date from 1611.
The chancellor formerly had a common law jurisdiction relating to certain matters touching feudal incidents and tenures, to repeals of letters patent, and to actions upon recognizances acknowledged in chancery or concerning officers of the court. No printed means of referring to these records exist.
Court of King’s Bench.—The principal records of this court are the rolls recording its proceedings and judgments, of which classified lists are given in the Record Office List of Plea Rolls (No. IV.), under the following heads. Curia Regis Rolls (5 Richard I. to 56 Henry III.) include all the rolls of the king's court with the exception of a few Eyre Rolls. Of these the Record Commission printed those for 6, 9, 10 Richard I. and 1 John; and also published in the Abbreviatio Placitorum certain abstracts from a portion of the pleas on these rolls made in the 17th century. For specimens see Selden Society volumes, Select Civil Pleas, edited by W. P. Baildon, and Select Pleas of the Crown, edited by F. W. Maitland, who has also edited for the Pipe Roll Society four rolls of the reign of Richard I. From the end of the reign of Henry III. the rolls of the king’s bench and those of the common pleas (see below) have been separated. The former, named Coram Rege Rolls (1 Edward I. to 13 William III.), divide from I Anne into two portions, Judgment Rolls, containing pleas between private persons, and Crown Rolls, containing crown business. References to some pleas on the Coram Rege Rolls will be found in the Abbreviatio Placitorum; the complete roll for 25 Edward I. has been printed by the British Record Society.
Assize Rolls, &c.—Under this head are grouped rolls containing the proceedings before justices in eyre, of assize, of oyer and terminer, of gaol delivery (a few) and before justices sent on special commission. References to some of these will be found in the Abbreviatio Placitorum; and specimens in the Selden Society volumes already mentioned. The Eyre Roll for Gloucestershire, 5 Henry III., has been published by F. W. Maitland. The leadings taken under writs of Quo Warranto during the period Edward I. to Edward III. were published by the Record Commission. For specimens of Coroners Rolls (Henry III. to Henry VI.) see the Selden Society's volume edited by C. Gross. Baga de Secretis (since 17 Ed. IV.) contains the proceedings in trials for treason or felony held before the court of king's bench or special commissioners. An inventory and calendar will be found in the 3rd, 4th and 5th reports.
Court of Common Pleas.—“The Plea Rolls of this court, known as De Banco Rolls, runs from 1 Edward I., before which date pleas before justices of the common bench form part of the Curia Regis Rolls, to 24 Henry VII., from which date the Plea Rolls are known as Common Rolls; But in 25 Elizabeth all common recoveries and enrolments of deeds were transferred to a new roll called the Recovery Roll, the series of which extends to 1837. In the Year Books edited for the Rolls Series by L. O. Pike, and those edited for the Selden Society by F. W. Maitland, the cases reported have, when possible, been traced on to the De Banco Rolls and extracts from those rolls printed. Feet of Fines (up to 1835) are the official part of the triplicate document constituting the complete fine. Those for the period 7 Richard I. to 16 John have been printed by the Record Commission for the counties Bedfordshire to Dorset in alphabetical order. Four volumes printed for the Pipe Roll Society cover the years down to 10 Richard I. for all counties. The feet of fines are arranged in counties year by year up to the reign of Henry VIII. Afterwards they are arranged 'term by term in counties. Notes of Fines (since Edward I.) are the records of an earlier stage in the procedure; Concords of Fines (since 1559) form another stage; but to neither of these are there printed means of reference.
Court of Star Chamber.—The relation between the king's council sitting as a judicial body and the Court of Star Chamber set up by the act of 3 Henry VII., c. I, is matter of controversy. The records of this court are nearly all of later date than this act. They consist of Bills, Answers, Depositions and similar documents, with a very few Decrees and Orders. The Record Office has published a descriptive list (No. XIII.) of a portion of these records; or specimens see Selden Society, Select Cases in the Star Chamber, 1477–1509, edited by I. S. Leadam.
Court of Requests.—The origin of this court and the manner in which it died out at the time of the Civil War are alike uncertain. The records that remain are of two kinds, Proceedings and Books. Of the former the Record Office has published a descriptive list (No. XXI.); and specimens will be found in Select Cases in the Court of Requests, edited for the Selden Society by I. S. Leadam. The Books contain among other matters the Decrees and Orders of the court.
Parlimentary Records.—The proceedings of parliament were recorded either on a roll prepared for each session, or on detached documents and petitions made up into sessional files. The files have now disappeared, although transcripts of some still exist, and in many cases their constituents can be traced among the Ancient Petitions (see below under Special Collections). The rolls known as Parliament Rolls form a broken series, 18 Edward I. to 48–49 Victoria. The rolls for Edward I. and Edward II. are among the Exchequer records, and the remainder are in the chancery. Of these rolls and files, and of certain pleadings found in the records of the King's Remembrancer, the Record Commission published what was meant to be a complete reprint. But the editors relied partl upon transcripts and partly upon original documents, and it is often difficult to determine the sources from which they drew. So prepared, the Rolls of Parliament (6 vols.) cover the period from 6 Edward I. to 1 Mary. The roll for 33 Edward I., unknown to them, has been edited (Rolls Series, vol. 98) by F. W. Maitland, with a valuable introduction and appendices; rolls for 18 Edward I. and 12 Edward II. are printed in H. Coles’ Documents Illustrative of English History. The Parliament Roll includes enrolments of statutes among its contents. But from Edward I. to Edward IV. the statutes after receiving the royal assent were also enrolled upon the Statute Roll (chancery), of which only six rolls now remain. From these rolls and other sources the Record Commission prepared the volumes known as Statutes of the Realm on principles described in the introduction to that work. Unfortunately the editors made use of early printed texts, and translations based upon the inferior texts contained in Exchequer K.R. Miscellaneous Books 9, 10 and 11, and so diminished the value of their work. The Statutes of the Realm extend to the end of the reign of Queen Anne. Since then public general acts have been published in many forms; private acts ceased to be enrolled upon the Parliament Rolls during the 16th century; the originals are preserved in the House of Lords. The Record Office contains detached documents relating to parliamentary proceeding known as Exchequer Parliamentary and Chancery Parliamentary, but neither class has yet taken a final form.
State Papers.—This class contains the documents belonging to the offices of the secretaries of state, formerly deposited in the place of custody called the State Paper Office. This office was established about the year 1578, but the first attempt to arrange its contents seems to have been due to Sir Thomas Wilson, who in the reign of James I. divided the papers into two classes, Domestic and Foreign, to which at a later date the class of Colonial Papers was added. These. series all come to an end at the year 1782, at which date the modern history of the office of Secretary of State begins.
Domestic.—Calendars of these papers have been published for the period 1547–1676, with special volumes dealing with the papers of the Committee for Advance of Money (1642–1656), and of the Committee for Compounding (1643–1660). Another series of volumes begins with the year 1689, and a third extends from 1760 to 1775; these last are called Home Office Papers, but are in no way different
