Grantees of royal lands and pardons
(1175-1176)
The Great Rolls of the Pipe are the central record of the crown compiling returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English counties or shires. This is the oldest series of public records, and the earliest surviving instances of many surnames are found in the Pipe Rolls. This is the roll for the 22nd year of the reign of king Henry II, that is, accounting for the year from Michaelmas 1175 to Michaelmas 1176. Most (but not all) of the entries in which names appear relate to payments for grants of land and fines or pardons. The large number of payments of fines for forest transgressions has been interpreted as a form of compounding for pardons by those who had rebelled during the recent years of unrest; or, looking at it in a different way, a form of extortion from the king in order to raise money to pay off the mercenaries with whose help he had quelled the rebellions. There is a separate return in each year for each shire, the name of the shire being here printed at the top of each page. Wales was still independent, in separate kingdoms, at this period, and is not included, except for 'Herefordshire in Wales'. GRIS. Cost: £4.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Pipe Rolls: Kent
(1189-1190)
The Great Rolls of the Pipe contain returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English sheriffdoms, counties or shires and from honors and bishoprics in the hands of the crown. This is the roll for the 1st year of the reign of king Richard I, that is, accounting for the year from Michaelmas 1189 to Michaelmas 1190. Many of the individual surnames that appear are in the accounts of fines &c. levied by justices.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Norfolk Feet of Fines
(1192-1214)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in NorfolkGRIS. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Liberate Rolls
(1245-1251)
These chancery liberate rolls of the 30th to 35th years of the reign of Henry III of England record the details of payments and allowances as part of the administration of government. Most entries start with the Latin words 'liberate', meaning 'deliver', or 'allocate', meaning allow. There are also 'contrabreves', warrants mainly to sheriffs of shires, assigning them tasks and allowing expenses. Most of the entries relate to England and Wales, but there are occasional references to Ireland and the English possessions in France.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Fine Rolls
(1246-1272)
The fine rolls of the 31st to 57th years of the reign of king Henry III record part of the government administration in England. These excerpts from the rolls list in transcript applications by plaintiffs for various writs (such as 'ad terminum' and 'pone') and for assizes to be held by the justices in eyre to look into their grievances. A fine of half a mark (6s 8d) or a mark (13s 4d) was usually levied; the cases are normally identified by county, and record that the appropriate sheriff had been notified. There are also more extensive records, in which more detail is given. The excerpts were made by the Record Commission and printed in 1836.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Inhabitants of King's Lynn
(1274-1275)
Among the muniments of the corporation of Lynn Regis (King's Lynn) there survived a taxation roll, 15 feet long by 7 inches wide, with the names of 45 individuals, with the goods of each person and their value set out beneath. The roll is undated, but the Reverend G. H. Dashwood, who made an extract from the roll for publication by the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society in 1847, came to the conclusion that it dates from the 3rd year of the reign of king Edward I (20 November 1274 to 19 November 1275) and was in response to the levying of a general subsidy of a fifteenth granted by parliament in that year: and the roll is endorsed with a note that the total assessment was £1500 2s 3d farthing, of which a fifteenth amounted to £100 1d three farthings. The roll relates not to the whole borough, but just to the ward of which one Henry de Gernemutha was the collector. Dashwood in his extract gave all the entries, but only listed the goods in full in three cases, there being much repetition as to the goods and chattels of all those assessed.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Lancashire Assizes
(1202-1285)
All the surviving records of the assizes held by the royal justices in eyre (itinerant) in Lancashire during this period were extracted by colonel John Parker and published by the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society from 1904. The justices not only tried all civil actions outstanding on their advent, pleas of the crown and common pleas, but also interrogated the juries of each wapentake and borough as to the Capitula Itineries, the Articles of the Eyre, inquiring into the king's proprietary rights, escheats, wardships, and questions of maladministration. Only a dozen complete rolls survive for this period; but Appendix I (pp. 218-253) gathers together from the Patent Rolls of the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) a schedule of Lancashire assizes for which justices were assigned; and Appendix II (306-342) adds the fines and amercements before the justices during that reign, as recorded on the Pipe Rolls.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Inhabitants of Yorkshire
(1297)
Taxation roll of the lay (non-clergy) inhabitants of Yorkshire from the 25th year of the reign of king Edward I. LatinGRIS. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Norfolk Feet of Fines
(1196-1307)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in Norfolk. These abstracts were prepared by Walter Rye.GRIS. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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Inhabitants of Yorkshire: Agbrigg Ash wapentake
(1379)
The poll tax returns for this wapentake, the area around Dewsbury, Huddersfield and Wakefield.GRIS. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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