Curia Regis Rolls & Assize Rolls for the reigns of Richard I and John: a handlist and finding aid

This document compiled by Peter Freeman (leedstimescape@gmail.com) at the University of Leeds. © 1999,2001
[Peter has kindly given permission for a copy of the document to be included on this web site.]

Contents:

• Early MS and published extracts from the Rolls
• Published works
• Curia Regis Rolls, Richard I
• Curia Regis Rolls, John
• Appendix 1: The “Coram Rege” numbering system
• Appendix 2: Public Record Office E 32/249
• Appendix 3: Dates of movable feasts (Easter, Ascension, Trinity) in King John’s reign

Early MS and published extracts from the Rolls

MS transcripts and extracts of some Curia Regis Rolls were made by antiquaries during the first half of the 17th century : in 1625 by Sir Simonds D’Ewes (these may perhaps be found in the Harleian MSS, especially MS481; or details of his work may be in his published diaries and correspondence); in the same year John Bradshawe, deputy chamberlain of the Exchequer, produced a MS book of extracts which is now in the Public Record Office (PRO, Exchequer, Treasury of Receipts, Miscellaneous Books, E36/87). Roger Dodsworth had free access to the records then in the Tower of London, and made a number of extracts from the Curia Regis Rolls for the reigns, inter alia, of Richard I and John : see Hunter’s “Three Catalogues” (1827) - pp. 153 (Dodsw. 73), 180 (Dodsw. 97), and 229 (Dodsw. 141). Hunter also notes MS extracts from these Rolls in the Library of Lincoln’s Inn (pp. 282, 295, 365).

In 1811 the Record Commissioners published the “Placitorum Abbreviatio”, being extracts, abstracts and notes from the Curia Regis rolls of the reigns of Richard I to Edward II, made “by Mr. Arthur Agard and other keepers of the Records during the reign of Queen Elizabeth”, some portions of which were added at a much later date. This was used by the Public Record Office as an aid to compiling Volume 1 of the Curia Regis Rolls where the rolls had become lost, damaged or illegible, and should not contain any entries for the reigns of Richard and John that are not in the later publication.

In 1835 Sir Francis Palgrave edited for the Record Commissioners two volumes entitled “Rotuli Curiae Regis”, containing extracts from the Rolls from 6 Ric. I (1194) to 1 John (1200).

Published works

Notes:
Roll 15, a single membrane, was noted in Pipe Roll Society vol. 14 (p. xv): this membrane has been added to Assize Roll 1039.
Roll 49 is the Circuit Essoin Roll for the Eastern Counties Eyre of 10 John (1208-1209), and so is not printed in “Curia Regis Rolls”; extracts from this roll can be found in Selden Society volumes 1 and 84.
Roll 57 has only been found in Selden Society volume 84, pp.291-318 (membranes 1-7) and “Historical Collections” vol. iii (membranes 1-5); these volumes only contain essoins for Michaelmas 1212.
Roll 60A (essoins for Mich./Hilary 16 John) has not been printed.

For the Coram Rege numbering system and how to convert between Coram Rege and Curia Regis roll numbers, see Appendix 1.

The following list has been compiled from printed sources published up to 1967. If any further membranes or rolls have been discovered in the P.R.O. since the 1960s [4] and have been published, they have not been included here.

For information about the Rolls themselves and their history, see the “Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office”, vol. 1 (1963, microfiche-only edition, 1996); and for a brief overview of KB 26 and JUST/1 see the PRO online catalogue at http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

In the following lists, the abbreviation “m” stands for membrane, and “ms” for membranes. (The term used in the PRO catalogue is “rotulus”, abbreviated to “rot”.)

The class of Curia Regis Rolls contains some Rolls of the Justices in Eyre:

From the date of the earliest surviving Eyre Roll until the last Eyre of the reign of king John, 104 Eyres are listed, held during four great Visitations of the realm. The poor survival rate of records from these Eyres is largely because the Justices treated the Plea Rolls as their personal property; during their lifetime they would probably be kept as a record for the Justice’s personal use, but at his death the rolls were not necessarily handed in to the Exchequer, or to a fellow Justice; many of those that have survived owe their survival to Martin of Pattishall, a Justice’s clerk who used them for his own legal training.

In some cases only a small number of membranes from a Plea Roll has survived : one membrane each from the 1198 Norfolk, Suffolk and Middlesex Eyres; two membranes of foreign pleas from the 1201 Somerset Eyre; three membranes of Crown Pleas from the 1208 Yorkshire Eyre.

Plea Rolls from Eyres have a Public Record Office classmark of JUST1/<nnn>; but in what follows they are referred to as “Assize Roll <nnn>”.

Richard I : 3 September 1189 - 6 April 1199

John : 27 May 1199 - 19 October 1216

(The calculation of the start of each of John’s regnal years is complicated by the fact that the start of his 1st year fell on Ascension Day, a moveable feast. This apparently caused confusion even during his reign among the clerks and scribes of the Exchequer during the preparation of the Pipe Rolls. For the dates of Ascension Day, Easter and Trinity during John’s reign see Appendix 3.)

Footnotes

[1] Also some fragments of rolls for 7 Richard - 9 Richard and for 1 John.
[2] This has mainly Staffordshire entries from the Plea Rolls and Assize Rolls. The volume also has a section of early Final Concords from the reigns of Richard I and John.
[3] Includes extracts from the Eyre Rolls of 10 John.
[4] C.A.F. Meekings worked on the Curia Regis Rolls between the late 1940s and the late 1960s; he undertook extensive editorial and repair work on the records and placed much unsorted plea roll miscellanea, often fragmentary, in its proper place.
[5] Ascension Day in 1201 fell on May 3rd.
[6] Membrane 5 used to be membrane 1 of Curia Regis Roll 67. This Assize Roll incorporates the single membrane of Coram Rege roll 115.
[7] It is unclear what is the modern reference number for this Assize Roll : Assize Roll 1039 has been identified with both VS 84 and VS 87. The Roll itself is fragmentary and undated, but seems to be before Michaelmas 1205.
[8] The Pipe Roll for 1206 shows at least 3 Eyres in the summer of 1206, including in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. These were not part of a general Eyre, and so do not appear in the list of Eyres compiled by Crook.
[9] In Curia Regis Volume 5, p.72 (footnote 2) the editor states that he believes this membrane to be a detached fragment of Roll 46, membrane 7. The entries are headed “Assize Roll 553”, but are printed after the entries from membrane 7.
[10] Roll 49 is the Circuit Essoin Roll for the Eastern Counties Eyre of 10 John (1208-1209), and so is not printed in “Curia Regis Rolls”.
[11] There is a late-13th century transcript of the Northampton proceedings in PRO E 32/249 rot. 16.
[12] Composite roll, mainly of 13th century transcripts from various forest eyre rolls : see Appendix 2.
[13] This is a late 13th century transcript.
[14] There is also in the PRO E 32/349, a single item of 2 membranes transferred from Chancery records in 1956, which is a return prepared for the justices of the forest in Essex in 1207-8 of deer taken within the bailiwick of Humphrey de Barinton in Essex, since the last eyre [in 1198].
[15] The Roll is headed “Placita in crastino Sanctae Trinitatis anno regni Regis Johannes xv” - which would suggest a date of 1213 not 1214 - but the editor of Curia Regis vol. 7 concludes, after careful weighing of the internal evidence, that the clerk had failed to take account of the change of regnal year : Ascension Day fell unusually early in 1214.
[16] This Roll has not yet been printed in full. According to the PRO KB26 listings, Roll 60A covers Michaelmas and Hilary terms, 16 John.

Appendix 1 : The “Coram Rege” numbering system.

When William Paley Baildon was editing volume 3 of the Selden Society volumes (“Select Civil Pleas vol. i, 1200-1203”) in 1890, what are now the Curia Regis Rolls and Assize Rolls were still grouped together in the public records as Coram Rege Rolls. This class of record, and the series known as Tower Assize Rolls, or Tower Coram Rege Rolls, were split out : the Rolls of Pleas before the Justices or the king became the Curia Regis Rolls; the Rolls of Pleas before the Justices in Eyre became the 'Assize Rolls, Various Series’. The process of reclassifying and renumbering these rolls was under way but had not been completed when the volume was published.

In the Introduction to this volume Baildon printed a conversion table showing, for each roll then known in the public records, its old Coram Rege number and new Curia Regis or Assize Roll number. At some point thereafter the system of numbering Assize Rolls seems to have been changed.

Since many older publications will have references to these rolls based on the old Coram Rege numbering system, and I have seen no other conversion table elsewhere in print, it is worth reproducing it here.

Assize Roll V.S. numbers still to match to current Assize Roll numbers : 84, 87 (old style) - I have 1039 for both of these.

Appendix 2 : Public Record Office E 32/249

Records of the Exchequer, and its related bodies, with those of the Office of First Fruits and Tenths, and the Court of Augmentations
Justices of the Forest: Records formerly in the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer, etc

Appendix 3 : Dates of movable feasts (Easter, Ascension, Trinity) in King John’s reign

* Ascension Day is always on a Thursday.