1. The Fine Rolls of Henry III: the origins and development of the rolls

1.1. Fines and the Fine Rolls

One of the chief treasures of The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) is the great series of rolls on which the English royal Chancery recorded its business, a unique resource for historians without parallel in the rest of Europe. Of these rolls, the fine rolls are the earliest. The charter, close and patent rolls are usually thought to have started at the point from which they begin to survive, that is from around the start of John’s reign in 1199. 1 The fine rolls likewise survive from this point but they almost certainly had an earlier life, one which stretched back at least to the 1170s. 2 The fine rolls are equally distinctive in function. Their companion rolls recorded the written instruments which the Chancery was issuing, charters on the charter roll, letters patent on the patent roll and letters close on the close roll. 3 The fine rolls, by contrast, recorded offers of money to the king for concessions and favours, a fine in a general sense being an agreement made with the king to pay a certain sum of money for a specified benefit.

The earliest surviving fine rolls, or what became fine rolls, had no settled heading. That found on the roll for John’s first year is ‘offers received, oblata recepta’, 4 that for year three is ‘roll of offers received, rotulus oblatorum receptorum’, 5 that for year six ‘roll of fines received, rotulus finium receptorum 6 and that for year nine (1207–08) ‘offers of the court, oblata curie’. 7 After 1207–08 the rolls are lost until thar for year fifteen (1213–14) where the heading is ‘roll of fines’, 8 as it is also in the roll for year seventeen. 9 In varying shapes and sizes, ‘roll of fines, rotulus finium’, with the relevant regnal year, is almost exclusively the only heading found in the rolls of Henry III. 10

This fixing of the title as a roll of fines was probably influenced by changes of terminology within the rolls themselves. While the terms ‘fine’ and ‘offer’ feature in the early headings, neither word, with a few exceptions, actually appears in the body of the rolls. Instead individuals are said simply to ‘give’ money to the king. The first entry on the roll for John’s first regnal year is typical: ‘Walter son of Godfrey gives (dat) the king fifty marks to have custody of the land and heir of Robert de Wateleg’’. 11 In the rolls from 1213–14 onwards, however, entries of the old ‘dat’ type are now interspersed with those where an individual ‘has made fine with the lord king, finem fecit cum domino Rege’. This continues to be the case throughout the reign of Henry III and doubtless helps explain why the title of the roll becomes ‘roll of fines’ rather than ‘roll of offers’, ‘fine’ appearing in the body of the roll where ‘offer’ rarely does. 12

This change in terminology between 1207–08 and 1213–14 was accompanied by a further development in Chancery practice, one which enables the fines to be dated, if only indirectly. This change involved making a note in the record of each fine of the accompanying letter to the sheriff ordering him to take security for payment. Since such letters concluded with clauses giving their place and date of issue, we can get a fairly good idea from 1213–14 onwards as to when fines were actually made. 13 All this is in contrast to the situation down to 1207–08 where even when accompanying letters were included, they were usually left without their place/date clauses.

The inclusion of related letters with their place-date clauses clearly testified to the Chancery’s desire to record more exact information. Was that also the reason for the introduction of the ‘finem fecit’ formula, or were ‘finem fecit’ and ‘dat’ virtually synonyms, with their choice reflecting no more than the whim of individual clerks? 14 The same question arises in respect of the ‘fines and offers, fines and oblata’ which, as we have seen, both feature in the headings to the early rolls. It certainly seems that, in some contexts, fines and oblata could mean the same thing. Although from 1213–14 onwards the heading to the rolls is nearly always ‘roll of fines’, when the Exchequer entered the fine roll debts on the pipe roll it always did so under the heading ‘new offerings, nova oblata’. 15 In a broad sense, it also seems that ‘dat’ entries were regarded as fines just as much as ‘finem fecit’ ones. After all, the roll becomes a ‘roll of fines’ despite the fact that ‘dat’ appears far more frequently than does ‘finem fecit’. Sometimes, moreover, an offer which begins ‘dat’ or ‘dant’ (as in that of the men of Berkshire for custody of their county’s forest in 1221) is described as a fine in the body of the entry. 16 Likewise when marginalia begin to appear in the rolls describing the subject matter of entries (a development discussed below), a proffer in ‘dat’ form can be described in the margin as a ‘fine’. In February 1224, for example, the marginal note to an entry beginning William, son of Daniel Butler, ‘gives the king’ 15 marks for seisin of a mill has the marginal annotation ‘The fine of William, son of Daniel Butler’. 17

Yet this is not the whole story. The author of the Dialogus de Scaccario, the great book about the working of the Exchequer written in the late 1170s, made a distinction between ‘offer’ and ‘fine’. The former was an entirely voluntary payment for an immediate or future benefit. The latter was in some degree involuntary, the example given being that of relief, the payment necessarily made by an heir to succeed to his inheritance. Although one could negotiate, or try to negotiate over the level of a fine, one was, to a greater or lesser degree, compelled to make it. 18 The question thus arises as to whether the ‘fine’ and ‘dat’ entries found in the rolls from 1213–14 reflect this distinction in the Dialogus. 19 The answer is both yes and no. It is certainly a striking fact that from 1213–14 reliefs and other payments to enter inheritances, as Paul Dryburgh has shown, are almost universally accorded the ‘finem fecit’ formula. 20 Indeed, in one such case the clerk deliberately altered ‘dat’ to ‘finem fecit’. 21 Finem fecit’ also appears in cases where money is promised for the king’s grace or for the pardon of some offence, which would also seem to come within the Dialogus’s definition of fines since, like reliefs, if in a different way, they were hardly entirely voluntary. 22 When Magna Carta in 1215 stigmatised all ‘fines which have been made unjustly and against the law of the land’ it was surely thinking of payments of these types. 23 The involuntary element may also explain why ‘finem fecit’ usually appears in payments for respite or attermination of debts owed the crown, and why it appears too in fines from widows to stay single or marry whom they wish. In both these cases the fines were clearly forced, to some extent, from those making them by threat or fear. 24 By contrast, it is equally true that nearly all the ‘dat’ entries in the rolls seem to be voluntary offers, for example for licenses to have market and fairs, or for writs to pursue legal actions. 25 The huge increase in the offers for writs in the Henrician rolls is one reason why the ‘dat’ entries become so predominant.

This distinction between the involuntary ‘finem fecit’ entries and the voluntary ‘dat’ ones is not, however, clear cut. Most strikingly the finem fecit formula becomes normal in the numerous payments for possession of wardships, an area which the Dialogus specifically placed in the voluntary offer category. 26 What then can one conclude? There was certainly a sense in which all the promises of money on the rolls were fines. However, ‘dat’ was generally used for voluntary offers, by far the most numerous becoming those connected with writs to pursue legal actions. The ‘finem fecit’ entries can be characterised in various ways. The great bulk of them, excluding fines for wardships, were to some degree involuntary. Most of them also related to the king’s tenurial or ‘feudal’ rights, being connected with relief, marriages, and wardships, which is why the category embraced fines which the Dialogus put in the voluntary category. 27 It would be wrong to say that the distinction between the ‘dat’ and ‘finem fecit’ entries entirely matched that between business which was routine and that which was important and specially touched the king. The offers of money in 1227 for new and renewed charters clearly came into the latter category yet the great majority began with the ‘dat’ formula. 28 There is, however, some truth in the division.

This brings us on to a wider question which is how fines (using the term now to cover all the proffers on the roll) were actually made, a subject on which there is unfortunately no direct contemporary comment. At the bottom of the scale, the routine fines for which there was a fairly settled charge, like those for writs of pone securing a place for a lawsuit at a particular court, were probably made simply with the Chancery staff. 29 At the top, there must have been many fines which were negotiated directly with the king and or his leading ministers. In the rolls covered by this volume, given that the king was only nine on his accession in October 1216, the ultimate responsibility rested initially with the regent William Marshal, earl of Pembroke. Until the introduction of the king’s own seal in November 1218, it was the Marshal’s seal which was used to authenticate royal letters and he remained their usual witness down to his resignation in April 1219. 30 Thereafter the job of witnessing the letters (which meant acting as their ultimate authority) was taken over by the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, though initially he had to work closely with Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, the king’s tutor, and Pandulf, the papal legate. It was not until the end of 1223 that the king himself entered part of his regal powers and began to witness the letters, although the fact that these were often still authorised by Hubert or witnessed in his presence shows that he remained very much in control of government. 31 He did, however, now have to work with the bishops of Bath and Salisbury whom Archbishop Langton had placed at his side as the price of their alliance. 32 These were certainly structures where one can imagine a great deal of debate about the fines, and of this there are indeed signs in the rolls. Thus in 1227 an offer by Peter des Roches, very much persona non grata with Hubert de Burgh, was first obstructed and then failed to secure all that Peter wanted. 33 There are equally signs of disagreement under John where several offers appearing on the rolls, presumably through the agency of ministers, were later rejected by the king. 34

1.2. The Fine Rolls, the Originalia Rolls and the workings of royal finance

In the fine rolls, as we have seen, individuals are said to ‘give’ money to the king. Although this would seem to indicate that they were paying cash down, in the very great majority of cases they were doing nothing of the kind. Rather, the sums on the roll, whether given or fined for, were monies merely promised to the king, which still had to be collected. The king, moreover, did not receive this money directly. Rather it was collected by, and paid into, the Exchequer at Westminster. How then was the Exchequer to know what money to collect? The answer is that copies of the fine roll were sent to it in instalments through the year. This is why in the rolls there are intermittent notes (sometimes in the margin, sometimes in the body of the text) ‘hinc mittendum est ad scaccarium’, ‘from here it is to be sent to the Exchequer’, which signified the point at which the last instalment had been dispatched, and a new one had to be prepared. A typical note from October 1219 reads: ‘From here it is to be sent to the Exchequer and what is above has been delivered to the Treasurer [of the Exchequer] by the hand of R. de Neville’, Ralph de Neville being the keeper of the seal and the man in day to day charge of the Chancery. 35 The copy of the roll sent to the Exchequer was called the ‘originalia roll’. 36 A surviving fragment of such a roll for 1195–6 is one piece of evidence for the early existence of the fine rolls. 37 On receipt of the originalia roll, the Exchequer transferred the debts to the ‘summonses’, the list of debts which it sent twice annually to the sheriff for him to collect and pay into the treasury. It also copied the debts onto the pipe roll (the annual record of the audit of all money owed to the crown) where they were placed, county by county, under the heading ‘new offerings, nova oblata’. 38 On the apparently rare occasions where a fine was paid direct to the king (usually into either his Chamber or Wardrobe) a note was added to the fine roll stating that the fine in question should not be sent to the Exchequer. This meant that the debt would not be placed on the originalia roll. 39

1.3. The growth of non-fine business on the Fine Rolls

The introduction of the finem fecit formula and the routine appearance of writs with their place/date clauses were not the only changes seen in the fine rolls from the last years of King John. 40 They also witness the beginning of a process which, continuing apace under Henry III, was to transform the nature of the rolls. This was the increasing inclusion of material unrelated to fines but nonetheless of importance to the Exchequer. 41 Thus the rolls come to include letters about such things as the rates of debt repayment, the taking of land into the king’s hands on the death of a tenant-in-chief, the seizure of land in cases of rebellion, the taxation levied on the royal demesne (including the Jews), and the terms of appointment to sheriffdoms and the custody of manors. Sometimes, when the relevant letters were addressed to the sheriff or another official, the intention, it may be supposed, was to keep the Exchequer informed of them through a copy on the originalia rolls. 42 In other cases, where the letter was addressed to the Exchequer in the first place, it was probably entered on the fine roll rather than the close roll because of a growing belief that the former was the more appropriate roll for that type of Exchequer business. 43 This also had the advantage of reducing the size of the increasingly unwieldy close rolls, a problem also tackled by hiving off onto the liberate roll, introduced in 1226, all writs related to the expenditure of money. 44

2. The form of the Henrician Fine Rolls

In form, the fine rolls of Henry III are much like those of King John’s last years. As with all the Chancery rolls, a new set was opened each regnal year, so the Henrician rolls run from 28 October (the date of Henry’s first coronation) to 27 October. They were written in Latin on membranes of parchment in Chancery cursive hands, the membranes being sewn end to end (much of the stitching is contemporary). In the roll for John’s first year, the membranes are only 19.5 to 22.5 centimetres (cm) wide, but they thereafter expand, those for 1213–14, and 1215–16 varying in width between 32 cm and 37 cm, roughly their size under Henry III. The membranes could also vary in length, although usually within comparatively narrow limits. For example, the 13 membranes of the roll for 1228–29 are between 46 cm and 56 cm long, with a fairly uniform width of 34–35 cm. The total length of the roll is 648 cm or 21 and a quarter feet. 45

After the recovery from the civil war in which the reign began, the rolls down to 1234 are usually between 9 and 13 membranes in length, containing between roughly 300 and 500 separate items of business, as the following table shows, while those from 1234–1248 are longer and contain 400–800 items of business. In certain years, often when the king spends time on the Continent, more than one roll is employed during a single regnal year, one being kept in Chancery and the other or others itinerating with the king. In its English translation, the roll for 1229–30 includes some 35,000 words. Some later rolls have 10,000 words more.

Calendar (TNA reference) 46 Regnal Year Calendar Year (28 Oct. – 27 Oct.) Membranes Items
C 60/8 1 1216–1217 2 24
C 60/9, 10 2 1217–1218 8 266
C 60/11 47 3 1218–1219 12 442
C 60/12, 13 4 1219–1220 9 295
C 60/15, 14 5 1220–1221 10 352
C 60/16, 17 6 1221–1222 9 320
C 60/18, 19 7 1222–1223 10 328
C 60/21, 20 8 1223–1224 10 428
C 60/22, 23 48 9 1224–1225 8 49 375
C 60/24 10 1225–1226 9 359
C 60/25, 26 50 11 1226–1227 12 398
C 60/27 12 1227–1228 9 308
C 60/28 13 1228–1229 13 518
C 60/29 14 1229–1230 13 475
C 60/30 15 1230–1231 9 344
C 60/31 16 1231–1232 7 313
C 60/32 17 1232–1233 10 386
C 60/33 18 1233–1234 11 401
C 60/34 19 1234–1235 16 517
C 60/35 20 1235–1236 17 571
E 371/4 51 21 1236–1237 10 259
E 371/5 22 1237–1238 4 103
C 60/36 23 1238–1239 11 394
E 371/7 24 1239–1240 10 386
C 60/37 25 1240–1241 18 757
C 60/38 26 1241–1242 52 14 362
C 60/39A 26 1242 53 6 180
C 60/39B 26 1242 54 2 44
C 60/40 27 1242–1243 10 357
C 60/40a 27 1242–1243 14 513
C 60/41 28 1243–1244 10 468
C 60/42 29 1244–1245 17 601
C 60/43 30 1245–1246 20 710
C 60/44 31 1246–1247 13 559
C 60/45 32 1247–1248 14 623

Much more research is needed before a detailed comparison can be made between the rolls of John and Henry III in terms of volume, type and value of business. The table below is offered for what it is worth, and it should be born in mind that John’s early rolls have much narrower membranes than those which became prevalent later. It is safe to say, however, that the financial value of fines under John was far greater than under his son, a reflection of the reduced power and scope of royal government after Magna Carta and the 1215–1217 civil war. This is a subject which the project hopes to investigate more fully in due course. 55

Calendar (TNA reference) Regnal Year Calendar Year Membranes/Pages 56
C 60/1A 1 1199–1200 23/75
C 60/1B 2 1200–1201 22/68
C 60/1C 3 1201–1202 15/53
C 60/2 6 1204–1205 17/89
C 60/3A 7 1205–1207 17/83
C 60/4 9 1207–1208 13/93
C 60/5B & 5A 15 1213–1214 11/62 57
C 60/7A & 6 17–18 1215–1216 9/54 58

3. The duplicate rolls

Like other Chancery rolls in the minority of Henry III, and the last years of King John, the fine rolls were written in duplicate. The contents of the two rolls are largely the same, and any significant variations have been noted in this edition. It is clear that the duplication was accomplished by one roll being copied from the other. 59 Thus the second roll omits cancelled entries found on the first roll, yet incorporates many of its amendments. Many but not all, for it is equally clear that it was the first roll which was the main working copy. Thus changes made after the second roll had been drawn up were often included on the first roll but not the second. 60 As a result of these differences, the second roll, although sometimes written more carelessly, 61 has a neater appearance than the first one, lacking the alterations and having smaller gaps between entries and fewer changes of ink and hand. The impression is that the first roll was entered up at much shorter intervals than the second roll, a conclusion which further study of the paleography may be able to amplify. 62

The fact that duplicate rolls go back to John’s reign shows that they were not produced by the special circumstances of Henry’s minority. 63 Their function was doubtless to provide back up in case of loss or damage, but there may have been more to it than that. A further possibility is that the rolls were associated with different ministers. At the Exchequer there were thus two copies of the pipe roll made each year, one the treasurer’s and the other the chancellor’s. Likewise there were two memoranda rolls (largely though not entirely with the same business), one drawn up by the king’s remembrancer and one by the treasurer’s. 64 In respect of the fine rolls, it may be that the first roll was the king’s roll and the second the chancellor’s. On the first roll were recorded the fines in the order in which they were made, whether with the king, or one of his ministers. In practice, in the minority, this was the roll of the regent, William Marshal, and after his resignation in 1219 the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. 65 The second roll was that of the chancellor and his deputy, the keeper of the seal, being drawn up both for reasons of status and to monitor what was going on. In the minority, while the chancellor was Richard Marsh, bishop of Durham, the day to day head of the office was the keeper of the seal, Ralph de Neville. 66 When Neville, now bishop of Chichester as well as keeper, heard assizes at Shrewsbury in 1224 it was on the second fine roll that the amercements he imposed were recorded. 67 This does suggest it was peculiarly his roll. It is also of interest that the second roll sometimes omits the ‘from here it is to sent to the Exchequer’ entries. 68 Presumably this was partly because, by the time the roll was copied, the dispatch of the originalia roll had already taken place, but it may also be because the person who made the delivery was usually Neville himself. He had no need to be reminded on his own roll of what he knew he had done. 69

There was one occasion where really significant differences opened up between the first and second fine rolls, the original and the copy. This happened in Henry III’s ninth year, 1224–1225, and relates to an important change in the form of the fine rolls, namely the replacement of marginalia, which simply indicated the county to which an entry belonged, with ones which indicated the entry’s subject matter and or beneficiary. In the early minority of Henry III, both the patent rolls and close rolls had gained subject/person marginalia, a reform perhaps of Ralph de Neville. 70 This put them out of line with the fine rolls which, since the earliest to survive, had marginalia that simply indicated counties. There was a logic to that when the fine rolls had merely been a list of debts. What the Exchequer needed to know was to which sheriff it should send the demand for payment, and in which county section of the pipe roll it should enroll the debt. It became less easy to justify this practice when the fine rolls came to include writs dealing with all manner of concessions as well as a range of business unconnected with fines. Even in respect of fines, a mere note of county would be no help if a search was being made for a fine made by a particular person, as happened in 1221 when the clerks had to go through John’s rolls for the 500 mark fine of Robert de Ferrers to marry Joan daughter of William of Buckland. They found it, but their task would have been easier had the marginal note referred to ‘fine of Robert de Ferrers’ rather to the counties where Joan held land. 71

Gradually, during the 1220s, fine roll marginalia did begin to give more information. Those in the roll for 6 Henry III, 1221–1222, are still almost entirely of the county type, but by the time we get to the eighth year, 1223–1224, they are now leavened with a good number of subject/person entries, in part because of the desire to identify writs concerning individuals caught up in the fall of Falkes de Bréauté. What is noticeable, however, is that the second roll was actually more enthusiastic about the change than the first. Thus, for example, in entries from July 1224 the second roll replaces the first roll’s ‘Yorkshire and Lincolnshire’ with ‘for Gilbert de Gant’ and its ‘Oxfordshire’ with ‘fine for grace’. 72 In the next year, 1224–1225, this divergence between the rolls becomes what almost seems open conflict. It is quite clear that the second roll is still copied from the first. Cancelled entries are omitted, alterations incorporated and even a correction made to maintain the first roll’s order. 73 But when it came to the marginalia the clerk of the second roll now declared independence, replacing many of the county type with those of the subject/people variety. 74 Thus, at the very start, ‘Nottinghamshire’ is replaced by ‘concerning land to be taken into the hands of the king’ and ‘Yorkshire’ with ‘concerning the manor of Harewood committed to W. archbishop of York’. 75

This ‘war of the rolls’, if such it was, terminated in the second roll’s victory. As late as April 1225 it still knew its place, in characteristic second roll fashion omitting the first roll’s ‘from here it is to be sent to the Exchequer’ entry. 76 But there was already a sign of the first roll’s eclipse because its marginalia had ceased altogether, that for 25 March being the last. 77 This was followed by even more dramatic symptoms of decline. Between 14 April and 14 June the first roll has both less detailed and fewer entries (45 as against 56) than those found on the second roll. 78 It also omits entries cancelled on the second roll, a complete reversal of the previous order of things. 79 In fact, the end was nigh, for the first roll’s entry for 14 June is its last. That entry comes at the bottom of a membrane, but there is no indication that another membrane was ever attached. By far the likeliest hypothesis is that the roll was abandoned. Thereafter, until the end of the regnal year, the second roll, stood alone, possessing all the characteristics of the first roll, including the very ‘from here it is to be sent to the Exchequer’ type of entry it had previously omitted. 80 County marginalia continued to feature but they were outnumbered, 85 to 75, by those of the person/subject variety. This was the future. Person/subject marginalia predominate, sometimes by a great margin, throughout the subsequent Henrician rolls.

It is difficult to be sure how to interpret this sequence of events. Clearly a decision had been made, most likely by Neville, to introduce person/subject marginalia to the fine rolls. Perhaps the clerk of the first roll for 1224–25 had simply failed to get the message. Or perhaps Neville, with more control of the second roll (if that was the chancellor’s), introduced the reform there first. Whatever the truth, the reform shows the desire to improve the rolls as working documents. There may also have been logic behind the retention for certain entries of the old county marginalia. Although the subject needs further investigation, and there was certainly no absolute rule, the impression is that these were mostly employed for straightforward fines (like those for writs to initiate and further legal actions) which the clerk knew would be going onto the originalia roll. This was the reason, along with the omission of much non-fine business, why the marginalia in the originalia rolls remained largely of a county type, and thus of help to the work of the Exchequer. 81

The last duplicate fine roll was almost certainly that for 11 Henry III, although all that survives is one damaged membrane covering business in December 1226 and January 1227. 82 We can be fairly clear this roll was the last because in 1227 all the other duplicates bar one were brought to an end. They were abandoned, moreover, not at the end of the regnal year in October but in its middle. The early parts of the duplicate close roll and patent roll for 1226–1227 look just like their predecessors. 83 Indeed, the regnal year saw the introduction of two entirely new duplicates, the first to match the liberate roll, which was created in October 1226 to record the writs dealing with expenditure formerly on the close roll, 84 and the second to match the charter roll inaugurated when the king began to issue charters in January 1227. 85 But the effort was not maintained. Within a few months, in the duplicate liberate, patent and close rolls, the marginal annotations, describing the content of the writs, cease to be entered; in the liberate roll from 10 December, in the patent roll from 21 December, and on the close roll from 9 February. 86 Then the rolls themselves come to an end. The last entry on the liberate roll is for 1 February, on the close roll for 5 March, and on the patent roll for 13 March. Both the close roll and liberate roll entries terminate at what may have been the bottom of membranes, but there is no sign that further membranes ever followed. The patent roll entries terminate with 2.8 cm still left of the membrane, which is in any case unusually short, 33 cm as against the 50 cm of its predecessor. It looks as though the rest of the membrane was cut off for re-use once it was known that the roll was to be abandoned.

The decision to abandon the duplicate rolls was taken, therefore, sometime after 13 March 1227, the date reached by the copyist of the patent roll, the copyist of the close roll having, at that point, only got as far as 5 March and of the liberate roll as far as 1 February. Why? The answer almost certainly relates to Ralph de Neville’s new confidence in his position. Until Richard Marsh’s death on 1 May 1226 he had been a deputy. Marsh, moreover, was sensitive about his own status. Indeed, on one occasion he upbraided Neville for failing, in a letter, to address him as chancellor. 87 In these circumstances, a decision by Neville to abandon the duplicate rolls might well have been taken by Marsh as an attack on his authority. Marsh’s death changed the situation completely. Neville immediately became chancellor (he is found bearing the title from 17 May 1226), 88 and had the authority to create the liberate rolls at the start of the next regnal year. There was then a further improvement in his situation. In January 1227 the last restrictions on the powers of Henry III were removed, which meant that charters could be issued and curiales be rewarded for their faithful service. 89 Neville’s own reward came on 12 February 1227 when he received a charter, witnessed by five bishops, which granted him the Chancery for life. 90 The abandonment of the duplicate rolls a month or so later is too close to be a coincidence. Now master in his house, and enjoying excellent relations with the king and the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, Neville saw no point in putting his clerks through the labour of making the copy rolls, all the more so since the introduction of the liberate and charter rolls had increased their number from three to five. Although the second rolls, or at least the second fine roll, had been the chancellor’s roll, there was no need, in the new situation, to bother about such distinctions. The duplicate charter rolls, presumably because of the importance attached to charters, continued for a year or so (part of one survives for 1228–29), 91 but then they too seem to have been abandoned. Thirteenth-century bureaucrats were, therefore, masters of the rolls, not their unthinking servants. They questioned their utility and fought against their multiplication. There, was, of course, nothing new in that. The Dialogus de Scaccario records how the Exchequer of Henry II had first introduced and then abandoned the copying of the lists of debts sent out to the sheriffs for collection (the summonses), the ‘labour involved proving overpowering’. 92

4. The historical context and interest of the Henrician Fine Rolls

The fine rolls of King Henry III (1216–1272) are central to the study of politics, government and society in a reign which saw the implantation of Magna Carta into English political life and the beginnings of the parliamentary state. 93 The rolls reveal what the king was prepared to give his subjects and what his subjects wanted from the king. The social range of those involved in making fines expanded during the reign, as did the type of the concessions for which they paid. Earls, barons, knights, freemen, peasants, women (particularly widows), Jews, ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical institutions, towns and townsmen are all found in the rolls. The fines made by magnates and ministers for major favours (for example the concession of marriages and wardships) are a vital source for the workings of royal patronage. 94 The fines made for exemption from knighthood and local office cast important light on the aspirations and changing structures of the gentry. 95 The gigantic expansion in payments for writs to initiate and further legal actions is key evidence for the widening scope of the common law. 96 The fines to set up new markets and fairs reveal the commercialisation of the economy, as those for permission to create new private parks and warrens show rising social aspirations. 97 The new material which enters the rolls (and some of the old) makes them a major source for the death of tenants-in-chief, the running of local government, 98 the exploitation of the royal demesne, the taxation of towns, the position of the Jews, and (through orders for the seizure of land), the course of politics in periods of crisis. Throughout, the rolls are full of evidence of family relationships and social networks, the last through the long lists of backers which those making fines had sometimes to supply. 99

All this material is on the rolls without them losing their intimate relationship with the king. On the roll for 1207–08 there is the extraordinary offer of 200 chickens made by the wife of Hugh de Neville to be allowed ‘to lie one night with her lord, Hugh de Neville’. 100 Was she John’s mistress and were the two of them joking about what a night back with Hugh would be worth, the answer a ridiculous 200 chickens? On the roll of 1242–43 we have an example of Henry III’s rather more benign sense of humour. In the ship sailing home from Gascony, ‘having a joke’ (ludendo) at the expense of his clerk, Peter the Poitevin, he invented and recorded on the fine roll a whole series of risible debts which Peter supposedly owed: ‘five dozen capons for a trespass in the ship; 28 casks of wine from the arrears of the wine which he bought for the use of the king at Mussak where he dreamed he saw the emperor Otto’ and so on. Henry was careful, however, not to let the joke go too far. Doubtless after Peter had been baffled and perhaps alarmed by the sight of his obligations, Henry ordered them ‘Peter not looking’ to be crossed out with the result that they never reached the originalia roll and the Exchequer. 101

The rolls for the years 1216 to 1234 have a particular interest. 102 They cover an extraordinary period of English history which saw the winning of the civil war raging at John’s death, the restoration of government shattered by the hostilities, the conflict over the king’s recovery of his castles and shrievalties in 1223–24, the rebellion of Falkes de Bréauté, the establishment of Magna Carta, the ending of the king’s minority, the expedition to Brittany in 1230, the fall in 1232 of the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, the ascendancy of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, the civil war which resulted from Peter’s flouting of Magna Carta, and finally the restoration in 1234 of lawful, consensual rule. The first of Henry’s rolls, running from 28 October 1216 to 27 October 1217, is a pathetic affair, only two membranes long and with a mere twenty-four items of business. It reflects, of course, the critical political situation after John’s death. With the new king a minor only nine years old, the government was headed by the regent, William Marshal earl of Pembroke. His government was fighting for its life against Louis, eldest son of the king of France, to whom the insurgent barons had offered the throne. The war situation at the start of the reign is itself reflected in the very first fine on the Henrician rolls, that from a former rebel, Robert Arsic, to be released from prison in return for serving the king henceforth with three knights for a year. 103 The capitalised heading at the start of the first membrane ‘ROLL OF FINES OF THE FIRST YEAR OF KING HENRY, ROTULUS FINIUM ANNI REGIS HENRICI PRIMI’, is in elegant, elongated letters, taller than those found at the start of any earlier or later roll, surely an act of both defiance and of reassurance, a statement that the first year of King Henry was not going to be his last. 104 Later, with Henry securely on the throne, bureaucracy and boredom took over and the rolls were often left without headings at all. 105 It may also be significant that the heading to the first roll speaks simply of King Henry, not King Henry son of King John, later a common formula, as though the clerk was trying to distance the reign of the son from that of the father. 106 Certainly the tall capital letters which proclaimed Henry’s first year contrast strikingly with the minuscule lower case ones which tried almost to conceal John’s last one. 107

The growing size of the rolls is testimony to the recovery of government after the end of the war in 1217. The length of the roll for 1218–19 (12 membranes and 442 items) is partly related to business generated by the nationwide visitation of the king’s justices which began in November 1218, an important step in the restoration of royal authority. 108 After the Marshal’s resignation in April 1219, a month before his death, control of central government was given to the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, though initially, as we have said, he shared power with Peter des Roches and Pandulf, the papal legate. The rolls of 1220–21 and 1221–22 have the letters related to another major initiative, the resumption into the hands of the king of the manors of the royal demesne. 109 That these letters are on the fine roll, when they have nothing to do with fines, is a good example of the increasing range of business which the rolls contain. Likewise it is on the roll for 1223–24 that we find the letters ordering the seizure of the lands of Falkes de Bréauté and his associates before and after Falkes’s rebellion. 110

It was in January 1227 that the last restrictions on Henry’s power were removed, which meant he could now issue charters and confirmations. The fine rolls show how the king profited from the move, since they contain numerous proffers from individuals and institutions for such concessions. 111 This is one reason why the roll for 1226–27, with twelve membranes and 398 items of business, is another long one. In 1230 the king launched his long awaited expedition to Brittany in the hope of recovering at least some of the Angevin empire. Here the arrangements for the collection of the scutage levied for the expedition, which are found on the fine rolls, throw considerable light on England’s social structure and the much debated question as to how far barons were still able to control their tenants by knight service, which, put another way, is to ask how far England in this period was still ‘feudal’. 112 The fine rolls show that William de Warenne, earl of Surrey, was keen to exercise such control, for the king allowed him to collect the scutage from his tenants and pay it in to the Exchequer, rather than the sheriff doing it for him, something which involved getting money from men in Warwickshire, Essex, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Yorkshire and Sussex. 113 Clearly Warenne believed his ‘feudal’ authority over his far flung honour was still very much intact.

Underlying this whole period down to 1234 was one major question, the future of Magna Carta. 114 To win the war and then secure the peace the minority government, completely reversing John’s policy, had issued new versions of the Charter both in 1216 and 1217. It had also, in 1217, issued an entirely new Charter governing the running of the royal forest. In 1225, in return for a great tax, the king issued final and definitive versions of both. The Charters were now part of the law of the country, but this did not mean they would be obeyed. Indeed, during the abrasive regime of Peter des Roches between 1232 and 1234, the whole future of the Charters seemed at stake. 115 The fine rolls have vital information on the course of politics in these years, including the explosive letter in which the king effectively disseised Gilbert Basset, unjustly and without judgment, of Upavon in Wiltshire in clear breach of Magna Carta. 116 They equally have the letters in which the government took action against Richard Marshal, earl of Pembroke, after he had broken with the bishop’s regime, letters which are a key source for the composition of the earl’s affinity and the extent of his wider support. 117 More generally, the rolls have important evidence bearing on how far some of the most important clauses in the charters were obeyed, including those which promised a radical reduction in the size of the royal forest, 118 protected widows against forced re-marriage, 119 and fixed the relief (that is the inheritance tax) of an earl and baron at £100 and a knight at £5.

5. The value of fines by regnal year, 1216–1234

It is a thankless task to extrapolate annual revenue from the fine rolls. Many fines, for example, might have been made in the king’s wardrobe or have been granted free of charge, or, as is recorded in 1232–33, made with the king’s chief ministers, in this case the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, and so would not be entered on the fine rolls. 120 Moreover, there are many occasions on which fines were made, entered on the fine roll and then subsequently attermined, respited, or pardoned – processes that could be eked out over several years or, indeed, generations – meaning that the king would never have received anything like the total annual values listed below. 121 Nevertheless, it is possible to give an estimate of the value of the fines as recorded in the fine rolls. The table below provides the annual value of fines for the first eighteen years of Henry’s reign and, as a comparison, those for the surviving fine rolls of John printed in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus in Turri Londinensi asservati tempore Regis Johannis, ed. T.D. Hardy (Record Commission, 1835). While these figures should be reasonably accurate, they are approximations and are subject to future revision.

Calendar Year 122 Regnal Year Annual value of fines Value of largest fine (and % of the total) Renders in kind
1199–1200 1 John £40704 £3466 13s. 4d. (9%) 61 palfreys, 11 horses, 10 destriers, 21 hawks, 9 hounds, one tun of wine, 100 cheeses, 100 bacons, 20 gold coins, 10 oz. of gold, one gold ring with rubies, 2 scarlet robes
1204–1205 6 John £17971 £2666 13s. 4d. (15%) 150 palfreys, 14 horses, 5 destriers, 33 hawks, 30 lampreys, 30 bulls, 300 cows, 400 hens, 360 capons, 9½ quarters of wheat, 100 iron arrow-heads, 6 otter-skins
1213–1214 15 John £25369 £13333 6s. 8d. (53%) 120 palfreys, 19 horses, 2 destriers, 4 tuns of wine
Calendar Year Regnal Year Annual value of fines Value of largest fine (and % of the total) Renders in kind
1215–1216 17–18 John £19831 £8000 (40%) 80 palfreys, 3 horses, 3 destriers, 1 hawk, 2 tuns of wine, 20 oz. of gold
1216–1217 1 HIII £610 £200 (33%) 1 Norwegian hawk
1217–1218 2 HIII £2956 £666 13s. 4d. (23%) 5 palfreys, 2 hawks, 4 tuns of wine
1218–1219 3 HIII £1149 £122 (11%) 23 palfreys, 5 tuns of wine
1219–1220 4 HIII £1518 £666 13s. 4d. (44%) 31 palfreys, 4 cartloads of lead and one unspecified fine for debt
1220–1221 5 HIII £2571 £500 (19%) 16 palfreys
1221–1222 6 HIII £4275 £2228 2s. 9½d. (52%) 15 palfreys and one unspecified fine for debt
1222–1223 7 HIII £1018 £266 13s. 4d. (26%) 15 palfreys and one unspecified fine for debt
1223–1224 8 HIII £2956 £500 (17%) 4 palfreys and two unspecified fines for debt
1224–1225 9 HIII £2210 £466 13s. 4d. (21%) 2 destriers, 8 palfreys, 1 tun of wine and an unspecified fine for debt
1225–1226 10 HIII £1834 £333 6s. 8d. (twice) (18% each) 8 palfreys, 7 tuns of wine
1226–1227 11 HIII £7820 £1333 6s. 8d. (17%) 16 palfreys
1227–1228 12 HIII £2768 £800 (29%) One unspecified fine for debt
Calendar Year Regnal Year Annual value of fines Value of largest fine (and % of the total) Renders in kind
1228–1229 13 HIII £4560 £266 13s. 4d. (6%) 2 palfreys
1229–1230 14 HIII £7255 £4000 (55%) 6 palfreys and one unspecified fine for debt
1230–1231 15 HIII £9275 £4666 13s. 4d. (50%) 10 palfreys
1231–1232 16 HIII £8924 £3333 6s. 8d. (37%) 8 palfreys
1232–1233 17 HIII £6248 £1000 (17%) 12 palfreys, 12 lampreys, 12 bream, £568 of fines made with Hubert de Burgh and one unspecified fine for debt
1233–1234 18 HIII £8685 £1666 13s. 4d. (19%) 7 palfreys
Calendar Year Regnal Year Annual value of fines Value of largest fine (and % of the total) Renders in kind
1234–1235 19 HIII £4270 £466 13s. 4d. (11% twice) 29 palfreys, 3 tuns of wine and an unspecified fine for debt
1235–1236 20 HIII £3576 £666 13s. 4d. (19%) 11 palfreys
1236–1237 21 HIII £2653 £500(19%) 1 palfrey
1237–1238 22 HIII £2039 £533 6s. 8d. (26%) 3 palfreys, 1 hawk, 1 mewed hawk
1238–1239 23 HIII £1308 £150 (11%) 12 palfreys, 2 tuns of wine
1239–1240 24 HIII £2436 £447 3s. 10d. (18%) 3 palfreys, 8 tuns of wine
1240–1241 25 HIII £3968 £1333 6s. 8d. (34%) 6 palfreys, 1 tun of wine
1241–1242 26 HIII £11294 £6666 13s. 4d. (59%) 4 palfreys, 1 sore sparrowhawk and 1 unspecified fine
Calendar Year Regnal Year Annual value of fines Value of largest fine (and % of the total) Renders in kind
1242–1243 27 HIII £1265 6s. 8d. £667 6s. 8d. (53%) 2 palfreys
1243–1244 28 HIII £3925 3s. 8d. £667 6s. 8d. (17%) 6 palfreys
1244–1245 29 HIII £9145 13s. 4d. £667 6s. 8d.(7%) 7 palfreys, 2 tuns of wine
1245–1246 30 HIII £12058 13s. 4d. £3000(25%) 6 palfreys and 1 palfrey worth 100s.
1246–1247 31 HIII £4715 3s. £1333 6s. 8d.(28%) 6 palfreys, 100 live rabbits
1247–1248 32 HIII £3009 16s. 8d. £400 (13%) -

6. The publication of the rolls

Despite their compelling interest, the fine rolls of King Henry III have never been properly published. Whereas those of King John appeared in full Latin text, edited by Thomas Duffus Hardy, under the auspices of the Record Commission, in 1835, those of King Henry were only afforded a series of excerpts, selected exclusively on the basis of genealogical interest, which ran to some 10–15% of the content of the rolls. These were edited by Charles Roberts and published in two volumes by the Record Commission in 1835–36, under the title Excerpta e Rotulis Finium in Turri Londinensi asservatis Henrico Tertio Rege A.D. 1216–1272. 123 There was no subject index and the indexes for people and places were completely inadequate. 124 Consequently the use made of the fine rolls by such historians of the reign of Henry III as E.F. Jacob, R.F. Treharne and Sir Maurice Powicke, writing between the 1920s and 1950s, was limited to the printed Excerpta. 125 The briefing paper circulated at the first meeting of the Public Record Office Consultative Committee on Publications, which met on 27 November 1947, observed that ‘Among Chancery Records a full text of the Fine Rolls, Henry III is still needed to supersede the Record Commission’s Excerpta’. This was considered amongst ‘the most outstanding needs’. 126 J.C. Holt took a similar view. I well remember him stressing the importance of the Henrician fine rolls and the need for a new edition, when, setting out on research, I went to him for advice in the early 1970s. Since then scholars have indeed entered the archives and sought to mine the original rolls, but they have confined themselves to their own particular interests and not attempted any kind of consistent and comprehensive analysis of the material. The almost complete absence of work on the legal evidence in the rolls is particularly striking. For those without Latin and palaeography the resource has remained completely unusable.

After an abortive attempt in the mid-1970s, by Dr. David Crook at the then Public Record Office, to make a calendar of the rolls, it was Dr. Louise Wilkinson who conceived the project which has at last led to their publication. A committee was formed consisting of Wilkinson, David Carpenter of King’s College London’s History Department, Harold Short, Director of King’s College’s Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH), and David Crook and Aidan Lawes of The National Archives (TNA). Mr Lawes, Academic Publications Manager at TNA, was particularly clear on the importance of parallel print and electronic publication. This group put together a bid to the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now Council) seeking funding for a three-year project which would publish the rolls down to 1248, a second (ultimately successful) bid being envisaged for another round of funding which would carry publication down to the end of the reign in 1272. The bid was successful and work began in April 2005.

From the start, the guiding principle of the project has been to make the fine rolls as usable and available as possible to as wide an audience as possible. To that end, the Latin text has been turned into English. Although this has been done in a way comparable to that found in the great series of Chancery roll calendars published by HMSO in the last century (hence the title Calendar of Fine Rolls for the Reign of Henry III for the new series), the English rendering is in fact much fuller than that found in many PRO calendars, and amounts almost to a full translation. Within the translation, another departure from old PRO practice, all place names, and toponymic surnames, where identifiable, have been modernised, with a record of original forms being kept in the index. There are also full indexes of persons, places and subjects. Publication in book form is complemented by publication of the translation and indexes on the Project’s website where the text, encoded electronically, is also linked to a sophisticated search engine and digitised images of the original rolls. The form of reference is the same whichever version is used. 127

Footnotes

1.
For the most recent discussion, see N. Vincent ‘Why 1199? Bureaucracy and enrolment under John and his contemporaries’, English Government in the Thirteenth Century, ed. A. Jobson (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 17–48. The same volume includes D. Carpenter, ‘The English royal chancery in the thirteenth century’, pp. 49–70. My own view (which I hope to develop on another occasion) is that the close rolls too go back before 1199 although I still think they postdate the fine rolls. Letters patent gained their own roll in 1201, before then being enrolled on the roll which also contained charters. Back to context...
2.
The fullest discussion of the origin and nature of the fine rolls is found in H.G. Richardson’s introduction to the memoranda roll of 1 John: The Memoranda Roll for the Michaelmas Term of the First Year of the Reign of King John (1199–1200), ed. H.G. Richardson (Pipe Roll Soc., new series, xxi, 1943), pp. xxi–xxxiii, ‘the origin of the fine rolls’. Back to context...
3.
For the documents produced by the Chancery see P. Chaplais, English Royal Documents: King John – Henry VI 1199–1461 (Oxford, 1971) and Carpenter, ‘The English royal chancery in the thirteenth century’. The letters close on the close roll might equally be described by contemporaries as ‘writs’ (brevia, singular breve) and the terms are often used interchangeably by modern historians. However contemporaries, followed by modern historians, nearly always described letters connected with legal actions as ‘writs’. Back to context...
4.
C 60/1A, m. 23; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus in Turri Londinensi asservati tempore Regis Johannis, ed. T.D. Hardy (Record Comm., 1835), p. 1. Because of the loss of a small part of the membrane, the heading now begins CEPTA, though the Record Commission entry has ‘de Recepta’. (It did not capitalise the heading, although that is its form in the roll). Perhaps more of the letters then survived but I still believe the original heading was OBLATA RECEPTA, as is found, though not capitalised, at the end of the membrane to the roll of year nine: C 60/4, m. 1; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 443 (where paradoxically it is capitalised). Back to context...
5.
The heading is lower case: C 60/1C, m. 15; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 143. The heading to the roll for year two in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 76 is not contemporary. Back to context...
6.
The heading is lower case: C 60/2, m. 17; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 197. Back to context...
7.
C 60/4, m. 13; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 371. This heading is capitalised with the clerk completing the line with a very extended form of NONO. Back to context...
8.
There are two rolls for this year with largely identical content. That printed in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 464–522 is C 60/5B. The other is C 60/5A whose final entries, not found in 5B, are printed in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 522–24. It is only 5A which has the heading (capitalised) despite that printed in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 464. Back to context...
9.
Again there are two largely identical rolls for this year and both have headings: C 60/6 and 7A. Both include some fines from John’s eighteenth year. The heading found in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 551, is not contemporary. Back to context...
10.
Occasionally, ‘Rotulus itself is omitted from the heading, such as in Henry’s fifteenth regnal year (C 60/30)Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 371. This heading is capitalised with the clerk completing the line with a very extended form of NONO. Back to context...
11.
Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 1. Back to context...
12.
In the first eight regnal years there is a small number of examples where the verb offerre is employed in the fine rolls to describe a promise of money to the king for a favour: CFR 1217–18, nos. 15, 16, 40, 42; CFR 1218–19, no. 17; CFR 1219–20, nos. 54, 284; CFR 1220–21, no. 46; CFR 1223–24, no. 82. Back to context...
13.
Thus Brian Harris was able to use the fine rolls to establish the dates of the fines found in the nova oblata section of the pipe roll of 1219: Pipe Roll 1219, ed. B.E. Harris (Pipe Roll Society, new series, xlii, 1969–70), pp. xii–xiii, xxiv–xxv. Back to context...
14.
This question is posed by Paul Dryburgh in his ‘Fine of the Month’ for June 2007, ‘The language of making fine’ to which I am greatly indebted. There is also an important discussion of the different types of fines in Hardy’s introduction to Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus (pp. v–xix), though without particular reference to the meaning of the dat entries. Back to context...
15.
Memoranda Roll 1 John, p. xxvi. Exchequer procedure in this area is explained below. The nova oblata heading becomes standard from 1200. In the pipe rolls of Richard there was more diversity and Richardson felt that ‘placita, oblata, promissa and fines were used as synonyms’ (ibid., p. xxiv). Back to context...
16.
CFR 1220–21, no. 151. Back to context...
17.
CFR 1223–24, no. 77 (cited in Dryburgh, ‘The language of making fine’. For another example see CFR 1226–27, no. 89. Back to context...
18.
Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. C. Johnson (London, 1950), pp. 119–21. A new edition of the Dialogus with the same pagination of the text, edited by Johnson, F.E.L. Carter and D.E. Greenway, was published in 1983. In the case of relief, the heir had to pay or be disinherited. It was also true that the king, although he might decide the level of the relief (at least before Magna Carta), had, if he acted lawfully, to accept it and allow the heir to enter his inheritance. The immediate concern for the Dialogus was the different penalties for non payment of offers and fines Back to context...
19.
Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, in the note to p. ix consistently translates ‘dat’ as ‘offer’. Back to context...
20.
Dryburgh, ‘The language of making fine’. For exceptions, which become much rarer in later rolls, see CFR 1216–17, no. 8; CFR 1217–18, nos. 10, 109. Back to context...
21.
Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 548 (the fine of Richard son of Baldwin). Back to context...
22.
Dryburgh, ‘The language of making fine’. See, for example, the fines of those involved with Falkes de Bréauté in 1224: CFR 1223–24, nos. 250, 339, 343, 348, 387. And see also no. 421, a fine for marrying without the king’s licence. These fines differed from relief in that the king was under no obligation to accept them. Back to context...
23.
Chapter 55: J.C. Holt, Magna Carta, 2nd. edn. (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 466–67. Back to context...
24.
Dryburgh, ‘The language of making fine’. For fines of widows, see CFR 1217–18, nos. 62, 71, 88, 221; CFR 1218–19, no. 2; CFR 1220–21, no. 179; CFR 1221–22, no. 11; and the discussion in Michael Ray’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for December 2006, ‘The Lady is not for turning: Margaret de Redvers’ fine not to be compelled to marry’, although this fine was for other concessions as well. Back to context...
25.
As an example of a voluntary offer the Dialogus (p. 119) mentions one ‘for some liberty’ and a licence for a market and fair would fall very much into that category. The offer of the men of Berkshire for custody of their forest, although described as a fine in the body of the entry, rightly begins ‘dant’ as it is clearly voluntary. On the other hand, where individuals pay to inherit the custodies of forests, in effect paying reliefs, they ‘make fine’: CFR 1220–21, no. 151; CFR 1219–20, no. 206; CFR 1221–22, nos. 18, 87. Back to context...
26.
Dialogus de Scaccario, p. 119. In the roll of 1217–1218, ‘dat’ is found in two wardship proffers and ‘finem fecit’ in seven: CFR 1217–18, nos. 1, 10, 21–23, 34, 53, 56, 145. It is very rare to find ‘dat’ in this context in latter rolls. In CFR 1217–18, no. 71, doubly unusual, ‘dat’ appears in a proffer from a widow for custody of her husband’s heirs and to marry whom she wishes. In the same roll ‘dat’ is found in several fines (nos. 2, 3, 45) for the recovery of possessions in the king’s hands, sometimes as a result of the war, sometimes as a result of seizures by King John. Here again one might rather have expected ‘finem fecit’. Back to context...
27.
For an important discussion of this type of fine see S.L. Waugh, The Lordship of England. Royal Wardship and Marriages in English Society and Politics 1217–1327 (Princeton, 1988), p. 156 onwards. Back to context...
28.
CFR 1226–27, nos. 89, 90, 94, 95, 104–21. The finem fecit formula also appears in this context but much less frequently, for example nos. 99–103. Back to context...
29.
The small payments for the absolutely standard form writs ‘of course’, de cursu, which actually initiated the common law legal actions, went direct to the Chancery rather than to the king and never feature on the fine rolls at all. For the problems of obtaining writs, see A.H. Hershey, ‘Justice and bureaucracy: the English royal writ and “1258”’, English Historical Review, cxiii (1998), pp. 829–51. Back to context...
30.
For this period see D.A. Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (London, 1990) and N. Vincent, Peter des Roches. An Alien in English Politics 1205–1238 (Cambridge, 1996). For the Marshal’s seal and the inauguration of the king’s, see the notes to CFR 1217–18, no. 4 and CFR 1218–19, no. 8. For the king’s seal, see H.C. Maxwell-Lyte, Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England (London, 1926). For a case where the Marshal knew the details of a fine and the enrolling clerk did not, see CFR 1217–18, no. 23. Back to context...
31.
Letters in the fine rolls, as in other Chancery rolls, are intermittently said to be ‘per’ the king himself, the council, a minister or group of ministers. Per in this context presumably means in some way authorised by. The authoriser can also be the witness of the letter. Letters can also be authorised in the presence of (coram) one or more minister. The whole subject of these notes needs further study. Back to context...
32.
Carpenter, Minority, pp. 321–23. Back to context...
33.
See David Carpenter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for August 2006, ‘The bishop of Winchester’s fine in 1227’. Back to context...
34.
Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 76, 81, 91, 208 (and the note on p. ix where the fines are translated). For Richard rejecting a fine agreed by Hubert Walter with Earl Roger Bigod and imposing severer terms see Memoranda Roll 1199, p. 86; Chancellor’s Roll 1196, p. 138; J.C. Holt, Magna Carta and Medieval Government (London, 1985), p. 75. Back to context...
35.
CFR 1218–19, no. 435. In John’s time one can find such notes as ‘from here it is to be sent to the Exchequer and it was last sent through John Blundus, messenger of the lord king at Winchcombe’: Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 415. Back to context...
36.
A series with the TNA reference E 371. See TNA’s catalogue. For the term see Richardson, ‘The origin of the fine rolls’, Memoranda Roll 1 John, p. xviii and for a much more detailed discussion see Originalia Rolls on this website. Back to context...
37.
This was printed in Memoranda Roll 1 John, pp. 85–88. Part of the originalia roll for 16 John (mislabelled as a fine roll) is printed in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 526–50. Note the memoranda on the dorse (pp. 532, 540), which record the receipt of the roll by the treasurer. These memoranda show that the roll was despatched to the Exchequer by the justiciar, Peter des Roches (in charge of the government while John was absent in Poitou), membrane by membrane. No Henrician originalia rolls survive before that for 11 Henry III (C 60/1B). Back to context...
38.
In the originalia roll for 16 John (Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 526–50), the marginal annotations i[n] r[otulo], likewise found in the Henrician originalia rolls, were made by the Exchequer and indicated that it had transferred the debts to the pipe roll. Back to context...
39.
For examples in John’s reign, see Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. 307, 317, 361. In the 1250s many fines of gold were annotated in this way as being paid direct into the wardrobe: D.A. Carpenter, ‘The gold treasure of King Henry III’, in his The Reign of Henry III (London, 1996), pp. 108, 112–14, 120. It may also be that some fines paid cash down and in full never reached the fine rolls at all. In the absence of Wardrobe receipt rolls, the point cannot be investigated but it should be born in mind when using the fine rolls to calculate revenue. Likewise, if the king made a concession free of charge, then it would not appear on the fine rolls, hence the cancellation of the record of the bishop of Salisbury’s fine in 1217 when the king pardoned him the £10 he had proffered: CFR 1216–17, no. 18. Back to context...
40.
For further analysis see Paul Dryburgh & Beth Hartland’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for October 2007, ‘The Development of Fine Rolls’. Back to context...
41.
For aspects of this development, see Hardy’s introduction to Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. ii–v and David Carpenter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for January 2007, ‘The fine rolls, Godfrey of Crowcombe and the Oxfordshire offices’. Back to context...
42.
This hypothesis needs to be tested through detailed work on the originalia rolls, which omitted a great deal of non-fine material found on the fine rolls. For a prelimiary study see Originalia Rolls. Back to context...
43.
A particularly striking example of a letter addressed to the Exchequer is CFR 1217–18, no. 69 which sets out the terms on which the earl of Chester was to hold Lancashire and Shropshire-Staffordshire, terms which reflect the terrible weakness of central government at this time; see Carpenter, Minority, p. 81.The clerks were not always clear whether to enroll writs on the fine roll or the close roll. Thus an order in the fine rolls in March 1224 to the sheriff of Oxfordshire to return to William de Bréauté his chattels, taken from the manor of Kirtlington, was cancelled with the note that it was on the close rolls: CFR 1223–24, nos. 120; Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi asservati [hereafter RLC], ed. T.D. Hardy, 2 vols. (Record Commission, 1833–34), i, p. 589b. For another example see CFR 1232–33, nos. 150. Back to context...
44.
For the liberate rolls, see the introduction to Calendar of the Liberate Rolls Henry III 1226–1240 (London: HMSO, 1916). Back to context...
45.
Very little is written on the dorse of the rolls. The numbering of the membranes is modern and is chronologically in reverse order because, when unfurling a roll, the first membrane is revealed and thus the first numbered, is the one at the end of the regnal year. Back to context...
46.
Where there are two numbers in this column, it means that there are duplicate rolls. The first numbered roll is the one which has been translated, although significant differences with the duplicate roll are noted. Both the first roll and the duplicates for years 5, 8 and 9 are displayed on the website. Others – C 60/10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 26 – may still have to be consulted at Kew. The duplicate rolls are discussed in detail below. Back to context...
47.
It is probable that this was the second or duplicate roll, the first roll being lost. Back to context...
48.
Here C 60/22 ends in June and the remainder of the year has been taken from C 60/23. The relationship between these two rolls is discussed below. Back to context...
49.
This is five membranes from roll 22 and three from roll 23. Back to context...
50.
C 60/26 consists of one damaged membrane covering business in December 1226 and January 1227. The whole of this duplicate roll and that for 1225–26 existed in the 1380s: Excerpta e Rotulis Finium in Turri Londinensi asservatis Henrico Tertio Rege A.D. 1216–1272, 2 vols. (Record Commission, 1835–36), i, p. iv. Back to context...
51.
There are three regnal years for which no fine roll survives. The calendar has therefore been based on the corresponding originalia roll for that year found in the series E 371. Back to context...
52.
28 October 1241–6 May 1242. Back to context...
53.
16 May–27 October. Back to context...
54.
20 May–27 October. Back to context...
55.
There is also far more material on the dorse of John’s rolls than on those of Henry. The items of business were not numbered in the Record Commission edition. Back to context...
56.
The pages refer to those in Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus. Back to context...
57.
The first roll ends in February just before John’s departure to Poitou. The duplicate (5A) has a membrane with a few items from the rest of the regnal year. Back to context...
58.
These are rolls for year 17 with one membrane from year 18 attached. 7A is the roll printed. Back to context...
59.
I have come to this conclusion independently through an examination of the rolls greatly aided by the notes to this edition. A similar conclusion was reached by Hardy in a detailed discussion of the differences between the two rolls in his introduction to volume one of the close rolls: RLC, i, pp. ix–xii. Since one roll was merely a copy, Hardy felt it could not properly be called a duplicate in the sense of an ‘authenticated counterpart’ (p. x), but it is unclear whether this distinction was made at the time. Both the first and second rolls for years 5, 8 and 9 may be seen on the project’s website. Back to context...
60.
These points can be observed by a comparison of all the extant first and second Henrician rolls. The differences are particularly noticeable in the rolls for year 8 (1223–1224), where see the notes to CFR 1223–24, nos. 61, 98, 108, 120, 142, 161, 216, 218, 268, 286, 290, 355, 366, 367, 394, 416, 417, for cancelled entries on the first roll being omitted from the second; and nos. 259, 264, 304, 329, 384, 387, 413, 421, for later changes in the first roll not incorporated in the second. Back to context...
61.
Hence Charles Roberts, in his introduction to the Excerpta, i, pp. iv–v, distinguished between the ‘original roll’ and the ‘duplicate’ on the grounds that the latter was ‘much more incorrectly written’. Back to context...
62.
It is difficult, however, to agree with Hardy that the duplicates might have been copied years afterwards: RLC, i, p. ix. Back to context...
63.
All the duplicate rolls belong to year 15 John onwards and it is not clear whether they originated then or merely survive from that point. Back to context...
64.
Dialogus de Scaccario, pp. 17, 72, xxxiv. Back to context...
65.
Richardson showed that in Richard’s reign records of fines could reach the Exchequer from various sources, for example from the justiciar in England and from the king in Normandy, although there may have been one roll which was regarded as the principal fine roll. John’s rolls seem to cover all fines whether negotiated with the king, justiciar, chancellor or some other minister: Memoranda Roll 1 John, pp. xxvi–xxx. Back to context...
66.
For studies of Neville, see J. and L. Stones, ‘Bishop Ralph Neville, Chancellor to King Henry III and his correspondence: a reappraisal’, Archives, xxi (1984), pp. 227–57; D.A. Carpenter, ‘Chancellor Ralph de Neville and plans of political reform, 1215–58’, chapter 4 of his The Reign of Henry III (London, 1996); and C.R. Young, The Making of the Neville Family 1166–1400 (Woodbridge, 1996), chapter IV. For the Chancery in this period, see F.M. Powicke, ‘The Chancery during the minority of Henry III’, English Historical Review, xxiii (1908), pp. 220–35. Back to context...
67.
CFR 1223–24, no. 428. Amercements are fines in the modern sense of the word being financial penalties imposed for offences. Back to context...
68.
For example, CFR 1220–21, nos. 1, 61, 134, 257; CFR 1221–22, nos. 114, 237, 320; CFR 1222–23, nos. 179, 328; CFR 1223–24, nos. 184, 425. Back to context...
69.
It is possible that the other duplicate Chancery rolls should be regarded in the same way as the duplicate fine roll. On the other hand, the fine rolls were different in that in origin they did not record Chancery instruments. Back to context...
70.
Patent rolls of the Reign of Henry III preserved in the Public Record Office (1216–1225) [hereafter PR] (London: HMSO, 1901), p. 29 onwards; RLC, i, p. 342 onwards. Marginal annotations are found in John’s rolls but far less frequently than in Henry’s. Back to context...
71.
CFR 1220–21, no. 148; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 591. Back to context...
72.
CFR 1223–24, nos. 246, 250. Back to context...
73.
CFR 1224–25, notes to nos. 3, 16, 70, 112, 115, 157, and (for the correction) no. 144. That the first roll began as the working roll is also shown by it having later corrections which were not introduced into the second roll. See notes to nos. 33, 35, 86, 97. Back to context...
74.
An examination by Ben Wild confirms that the two rolls are in different hands. Back to context...
75.
CFR 1224–25, nos. 1, 2, 7; C 60/23, m. 7. Back to context...
76.
CFR 1224–25, note to no. 167. Back to context...
77.
CFR 1224–25, no. 134. Back to context...
78.
CFR 1224–25, nos. 159, 161, 166, 168, 180, 182, 183, 197, 198, 203, 210, 212, 213, 216, 217, 219. Back to context...
79.
CFR 1224–25, nos. 169, 170, 171, 174–77. Back to context...
80.
CFR 1224–25, no. 255. There is no duplicate fine roll surviving for year ten (1225–6) although it existed in the 1380s: Excerpta, i, p. iv. Back to context...
81.
See the digitised images on this site of the originalia rolls E 371/4, 5 and 7 – http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/content/fimages/images.html. Back to context...
82.
C 60/26. The roll existed in the 1380s: Excerpta, i, p. iv. Back to context...
83.
C 54/37; C 66/36. Back to context...
84.
C 62/6. Back to context...
85.
Calendar of Charter Rolls Henry III 1226 [sic]–1257 [hereafter C. Ch. R.] (London: HMSO, 1903). No duplicate charter roll survives until 1228–29 (C 53/22) but they were presumably kept from the start. Back to context...
86.
C 62/6, m. 2; C 66/36, m. 3; C 54/37, m. 3. Back to context...
87.
Royal and other Historical Letters Illustrative of the Reign of Henry III, ed. W.W. Shirley, 2 vols. (Rolls series, 1862, 1866), i, p. 180. Back to context...
88.
RLC, i, p. 113b. Back to context...
89.
See David Carpenter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for July 2006, ‘Fines made with Henry III for confirmation of charters, January–February 1227’ Back to context...
90.
C. Ch. R. 1226–57, p. 9; The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Henry III (1216–1272) from the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, 2 vols., ed. M. Morris (Kew: List & Index Society, 291–92, 2001), i, p. 10. Back to context...
91.
C 53/22. Back to context...
92.
Dialogus, pp. 74–75. Back to context...
93.
For a full analysis of the business on the rolls of John’s reign (with copious examples in English translation) and also an indication of how it expanded thereafter, see Hardy’s introduction to Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, pp. i–liii. Back to context...
94.
Hence the fine rolls are a key source in Waugh, Lordship of England. See for example the tables on pp. 163–64. Back to context...
95.
S.L. Waugh, ‘Reluctant knights and jurors: respites, exemptions, and public obligations in the reign of Henry III’, Speculum¸ 58 (1983), pp. 937–86. Back to context...
96.
For an aspect of this development, though in fact one where the fine roll evidence was interestingly limited, see Julie Kanter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for March 2007, ‘The Four Knights’ System and the evidence for it on the fine rolls’. Back to context...
97.
See Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516, 2 parts. ed. S. Letters with M. Fernandes, D. Keene and O. Myhill (List and Index Society, Special Series, 32–33, 2003), also available at http//www.history.ac.uk/cmh/gaz/gazweb2.html; E. Jamroziak, ‘Networks of markets and networks of patronage in thirteenth-century England’, Thirteenth Century England X. Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2003, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 421–50; D. Crook, ‘The “Petition of the Barons” and charters of free warren, 1227–1258’, Thirteenth Century England VIII. Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1999, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 33–48. Back to context...
98.
The fine rolls are particularly important for information about the terms on which sheriffs held office. See, for example, R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy and Finance under Henry III 1216–1245 (Oxford, 1987), p. 52 note 29. The following ‘Fines of the Month’ bear on local government and related issues: David Crook (January 2006), ‘Maud de Caux and the custody of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire’; Tony Moore (June 2006), ‘The role of the sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in local and national politics’; David Crook (October 2006), ‘Adam de St Martin and the king’s tenants of Mansfield 1217–1222’; and David Carpenter (January 2007), ‘The fine rolls, Godfrey of Crowcombe and the Oxfordshire offices’. Back to context...
99.
The following ‘Fines of the Month’ bear on family relationships and connected issues: Scott Waugh (February 2006), ‘The inheritance of Thurstan Basset’; Beth Hartland (March 2006), ‘The Munster estates of John d’Evreux’; Tony Moore (April 2006), ‘A medieval murder mystery, or the crime of the Canteloups’; and Paul Brand (November 2006) ‘Uncle and niece: the disputed Huse family inheritance’. Back to context...
100.
Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 275. For comment, see S. Painter, The Reign of King John (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 231–32; Holt, Magna Carta and Medieval Government, p. 88. Back to context...
101.
C. Bémont, ‘Un Rotulus Finium retrouvé 1242–1243’, Bulletin Philologique et Historique, 26 (1924), pp. 225–39, at 238–39; C 60/39B (CFR 1242 (20 May–27 October 1242, nos. 39–44. Back to context...
102.
For this period see D.A. Carpenter, Minority and N. Vincent, Peter des Roches. For detailed study of financial recovery, see Nick Barratt’s introduction to Receipt Rolls for the Seventh and Eighth Years of King Henry III, Easter 1223 Michaelmas 1224, (Pipe Roll Society, new series, lv, 2007), pp. iv–xxxviii. Back to context...
103.
CFR 1216–17, no. 1. Back to context...
104.
The letters are up to 3 cm high, three times the height of the capitalised heading for the first year of John (C 60/1A). In terms of size, the next nearest heading under Henry III is that to the roll for year five which has letters up to 2.5 cm high. For comment on the headings, see Ben Wild’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for April 2007, ‘Images and indexing: scribal creativity in the fine rolls’. The headings are brought together on the ‘Heads and Headings’ feature on the website. Back to context...
105.
Headings in capitals, echoing though not emulating that for 1216–1217, are also found in both rolls for year 2 (1217–1218), the first roll for year 4 (1219–1220), both rolls for year 5 (1220–1221), although those on the second roll are smaller, and the first roll for year 6 (1221–1222). The first roll for 1223–1224 begins in capitals for ‘ROLL, ROTULUS’ and then lapses into lower case. The headings on the first roll are usually more impressive than those in the second duplicate ones. The rolls between years 9 and 18 are without headings with the exception of the roll for year 15 (1230–1231), which both David Crook and Paul Dryburgh believe to be an addition made in the early fourteenth century. Back to context...
106.
For this distancing, see Carpenter, Minority, p. 22. Henry is styled son of King John in the headings to the roll for year 3 (1218–1219), and in those for both the rolls of years 7 and 8. He is given the same style within the body of the rolls. Back to context...
107.
The headings for John’s last full year (17) are found on both rolls: C 60/6, 7A. Back to context...
108.
For the eyre, see D. Crook, Records of the General Eyre (Public Record Office Handbook, 20, 1982), pp. 73–76; and B.E. Harris’s introduction to Pipe Roll 1220 (Pipe Roll Society, new series xlvii, 1981–83), pp. xv–xviii. Back to context...
109.
See David Crook’s introduction to Pipe Roll 1221 (Pipe Roll Society, new series, xlviii, 1984–86), pp. xxxiii–vi; lvii–lxi. Back to context...
110.
CFR 1223–24, nos. 84–91, 120, 122, 215–18, 225–32. For an analysis of the adherents of Falkes de Bréauté at this time see Michael Ray’s Fine of the Month for July 2007, ‘The Companions of Falkes de Bréauté and the siege of Bedford Castle’. Back to context...
111.
See David Carpenter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for July 2006, ‘Fines made with Henry III for confirmation of charters, January–February 1227’. Back to context...
112.
For this debate see D.A. Carpenter, ‘The second century of English feudalism’, Past & Present, 168 (2000), pp. 30–71; D. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility. Constructing Aristocracy in England and France 900–1300 (London, 2005), pp. 261–78. For the scutage, see S.K. Mitchell, Studies in Taxation under John and Henry III (New Haven and London, 1914), pp. 180–95. Back to context...
113.
CFR 1230–31, nos. 180–81; see also nos. 92, 97, 118–19, 325–26, 329–32. Back to context...
114.
This is a major theme of Carpenter, Minority, and is also treated in Holt, Magna Carta, chapter 11 and in J.R. Maddicott, ‘Magna Carta and the local community 1215–59’, Past & Present, 102 (1984), pp. 25–65. Back to context...
115.
For Peter, see, of course, Vincent’s magisterial study, Peter des Roches. There is some light thrown on his grievances in David Carpenter’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for August 2006, ‘The bishop of Winchester’s fine in 1227’. Back to context...
116.
CFR 1232–33, no. 107. For the Upavon case see Vincent, Peter des Roches, pp. 334–37. See also nos. 13–14, 136–37, 213, 265 for action against the bishop of Carlisle. Earlier letters in which the king took action against Hubert de Burgh’s protégé, Ranulf le Bretun, are discussed in Ben Wild’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for September 2006, ‘Ranulf le Bretun and the development of the wardrobe audit’. Back to context...
117.
CFR 1232–33, nos. 207–08, 223–24, 253, 277–97, 311–14, 342, 368–69; CFR 1233–34, nos. 3, 6, 9–13. These letters were used extensively in their accounts of the crisis by N. Vincent, Peter des Roches, chs. 11–12 and by R.F. Walker in his ‘The supporters of Richard Marshal earl of Pembroke, in the rebellion of 1233–1234’, Welsh History Review, 17 (1994), pp. 41–65. Back to context...
118.
For the struggle to implement disafforestation according to the terms of the Forest Charter in 1219, see CFR 1218–19, nos. 237, 315. Back to context...
119.
See Michael Ray’s ‘Fine of the Month’ for December 2006, ‘The lady is not for turning: Margeret de Redvers’ fine not to be compelled to marry’. Back to context...
120.
CFR 1232–33, nos. 21, 22, 155. Back to context...
121.
Perhaps one of the best examples is the fine of 6000 marks (£4000) made by John of Monmouth in February 1230 to have custody of the forest of Trivel, of which sum he was pardoned 2450 marks (£1633 6s. 8d.) in September 1231 and granted terms to pay the remainder: CFR 1229–30, no. 197; CFR 1230–31, no. 281. Of course, the facility to grant pardons or respite of debts was one of the chief weapons in the king’s armoury of patronage and was a concession sought by many individuals. Back to context...
122.
John’s regnal years vary with the date of Ascension Day except in his fifth and sixth regnal years but always run May – May, variable from year to year. Henry’s regnal years run from 28 Oct.–27 Oct. Back to context...
123.
For the genealogical basis of the selection see Excerpta, i, pp. v, xxiv. Thus (pp. vii–viii), Roberts explained that if land was taken into the king’s hands on what looked like the death of a tenant-in-chief, he would include it in his selection, but if it was seized for treason or rebellion he would not. Hence the Excerpta omitted much material of the first political importance. Back to context...
124.
The edition also omitted all the notes of authorisation appended to the letters. Back to context...
125.
E.F. Jacob, Studies in the Period of Baronial Reform and Rebellion 1258–1267 (Oxford, 1925); R.F. Treharne, The Baronial Plan of Reform, 1258–1263 (Manchester, 1932); F.M. Powicke, Henry III and the Lord Edward. The Community of the Realm in the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1947). Back to context...
126.
The conclusions of the committee are recorded in a pamphlet preserved in TNA’s Library: 027.041 PRO 1 Pamphlet, Library pamphlets in pamphlet boxes. Back to context...
127.
See the ‘Editorial Conventions’ section. Back to context...