Plea rolls

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Plea rolls are parchment rolls recording details of legal suits or actions in a court of law in England.

Courts began recording its proceedings in plea rolls and filing its writs from its foundation at the end of the 12th century.

Most files were kept by the Custos Brevium (established by 1246) but files of writs of covenant were kept by the chirographer because of their association with feet of fines, which were kept separately by the chirographer (established by King John's reign).

The court's records were at first held by its justices and their clerks,

1257 from this date, non-current ones were passed to the treasury at the Exchequer.

1288 - 1731, non-current records, plea rolls, files of fines and writs were transferred from the court to the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer; and thence, eventually, to the PRO at Kew .

[edit] References

The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England by M. Hastings(New York, 1947)

Pleas Before the King or His Justices 1198-1212. Volume IV, Rolls or Fragments of Rolls From the Years 1207-1212 by Doris Mary Stenton.

The National Archives, Kew.

[edit] See also