Preface explaining patent rolls and conventions followed in publishing them

PREFACE.

The series of Patent Rolls begins with the third year of King John and extends down to the present time. They consist of contemporary enrolments of Royal Letters Patent, which are so called because, being of a public nature and usually addressed to all persons, they are delivered open, with the Great Seal attached to the bottom. While the original document so issued by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, in the name of the Sovereign, passes to the person principally concerned, the enrolled copy remains in official custody as a record of the highest authority.

The entries on the Patent Rolls comprise grants and confirmations of liberties, privileges, offices, dignities, lands, pensions, and wardships, to corporations and individuals, civil and ecclesiastical, licences for elections of bishops, abbots, and others, restitutions of temporalities, presentations to benefices, letters of protection. of credence and of safe-conduct, pardons, special liveries, licences for alienation, commissions, and other miscellaneous documents concerning the prerogatives of the Crown, the revenue, the different branches of the judicature, and the relations of English Kings with foreign powers and persons.

It has been justly remarked that "there is scarcely a subject "connected with the history or government of this country, or "with the most distinguished personages of the thirteenth, "fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, which is not illustrated "by the Patent Rolls."* Nevertheless there is at present no satisfactory guide to the contents of the Patent Rolls subsequent to the death of King John. Industrious persons have from time to time made copies or abstracts of entires relating to particular periods or to particular subjects, and many such collections are to be found in the British Museum and other public libraries. The only approach, however, to a general Calendar is the volume which was published under

* Nicolas.

that title by authority of the Record Commissioners in 1802. This work professes to embrace the period between the reigns of John and Edward IV. inclusive, but it is at best a mere collection of short notes arbitrarily made in the early part of the seventeenth century. According to the most favourable estimate, it "does not present a reference to one fifth part of the entries "on the rolls, whilst those which are mentioned are in most "instances so described as to conceal the import of the grant "referred to." *

Since the publication of this criticism, more than sixty years ago, six attempts have been made to render different portions of medieval Patent Rolls accessible to students:--

(1) The Record Commissioners published, in 1835, a Latin transcript, with contractions literatim, of the Patent Rolls of the reign of John, with a very valuable introduction by Mr. Thomas Duffus Hardy, who eventually became Deputy Keeper of the Records.

(2) Sir Francis Palgrave published in the Appendix to the Ninth Report of the Deputy Keeper or the Records, in 1848, an English Calendar to the Patent Rolls of the short reigns of Edward V. and Richard III., which had been prepared under his direction by Mr. W. Lascelles, a clerk in the Public Record Office. This Report is now out of print.

(3) Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy published in the Appendix to the Twenty-sixth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records, in 1865, a specimen of a tabulated Latin Calendar of the Patent Rolls of the reign of Henry III., which had been prepared by Mr. H. J. Sharpe, an Assistant Record Keeper. The specimen there printed deals with the first year of the reign. The remainder of the work, filling three volumes of manuscript, is in the Search Room at the Public Record Office. There is no Index to it.

(4) In 1873 and 1877, the Rev. William Campbell edited for the Rolls Series of Chronicles and Memorials, two volumes entitled "Materials for a History of the reign of "Henry VII. from original documents preserved in the "Public Record Office," and dealing with the first five years. English abstracts of entries on the Patent Rolls of the period are therein arranged in chronological order among abstracts and copies of other documents.

* Nicolas's Observations on the present state of Historical Literature, p. 73. Cf. Cooper's Account of the Public Records, vol. 1, pp. 299, 300.

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(5) Sir William Hardy published in the Appendix to the Fortysecond Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records, in 1881, a specimen of a lexicographical English Calendar of the Patent Rolls of the reign of Edward I., which had been prepared by Mr. Frank Scott Haydon. The specimen there printed deals with the first year of the reign, and further instalments of the work, carrying it down to the end of the ninth year, are printed in the eight following Reports of the Deputy Keeper. This Calendar was discontinued by my order in 1886.

(6) In 1885, M. Francisque Michel published in a volume entitled "Roles Gascons" a Latin transcript, without contractions, of some short Rolls of the reign of Henry III., containing copies of Letters Patent issued while the King was abroad.

Without attempting in this place to discuss the relative merits of these different systems, I may be allowed to express an opinion that while M. Francisque Michel's appears to be the best with regard to an early period, when entries on the Rolls are very brief, Sir Francis Palgrave's appears to be the best with regard to a later period, when the entries admit of considerable condensation in a Calendar.

Reserving the reign of Henry III. for future treatment, the object of the present undertaking is to provide an English Calendar of the Patent Rolls from the reign of Edward I. to that of Henry VII. inclusive. For this purpose identical instructions have been given to the different officers employed upon the work, and great pains have been taken to ensure accuracy and uniformity by means of co-operation among them, subject to my own supervision.

A mere Index, or a briefer Calendar, might be made much more easily, but considering the undesirability of encouraging students to refer directly to invaluable manuscripts, which must suffer from frequent handling, I have caused the abstracts in the Calendar to be made so full that in ordinary cases no further information can be obtained from the Rolls themselves. The great majority of Letters Patent, such as grants of offices, pardons, protections and safeconducts, licences, presentations, and the like, were worded according to certain precedents, which were so familiar to the clerks who wrote the Rolls, that they often entered short notes of the documents issued under the Great Seal without transcribing them in extenso. Examples of the forms commonly used in the early part of the

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thirteenth century are given in English in Sir T. D. Hardy's introduction to the Patent Rolls. The longer and more precise forms used at a later period are given in Latin, in Fitzherbert's work "De Natura Brevium."

Every entry on the Patent Rolls is noticed in its due order in this Calendar, with the exception of ordinary commissions of gaol delivery, and appointments of justices to try assizes of novel disseisin, of mort dancestor, of darrein presentment, and the like. The entries of these appointments occupy a considerable part of the rolls of the reigns of Edward I. and II. and of the early years of the reign of Edward III., but the scanty information contained in them is not given in these Calendars.* It may hereafter be made accessible to topographers and genealogiste in a tabular form.

Certain details given in the Rolls have been omitted from the Calendar in the following cases:--

(1) Where the documents have been printed in extenso in Rymer's "Foedera," in Palgrave's "Parliamentary Writs," in Dugdale's "Monasticon," or in other works of the kind ordinarily accessible to students.

(2) Where the Letters Patent recite previous Letters Patent or Charters, the abstracts of which should be sought elsewhere under the earlier date.

(3) Where the Letters Patent enumerate a great number of undated grants of lands and rents by private persons to ecclesiastical bodies. The bare lists of persons and places given in the Patent Rolls are of comparatively small value, and fuller information is generally to be found in chartularies or in ancient deeds.

(4) Where the Letters Patent grant to corporations or persons the right to levy toll upon certain specified articles under the name of murage, pontage, pavage, and quayage, for the construction and repair of the walls, bridges, roads, and quays of different towns. As the lists of articles thus subjected to toll vary very slightly from one another, it has been thought sufficient to give a few samples only.

(5) Where the Letters Patent recite fictitious allegations of pecuniary loss or other damage stated, according to the ordinary legal forms of the time, to have been sustained by the applicants, in order to supply grounds for the issue of commissions of enquiry under the Great Seal.

* Some account of these Commissions will be found in the Forty-second Report the Deputy Keeper of the Records, pp. 473-476, and in the Forty-third Report, pp. 371-374.

In order to secure uniformity in a series of Calendars extending over more than two centuries, and prepared by different persons, it was necessary that certain definite rules should be laid down with regard to the treatment of proper names, a matter in which there is at present considerable diversity of practice among the most eminent historical writers. A few words will suffice to explain the system which has been adopted, after careful consideration, as the most suitable for an official Calendar.

Ordinary Christian names, whether of Englishmen or of foreigners, are given in the Calendar according to their commonest modern English form. Christian names which are not now in vogue in this country are given according to the form used in the Rolls, the termination of the nominative case being adopted with regard to declinable Latin names.

Surnames, on the other hand, are given according to the form used in the Rolls.--Notwithstanding the great diversity in the rendering of some surnames, it appears advisable, on philological and other grounds, to preserve certain inconsistencies of medieval clerks, and not to incur risk of error by attempting to establish an arbitrary uniformity of spelling. The Index, however, frequently supplies a clue to the identification of persons whose names occur under varying forms on different pages of the Calendar.

The Latin preposition de, which so often comes immediately after a Christian name, has been retained there in the Calendar, partly because it was, in its French form, commonly prefixed to certain surnames, and partly because it represents more than one English preposition. When, on the other hand, the preposition comes after a surname, it has generally been rendered "of." The "de" has been retained in the case of names compounded like "Rolland Simondsquier de Beltoft," and Simon de Beltoft figures as a separate person in the Index.

Prefixes such as "le," "the," "of," "at" and "atte," and other French and English words occurring in Latin entries, have been preserved in the Calendar.

In many eases it is practically impossible to distinguish between hereditary surnames and local descriptions of persons. "Thomas "filius Willemi de Brampton" has been rendered in the Calendar "Thomas son of William de Brampton;" but, as he may merely have been a native or an inhabitant of Brampton, he figures twice in the Index--under Brampton, and again under William. The compilers of the Calendar thus avoid the expression of an opinion as to whether Brampton was or was not a surname; or, in the

latter case, whether the person was known as Fitz-william, Williamson, or Williams.

Surnames beginning with "Fitz" in the Rolls have of course been so given in the Calendar, but "filius" has never been translated "Fitz." Consequently certain surnames compounded of Fitz and some proper name must generally be sought in the Index under their second syllable.

There are many instances of surnames resembling Christian names, both masculine and feminine, but having the termination of the genitive case, and although there is reason to believe that they were originally patronymics, it has not been thought advisable to supply words which do not occur in the Rolls. Thus Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, the son of a baker named Reginald, or Reynold, appears in the Calendar, as in the Rolls, for the reign of Edward II., under the name of Walter Reginaldi.

Welshmen are indexed under their respective Christian names. Most names of places are given in the Calendar according to the form used in the Rolls, the ordinary abbreviations being extended. Those, however, which occur in obviously Latinised forms, havc been translated and printed according to the modern form, the original rendering being in some cases retained within brackets. Thus, the castle described in the Rolls as "de Monte Alto" appears in the Calendar as the castle of Mold, while no attempt is made to determine whether the owners thereof similarly described in the Rolls as "de Monte Alto" should appear under the name of Montalt, of Mohaut, of Moald, or of any other variant.

The names in the margin of the Calendar, showing the places at which the different Letters Patent were dated, are in most cases given in their modern form.

In the Index, too, the names of places are given according to their ordinary modern form when they can be identified with certainty and without difficulty.

Great care has been taken in the transcription of all proper names, but it is important to observe that the medieval Patent Rolls present very serious palaeographical difficulties. The forms of the letters n, u, and v, are practically identical; im or mi may easily be mistaken for un or nu, and it is often impossible to distinguish between f and s, between c and t, or between bb and lb. The occurrence therefore of any of these doubtful letters, especially in the early part of a name, is liable to affect its general aspect in the Calendar and its place in the Index. To take a single instance, the letters Do followed by four upright strokes and an e may stand alike for Donne, Doune, Douve, Doime, or Domie. In

all such cases the compilers of the Calendar adopt the version which appears the most probable, but there must necessarily be many inconsistencies, and inconsistencies of this sort must not be regarded as palaeographical errors.

The only abbreviations in this series of Calendar which require any explanation are those which occur at the end of certain entries. As the practice of the Chancery became gradually systematised, a custom developed of entering on Letters Patent, and on the enrolment of them, a note of the authority under which the Great Seal had been affixed to them, and it has been thought desirable to repeat these notes in the Calendar, sometimes in an abbreviated form, thus:--

Per breve de private sigillo is rendered - By p.s.
Per ipsum Regem is rendered - By K.
Per ipsum Regents & Concilium is rendered - By K. & C.
Per Concilium is rendered - By C.
Per petitionem de Concilio is rendered -- By pet. of C.

the original Privy Seals, Petitions, and other warrants to the Chancellor are useful for the verification of doubtful words or names on the Rolls, and references to these documents are sometimes given, within brackets, in the Calendar.

I have only to say that the present volume has been prepared under my immediate supervision by Mr. R. R. Isaacson, Mr. G. J. Moris, M.A., and Mr. H. E. Lawrance, LL.B., all of the Public Record office, and that the Index has been prepared by Mr. C. H. Woodruff, B.C.L. Other officers of the Department have also rendered assistance from time to time.

H. C. Maxwell Lyte,
Rolls House, July 1891