Manorial Court Rolls, 13th - 17th centuries

Two Day Course: 3-4 June 2024

This course will introduce students to manorial court rolls, which record dealings with land held by customary tenure and the enforcement of social regulations throughout England and Wales. Almost all the materials are in Latin and would be distributed to students well in advance of the course. 

In the course of the week students will gain a knowledge of the nature and scope of the business of manorial courts, the formulas employed to record transactions and the evolution of manorial record-keeping, and acquire the skills to read and interpret the records which these courts produced. We will also learn about the various methods used to date manorial courts, and examine entries produced during the brief experiment in the use of English between 1653 and 1660. 

Image: Eric Polk: Court Roll for the Court of Eusace Grenville in Wotten Underwood, Buckinghamshire - Manuscript on parchment, England, May 30, 1430-September 7, 1431. On display at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, USA.