Oxford LibGuides: Legal history: England & common law tradition: Court Records &amp; Archives

Records, rolls & deeds

The National Archives at Kew (formerly the Public Record Office PRO in Chancery Lane, London) is where you can find court rolls and surviving court documents up till the early (20th.

For practical details about using The National Archives start with this link.

There is a programme to digitise the surviving court records see the link AALT below

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO)
Alternative name: MEMSO

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) provides a large and growing resource of essential medieval and early modern sources online. It is an excellent way to access a large library of books essential to the study of medieval and early modern England, Scotland and Ireland. Includes selections of annals and chronicles, calendars and registers, saints’ lives, Rolls’ Series and HMC reports and Statutes of the Realm.

Anglo American Legal Tradition (AALT)
Open Access.From the University of Houston. Digitised images of court records surviving in the National Archives, Kew. Together with useful tools to help with the language, handwriting and layout.
Click on the name of each monarch (Richard 1 to Victoria) to see what is available. Track down left hand column for year (1176-1879), then across to the courts. Coverage varies with the years but courts included are: PC Privy Council, CP Common Pleas, KB Kings Bench, E Exchequer, C Chancery, RE Requests, DL Lancaster
Guide to reading a case in the Rolls
Open Access.. From the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website.
Elizabethan Star Chamber (TNA STAC 5)
Free resource. The Elizabethan Star Chamber Project, hosted by AALT at the University of Houston, index to TNA STAC 5
The National Archives (TNA): Online Guides to records held relating to Courts of law Free resource. Scroll down to find relevant guide for the court/period or topic
Fine Rolls Henry III Project Free resource. A "fine" temp. H3 was an agreement to pay the king a sum of money for a specified concession. The fines were recorded by Chancery on rolls, and "open a large window onto the politics, government, economy and society of England in the hinge period between the establishment of Magna Carta ... & the parliamentary state ...." Hard copy versions available in Old Bod's Upper Reading Room
The common and piepowder courts of Southampton, 1426-1483
These images are for private use only. Any other use of the images requires permission. Contact Southampton Archives city.archives@southampton.gov.uk). Permission is also required of the holder of the copyright of the images: Copyright © Tom Olding, 2010.
The Ames Foundation in collaboration with the Southampton Records Series has produced an edition in translation of the surviving records of the Common and Piepowder courts of Southampton from the mid-fifteenth century. See more
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The paper edition is volume 45 Southampton Records Series available at Bodleian Library Duke Humfrey's Library Open Shelves R.Top.217(45). An online edition will follow on this site. In the meantime, with the kind permission of the mayor and council of Southampton and of the city archivist, we are able to present here images of almost all the documents that appeared in the edition.
English Manor Rolls, 1305-1770
Free resource. In spring 2015 Harvard Law School Library began project to digitize & make available online its collection of 170 court-rolls, account-rolls, and other documents from various manors, ranging in date from 1282 to 1770. The largest concentration comes from the manor of Moulton in Cheshire. Other manors represented are Odiham Hundred, Hampshire; Herstmonceaux, Sussex; Chartley, Staffordshire; and Onehouse, Suffolk. A limited number of materials in this collection are single-sheet charters and one item is a map of the manor of Shelly, Suffolk.
Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England
Steven Gunn of Merton College and Tomasz Gromelski of Wolfson College are investigating this problem using evidence from coroners’ reports preserved in the National Archives. The four-year project entitled ‘Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England’ is based in Oxford and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, with support from the Faculty of History and Merton and Wolfson colleges.
Introduction to deeds
Free resource. From University of Nottingham.
Deeds in depth
Free resource. From University of Nottingham.

Texts on topic

Medieval legal records: in memory of CAF Meekings by eds Hunnisett & Post
Call Number: Legal Hist M494y
ISBN: 0114400857
Publication Date: 1978
A calendar and transcription of short legal records from (13th to (15th century. A good way of getting used to the formulaic phrases you will encounter - without having to struggle with court hand and Latin contractions.

Court hand

Reading court hand
Open Access. The Anglo-American Legal Tradition web site has 3 images of documents (with transcriptions underneath) to help get your eye in.
Jacobean court hand alphabet
Free resource. Example of the stylised handwriting style use in English court record until 1731.
Court hand restored
Requires Oxford SSO for remote access. By A Wright (2nd ed., 1778) Has useful alphabetical lists of common Latin contractions (in court hand) followed by the full Latin word in secretary hand.