A Roll of Judicial Writs

In an article in a previous number of the Bulletin, Mr. A. H. Humphreys described and summarized the contents of a register of judicial writs in a roll of three membranes that is preserved among the Miscellanea of the Exchequer with the call number E. 163/1/27.1 He concluded: ‘We have here a registrum brevium in roll form, which embodies the procedure current in the reign of Henry III. It dates in the main from some time after 1236–7.’ The roll contains some sixty-nine writs, not reckoning separately those variants which are grouped under a common marginal heading or regulum. Of the total, fifty-eight are on the membrane's faces, all but the last two in the same hand and written apparently at the same time; eleven are on the dorses. In referring to the writs the numbers used are those assigned to them by Mr. Humphreys. The writs (H. 1–39) on membranes 1 and 2 are all pure forms: parties are A and B, places are N; all clauses of common form, such as the address, et habeas and teste, are much abbreviated or omitted. Also pure forms are five others (H. 43, 45–47. 50) on membrane 3 and a group, in the same hand as H. 1–56, on the dorse of membrane 2 (H., m. 2d, 1–2). In twelve writs on membrane 3 various initials are used for the parties, while sometimes there is a place name (H. 40–42, 44, 48–49, 51–56), suggesting that these writs had at some time been summarized from writs that issued in particular cases. The last two writs on membrane 3 (H. 57–58) and all those on the dorses except the group already mentioned (H., m. 1d, 1; m. 2d, 3–7; m. 3d, 1–3) are direct copies of writs that issued in particular cases. They generally have personal and place names in full, while three even retain their dating clause. These eleven writs are in various hands: perhaps as many as nine, certainly not fewer than seven. Thus out of the sixty-nine writs in the register there are forty-six pure forms but the other twenty-three have initials or names of parties and places and so hold out some possibility of identifying the particular action in which they issued. Mr. Humphreys did not attempt to identify any of these actions. Moreover, his account is not free from minor inequalities. A writ dated 24 November 28 Henry III is assigned to 1244 instead of 12432; the hundred of Sherwell, co. Devon, is placed in Lincolnshire3; the church of Lancing, in Chichester diocese, becomes the church of Lanemos4; the rune ‘wen’ with the value ‘gh’ or ‘w’ in the word Laghidies (that is, Lawdays) is mistaken for a ‘p’, giving a mysterious Lapidies.5

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