A charter roll is an administrative record created by a medieval

chancery Chancery may refer to: Offices and administration * Chancery (diplomacy), the principal office that houses a diplomatic mission or an embassy * Chancery (medieval office), responsible for the production of official documents * Chancery (Scotlan ...

that recorded all the charters issued by that office.

Origins

In medieval

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, King John in 1199 established a fixed rate of fees for the sealing of charters and

letters patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, t ...

. It was to keep track of these fees that the first Charter Roll was started (as a fee book) in 1199, under the Chancellorship of

Hubert Walter Hubert Walter ( – 13 July 1205) was an influential royal adviser in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in the positions of Chief Justiciar of England, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor. As chancellor, Walter ...

. The Roll thereby also kept track of all charters that had been issued by the government – the letters patent being swiftly hived off into the

patent rolls The patent rolls (Latin: ''Rotuli litterarum patentium'') are a series of administrative records compiled in the English, British and United Kingdom Chancery, running from 1201 to the present day. Description The patent rolls comprise a register ...

. Instead of keeping the records in a register or book form, they were written on sheets of

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

stitched together into long rolls to form a roll for each year.

Minority hiatus

During the minority of

Henry III of England Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry as ...

, no perpetual grants could be made by the Crown, so that the Charter Rolls were in abeyance until 1227.

Publication

The Charter Rolls for the years 1199 to 1216 were published as abbreviated Latin texts (in a near-

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of ...

of the manuscripts, employing a special "

record type Record type is a family of typefaces designed to allow medieval manuscripts (specifically those from England) to be published as near-facsimiles of the originals. The typefaces include many special characters intended to replicate the various s ...

" typeface) by the Record Commission in 1837, in a large

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

volume entitled ''Rotuli Chartarum in Turri Londinensi asservati'', edited by

T. D. Hardy Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (22 May 1804 – 15 June 1878) was an English archivist and antiquary, who served as Deputy Keeper of the Public Record Office from 1861 to 1878. Life Hardy was the third son of Major Thomas Bartholomew Price Hardy, fro ...

. Calendars (summaries) of the rolls from 1226 to 1516 were published in six volumes by the

Public Record Office The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was ...

between 1903 and 1927. Historians use the acronym ''Cal. charter R.'' for those published in calendar form.

Citations

References

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External links