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

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

s issued by that office.

Origins

In medieval England, 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, titl ...

. 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 b ...

. 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. Instead of keeping the records in a register or book form, they were written on sheets of parchment stitched together into long rolls to form a roll for each year.

Minority hiatus

During the minority of Henry III of England, 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, Old master print, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from ...

of the manuscripts, employing a special " record type" typeface) by the Record Commission in 1837, in a large folio 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 ...

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

s (summaries) of the rolls from 1226 to 1516 were published in six volumes by the Public Record Office between 1903 and 1927. Historians use the acronym ''Cal. charter R.'' for those published in calendar form.

Citations

References

* * * *

External links