(1216-1377.)
Our two main sources of knowledge for medieval history are records and chronicles. Chronicles are more accessible, easier to study, more continuous, readable, and coloured than records can generally be. Yet the record far excels the chronicle in scope, authority, and objectivity, and a prime characteristic of modern research is the increasing reliance on the record rather than the chronicle as the sounder basis of historical investigation. The medieval archives of England, now mainly collected in the Public Record Office, are unrivalled by those of any other country. From the accession of Henry III. several of the more important classes of records have become copious and continuous, while in the course of the reign nearly all the chief groups of documents have made a beginning. The whole of the period 1216 to 1377 can therefore be well studied in them.
A large proportion of our archives is taken up with common forms, technicalities, and petty detail. It will never be either possible or desirable to print the mass of them in extenso, and most of the efforts made to render them accessible have taken the form of calendars, catalogues, and inventories. Such attempts began with the costly and unsatisfactory labours of the Record Commission (dissolved in 1836); and in recent years the work has again been taken up and pursued on better lines. The folio volumes of the Record Commission only remain so far of value as they have not been superseded by the more scholarly octavo calendars which are now being issued under the direction of the deputy-keeper of the records. These latter are all accompanied by copious indices which, though not always to be trusted implicitly, immensely facilitate the use of them. The records were preserved by the various royal courts. Of special importance for the political historian are the records of the Chancery and Exchequer.
Prominent among the Chancery records are the PATENT ROLLS, strips of parchment sewn together continuously for each regnal year, whereon are inscribed copies of the letters patent of the sovereign, so called because they were sent out open, with the great seal pendent. Beginning in 1200, they present a continuous series throughout all our period, except for 23 and 24 Henry III. The publication of the complete Latin text of the Patent Rolls of Henry III. is now in progress, and two volumes have been issued, including respectively the years 1216-1225 and 1225-1232. From the accession of Edward I. onwards the bulk of the rolls renders the method of a calendar in English more desirable. The Calendars of the Patent Rolls are now complete from 1272 to 1324 and from 1327 to 1348 (Edward I., 4 vols.; Edward II., 4 vols.; Edward III., 7 vols.). For the years not thus yet dealt with the unsatisfactory Calendarium Rotulorum Patentium (1802, fol.) may still sometimes be of service.
The letters close, or sealed letters addressed to individuals, usually of inferior public interest to the letters patent are preserved in the CLOSE ROLLS, compiled in the same fashion as the Patent Rolls. The whole extant rolls from 1204 to 1227 are printed in Rotuli Literarum Clausarum (2 vols. fol., 1833 and 1844, Rec. corn.), and it is proposed to continue the integral publication of the text for the rest of Henry III.'s reign on the same plan as that of the Patent Rolls. One volume of this continuation, 1227-1231 (8vo, 1902), has been issued. For the subsequent periods a calendar in English is being prepared similar in type to the Calendar of Patent Rolls. The periods at present covered by the Calendar of Close Rolls (1892-1905) are, Edward I., 1272-1296 (3 vols.): Edward II., the whole of the reign (4 vols.), and Edward III., 1327-1349 (8 vols.).
A third series of records preserved by the Chancery officials is the ROLLS OF PARLIAMENT, including the petitions, pleas, and other parliamentary proceedings. None of these are extant before 1278, and the series for the succeeding century is often interrupted. Many of them are printed in the first two folios (vol. i., Edward I. and II.; vol. ii., Edward III.) of Rotuli Parliamentorum (1767-1777). A copious index volume was issued in 1832. A specimen of what may still be looked for is to be found in Professor Maitland's edition of one of the earliest rolls of parliament in Memoranda de Parliamento (1305) (Rolls series, 1893) with an admirable introduction. For the reigns of Edward I. and II. the deficiencies of the published rolls are supplemented by SIR F. PALGRAVE'S Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Service (vol. i., 1827, Edward I.; vol. ii., 1834, Edward II., fol., Rec. Corn.) with alphabetical digests and indices.
Formal grants under the great seal called Charters, characterised by a "salutation" clause, the names of attesting witnesses, and, under Henry III. after 1227, by the final formula data per manum nostram apud, etc., and implying normally the presence of the king, are contained in the CHARTER ROLLS, extant from the reign of John onwards. They are roughly analysed in the Calendarium Rotulorum Chartarum (1803, Rec. Com.); and the Rotuli Chartarum (fol., 1837, Rec. Corn.) contains the rolls in extenso up to 1216, Vol. i., 1226-1257, of an English Calendar of Charter Rolls, printing some of the documents in full, was published in 1903.
The documents formerly known as ESCHEAT ROLLS, or INQUISITIONES POST MORTEM, are concerned with the inquiries made by the Crown on the death of every landholder as to the extent and character of his holding. Some of the information contained in these inquests was made accessible in the Calendarium Inquisitionum sive Eschætarum (vol. i., Henry III., Edward I. and II., 1806; vol. ii., Edward III., 1808, fol., Rec. Corn.). The errors and omissions of these volumes were partially remedied for the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. by C. ROBERTS'S Calendarium Genealogicum (2 vols. 8vo, 1865). A scholarly guide to all this class of documents has been begun in the new Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other Analogous Documents, of which vol. i. (Henry III.) was issued in 1904. The first volume of a separate list of the analogous inquisitions Ad pod damnum is also announced.
Of the FINE ROLLS containing the records of fines[1] made with the Crown for licence to alienate, exemption from service, wardships, pardons, etc., those of Henry III. have been made accessible in C. ROBERTS'S Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, 1216-1272 (1835-36, 8vo). Other rolls such as the LIBERATE ROLLS have not yet been published for the reigns here treated.
[1] A fine in this technical sense is an agreement arrived at by a money transaction.