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Chancery: Recognizances of Statute Staple
Description and record details
| Reference | C 152 |
|---|---|
| Title | Chancery: Recognizances of Statute Staple |
| Date | 1460-1710 |
| Description | This series consists of recognizances of statute staple returned into Chancery as part of a process for the recovery of debts. When a creditor wished to proceed against a debtor whose term had expired, he informed the clerk of the recognizances (or the clerk of his local staple, as appropriate) of the date of his recognizance. The clerk confirmed the date from his records and made out a certificate of the facts revealed. The creditor took the original recognizance and the certificate to the clerk of the Crown in Chancery who, on sight of the documents, furnished the creditor with a writ of extent and made a note of the fact in an entry book. The writ was delivered by the creditor to the sheriff of the county in which the debtor's lands lay; the sheriff empanelled a jury to appraise the lands and chattels of the debtor; the inquisition thus made was returned into Chancery. Upon production of the original recognizance and certificate to the clerks of the Petty Bag, a liberate would be awarded to the creditor who thereby became possessed of the debtor's estate. Among the miscellaneous items in the series are some ecclesiastical certificates and writs of privy seal, 1460-1465, some writs of scire facias, and a number of English bills asking for debt cases to be brought into Chancery from the period of Sir Thomas Audley's chancellorship, 1532-1544. |
| Related material |
Enrolments of recognizances of statute staple (from 1532) are in LC 4 Various proceedings on statute staple are in C 228 Certificates of statute staple are in C 241 |
| Held by | The National Archives, Kew |
| Legal status | Public Record(s) |
| Language |
English Latin |
| Physical description | 46 bundle(s) |
| Custodial history | The records in this series were formerly housed in the Rolls Chapel. |
| Administrative/ biographical background | By the Statute of the Staple of 1353 the mayor and constables of the staple, in any town where a staple of wools or other merchandise was established, were empowered to take and seal recognizances or obligations of debts. On default of payment, the mayor might imprison the debtor and attach his goods, to be afterwards sold for the satisfaction of the creditor. If, however, the debtor was not to be found within the limits of the staple in question, the recognizance was to be certified into Chancery, from which court process was to issue. Gradually such recognizances came to be used by persons who were not local free merchants. To put an end to abuses, Henry VIII established a central registry for non-mercantile staple recognizances. Under the Recognizances for Debt Act of 1531, debts between men other than merchants were henceforth to be acknowledged by a 'recognizance in the nature of a statute staple'. These were to be entered before either the chief justices of the Common Pleas or King's Bench, or, in their absence, by the mayor of the staple at Westminster and the recorder of London together. The recognizance itself, sealed by the parties and by the official(s) present, was drawn up by a new official, the clerk of the recognizances, who also made two enrolments of the document, one for himself and one for the chief justice or mayor, as applicable. The vast majority of recognizances in this series post-date 1531, when Henry VIII created a central registry. The decline of local recognizances of statute staple was accelerated further by the subsequent decay of the staple system. |
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