Court of Common Pleas: Essoin Rolls

Entries of essoins were enrolled in sections of the earliest plea rolls separate from the entries recording pleas, but from the reign of John there are some rolls made up entirely of essoins, and that arrangement became an almost invariable rule during the reign of Henry III.

The names of the chief justices or other justices for whom the rolls were made are written on them. Some of the rolls are otherwise undated, making satisfactory arrangement of the series very difficult. When Jonathan Hewlett examined and listed the rolls in 1830 several items were either found or placed by him at the end of the regular series of Henry VIII rolls. Since 1954 many more have been certainly identified and reunited with their parent rolls, or at least identified as belonging to the reign of Henry VI, and placed at the end of the rolls for that reign (CP 21/7/121-123). Undated rolls are now listed at the end of the sequence of rolls for the chief justice for whom they were made, except that in the case of chief justice Thirning they are at the beginning (CP 21/5/1-6). The arrangement of the undated rolls is arbitrary, in the term order Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter and Trinity, regardless of what was the first term in the regnal year of a particular monarch. The dates given for a few rolls (eg CP 21/4/6) are taken from mid nineteenth century editorial tickets rather than a surviving heading or internal evidence; in other cases the date may be taken from a docket added long after the roll was written (eg CP 21/4/42).

Many rolls are missing or still unidentified. The reference CP 21/24 has been allocated as a sorting reference for essoin roll material dating from the reigns of Edward I, Edward II, Edward III and Richard II, but at present there are no documents orderable under that reference. This and all other unsorted material will be added as and when it is identified. Material may also be found to fill the long gap in the series between 1702 and 1743.