Catalogue description Court of King's Bench: Crown and Plea Sides: Recorda and Precepta Recordorum Files

The Court of King's Bench was, until 1830, superior to all the other courts of common law except the Exchequer, although it was always inferior to Parliament and after 1585 its own decisions could be overturned in the Court of Exchequer Chamber. Its Recorda files reflect the supervisory jurisdiction of the court over those other courts from the early fourteenth to the late seventeenth century. The courts over which King's Bench exercised its supervisory jurisdiction included those of the justices of the general eyre, assizes, gaol delivery, oyer and terminer (both special and general), peace and labourers, commissions of sewers and coroners, as well as the courts of Common Pleas, Marshalsea, Chancery (common law side) and many local courts, such as those of liberties (including the Palatinate of Lancaster), counties, hundreds and, in particular, boroughs.

It was able to use writs of certiorari to call in cases which came before those courts, and the writ was returned with a record of proceedings in the case and, where appropriate, other related matter. Writs of error were used to enable King's Bench to overturn judgments reached in inferior courts if some error in the proceedings could be proved; the returns brought in on such writs were also filed among the recorda. The earliest surviving file dates from late in the reign of Edward II but recorda files existed at least as early as 1285, when an enrolment of a Derbyshire case mentioned a record being found 'in ligula recordorum' for Michaelmas term (KB 27/90, rot 25d).

During the seventeenth century the court's supervisory jurisdiction was extended. In about 1615 it began to use writs of mandamus to direct the actions of local authorities, especially by restoring the tenure of ejected office-holders, including those with ecclesiastical offices, and by reviewing allegedly corrupt elections to such offices. Under Charles I writs of certiorari began to be used to remove into King's Bench recognizances to enforce orders made before justices of the peace, and later the orders themselves were called in for scrutiny, so involving the court in detailed local matters like licensing, poor settlement and orders of bastardy. By the seventeenth century, writs of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum to sheriffs and other keepers of prisons, ordering them to bring before the court for trial particular prisoners in their custody, had became common. All those developments are reflected in the contents of the recorda, which came predominantly to include matters arising before the justices of the peace and borough courts.