Catalogue description Records of the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster

Details of Division within DL
Reference: Division within DL
Title: Records of the Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster
Description:

Records of the chancellor and council of the Duchy of Lancaster, concerned principally with the administration of the Duchy estate throughout England and Wales and the safeguarding of Duchy privileges and rights.

Also, records of the Court of Duchy Chamber, consisting mainly of equity proceedings.

The following series numbers have not been used: DL 2, DL 11, DL 18, DL 19, DL 22, DL 33.

The most significant series of documents created by the central administration of the Duchy is in DL 42, the records of which are very varied in character.

Another series of miscellaneous administrative records, important for an understanding of the history of the Duchy, is in DL 41

The varied enrolments of the Duchy Chancery are in DL 37, and other documents relating to the day to day administration of the estate are in DL 34

Evidences of title relating to the several estates of the Duchy can be found among the charters in DL 10 and the deeds in DL 25-27 and DL 36

The administration and exploitation of these lands was facilitated by the variety of accounts surrendered by Duchy officials in DL 28 and DL 29, and by the court rolls in DL 30

Accounting officials of the Duchy were required to enter into bonds of obligation, found in DL 24; debts were collected by means of the writs in DL 23

The appointment of particular officials was recorded in DL 20, DL 21 and DL 51

Grants of office, as well as land, were authorised by means of the documents in DL 12 and DL 13, and grants of ecclesiastical livings by those in DL 16

Surveys of the extent and value of some of the Duchy's lands and tenants are in DL 43, with commissions to investigate matters relating to the properties of the estate in DL 44. Maps and plans relating to the latter are in DL 31

Other enquiries into the possessions of the Duchy were facilitated by the documents in DL 17

Further surveys, compiled in the wake of the Dissolution (1530s), the Commonwealth (1648-1660), and the enclosure movement (eighteenth and nineteenth century), can be found in DL 32, DL 38 and DL 45

Records relating to the leasing of Duchy land can be found in DL 14, DL 15 and of the Hospital of Savoy in DL 47

Court records of both the Duchy and the Palatinate are to be sought in DL 35 and DL 50, with those relating to the forest in DL 39, and coroners' inquests in DL 46

Finally, documents concerned with the feudal rights of the Duchy can be found in DL 7 and DL 40
Date: c 1000-2005
Legal status: Not Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Duchy of Lancaster, Chancery, 1351-
Physical description: 36 series
Publication note:

J F Baldwin, 'The Chancery of the Duchy of Lancaster', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, iv (1926), pp 129-143. For analysis, see R Somerville, 'The preparation and issue of instruments under the seal in the Duchy of Lancaster', in Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed J Conway Davies (London, 1957), pp 372-389.
Administrative / biographical background:

The Chancery of the Duchy of Lancaster first becomes visible in the middle of the fourteenth century, during that period when Henry of Grosmont was duke (1351-1361).

The chancellor kept the duke's privy seal, just as the king's chancellor kept the great seal of the realm. His main duty was to supervise the preparation, sealing, issue and enrolment of letters under the seal; for this purpose he had clerks to assist him.

In the first half of the fifteenth century the office of chancellor developed so that the holder became the chief officer of the Duchy, and he presided, as he still presides, over the Duchy council. For the last two hundred years the chancellor has performed no heavy departmental duties directly connected with the Duchy, and today the holder is in effect largely a 'non-departmental' minister. Sometimes the post remains unfilled and at others is combined with another office. Normally it is held by a minister whose advice is required in the Cabinet or who is allotted special duties.

The estate of the Duchy of Lancaster was extended by successive earls and dukes in the period before 1399. By this time, it comprised the honor and county of Lancaster, the honors of Leicester, Tutbury, Bolingbroke, Pickering, Pontefract, Tickhill, Halton, Knaresborough and others, to which were annexed at later dates the honors of Clare and Mandeville, together with the great estates of the earls of Hertford and Essex. Nearly all the counties in England, and several in Wales, were in some way represented in the territories and jurisdiction of the Duchy.

The Duchy, reflecting its medieval seigneurial origin, was administered by a decentralised system with a council of senior officers (variously made up of the chamberlain, chancellor, receiver general, attorney general, two chief stewards and two auditors) at its apex and manorial stewards, rent collectors, bailiffs, reeves and other ministers at the bottom. The system existed to channel money from the localities to the centre and central decision and adjudication back to the localities.

The chief financial officer of the Duchy was the receiver general. Monies came to this official from the particular receivers who were responsible for individual honors or manors. They in turn received monies from all the various ministers with responsibility for individual manors within each honor. Another officer, the feodary, was responsible for the collection of the feudal dues owing to the duke.

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