Catalogue description Palace Court: Profit Books

Accounts of the fees received by the six attorneys at each of the weekly sittings of the Palace Court.

The initial arrangement was that under a heading for each court session there were six groups of entries, each giving a short note of the type and number of the service provided, the title of the case and the charges, which were totalled. The surname of the attorney appears in the margin next to his group of entries. By about 1700 that had given way to a columnar arrangement of six columns across each opening.

The books also provide a convenient means of identifying attorneys working in the court and the periods of their service as well as the value of their fees.