Catalogue description Duchy of Lancaster: Accounts of Auditors, Receivers, Feodaries and Ministers

The bulk of this series is made up of the formal engrossed accounts of the particular receivers, feodaries and ministers of the lands held by the Duchy of Lancaster, or by the earls and dukes of Lancaster prior to 1399, in England and Wales.

While many honors have accounts from the late fourteenth century, continuous runs do not really start until the mid-fifteenth century. Moreover, these become considerably less detailed after 1642.

There are a few accounts of lands that later came to the Duchy, such as those of the Bohun and Lacy families, and some of lands which were not Duchy possessions. These include the fifteenth-century accounts of Warwick and Spencer lands, and some accounts of the Palatine of Cheshire (otherwise in CHES).

There are accounts of the lands of the five religious houses in Lancashire that fell to the Duchy at their dissolution, together with a bundle of rentals, surveys, petitions and inventories of goods.

Some views of account survive, scrappy in appearance, which were intended as working records to show the auditor the position of an accountant. There is also an incomplete run of accounts of arrears, and another of the annuities which were paid by the receivers in particular honors.

Finally, there are the valors, perhaps the most informative of the auditors' accounts, which list the value of each honor in order to give a better general overview of the state of Duchy finances than was provided by the receiver general's charge and discharge accounts.

Similar accounts for crown lands outside the Duchy of Lancaster may be found in:

LR 6

LR 7

LR 12

SC 6

Duchy of Lancaster, 1399-