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Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Common Pleas: Sessional Papers
| Reference: | PL 21 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Common Pleas: Sessional Papers |
| Description: |
This series is an incomplete collection of 219 sessional or 'minute' files of the Court of Common Pleas of the county palatine of Lancaster accumulated by the clerks of the common pleas, styled prothonotaries, of the county palatine. In addition, there are six pye books (indexes) to the declarations, 1660-1740, which were formerly in IND 1/10326-10331, and were restored to this series in 1992 as pieces 220 to 225. The records range from Henry VIII's reign to Queen Victoria's. The most obvious gap is from c1673 to 1727, after which the records are complete until 1848. The records are generally in Latin before 1734, and in English thereafter, except for most of those in PL 21/41, which unexpectedly includes documents from the Commonwealth years of 1654-1658, and the ones in PL 21/33-37, which cover the Interregnum years to 1659. Affidavits appear in English before 1734, and are sometimes bunched at the beginning of the file. The documents in these sessional files are the typical instruments of common law and include the following. Declarations are the instrument appearing most often up to 1788 when they ceased to be included. They are plaintiffs' statements of their claims against defendants written down in due form. The defendant's plea is recorded at the bottom right of the declaration. Here and there, parchment writs remain attached to the documents. The declarations for the Interregnum period carry the same numbers in their margins, and the practice went back at least as far as James I's reign, though any indexes that resulted have not survived. These indexes are arranged alphabetically by the defendant's surname and session by session. They supply a number allocated to a declaration in a sessional file. The defendant's name is the first to appear on a declaration: if it is the fictional John Doe or Richard Roe (abolished in 1852), they nevertheless appear in the index, which supplies non-fictional aliases for them. The declaration number appears in the left hand margin of the documents. This number also appears from 1696 onwards in the imparlance or remembrance books, which have entries in declaration number order. The numbering was not continuous from session to session, so if a case went on into a further session, a file may have duplicated numbers referring to different cases. Affidavits are sworn testimonies providing evidence to be used in a case. Many of the affidavits in this series are sworn by persons employed by the court to serve writs on defendants, testifying that they have done so. Cognovits are acknowledgments in writing by defendants that they can offer no defence to a plaintiff's case. Retraxits are withdrawals of pleas formerly made, usually amounting to a confession of misrepresentation. Warrants of attorney are defendants' written authorities to an attorney that they are yielding to the plaintiff with whom they have reached a settlement: a frequent device in cases of debt. Rules of reference transfer the issue to the arbitration of a competent person or body named, and awards are the decisions of the arbitrators. There are also many awards and depositions. Other oddments include a jury panel in PL 21/41, which also has a bundle of bills of costs incurred by attorneys, 1654-1655, a sealed warrant appointing John Thompson clerk to the county militia, 5 April 1673, and a privy seal of January that year. Most of the actions, tried at twice yearly sessions (Lent or Summer), concern trespass, ejectment and, above all, debt. In general, the court had jurisdiction over all real actions for lands, in actions against corporations in Lancashire, and over all personal actions where the defendant lived in the county, even if the cause of the action occurred elsewhere. |
| Date: | Henry VIII-1848 |
| Arrangement: |
The earlier records in this series up to PL 21/41 have some distinctive features. Those for Henry VIII's reign, PL 21/1-5, are more often dismembered rolls than files. Their chronological assortment is not systematic, although there is Roman numbering at the top of the membranes. Thus there is a document from the first year of the reign in PL 21/4, which otherwise tends to range from its 26th to 36th years. There are various documents in English, a few of them indentures, though one, in PL 21/1, is a bail bond dated 1775, and seems to have been intended as a wrapper, while another in the same piece is a document of 1679 torn in two. Such files as there are carry no numbering system. There are some posteas. The pieces previously listed as Elizabethan, PL 21/6-7, which are nearly all filed, are indeed Elizabethan for the most part, but include, in PL 21/7, a file each for the reigns of Edward VI and Philip and Mary, thus bridging the gap from Henry VIII's reign. At least six documents from Philip and Mary's reign are also to be found, bundled together, in PL 21/2, which may serve as a general warning that the contents of PL 21/1-7 are disarranged. Originally, the documents from Henry VIII's reign may have been nearly sorted, especially where the papers were securely bundled and had endorsements of their regnal year and session. Subsequent boxing seems to have placed physical compatibility before chronology. It may safely be said that PL 21/5 covers 30-38 Henry VIII, though parts of 33 and 36 Henry VIII are in PL 21/4. The latter piece contains, roughly, pleas from 26 to 29 Henry VIII. PL 21/3 concentrates on 21 to 25 Henry VIII, despite one lapse each way. PL 21/2 ranges from 10 to 21 Henry VIII. It is tempting therefore to conclude that PL 21/1 was intended for the early years of the reign, though the more easily dated documents are again from the second decade of it. PL 21/37, like PL 21/41, mixes Interregnum documents with others dating from Charles II's reign, but the latter are confined to one of 1661 and a bill of costs extending from 1657 to August 1660. Bills of costs will be found in most of the Interregnum pieces, PL 21/31-37. While PL 21/31-36 retain their sessional files, PL 37, again like PL 21/41, is mostly defiled, and contains samples of several sessions: Lent and August 1654, Lent 1655, Lent 1657, Lent and Summer 1658, and Summer 1659. Some of these sessions are represented by files in the preceding pieces. PL 21/41 has samples from Lent and August 1654, Lent 1655, Lent 1656 and Lent 1658. Both these pieces contain partly decayed documents, though they are in better condition than many of those for James I's reign. All the declarations are numbered. Defendants' pleas may appear at the bottom left or right, whereas in the next century they are on the right only. From 1727 to 1776 the two files for a regnal year are usually boxed together, in the fashion indicated in the series list for the years 1776 to 1810. After 1826 one file per session becomes the standard. After 1788, with the declarations removed, the files are reduced for the most part to uniform collections of affidavits, and bail bonds are the commonest document. |
| Separated material: |
Four pye books indexing affidavits, 1811-1838, are mentioned in the PRO Guide, 1908 edition, but they have not been traced. |
| Held by: | The National Archives, Kew |
| Legal status: | Public Record(s) |
| Language: | English and Latin |
| Physical description: | 225 files and volumes |
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