Catalogue description Palatinate of Chester: Exchequer of Chester: Enrolments

This series includes enrolments of charters and letters patent issued under the Great Seal of the County Palatine of Chester, and fines, deeds, wills and other documents relating to the business of the County Palatine (which included the County of Flint). The earlier rolls are in Latin entirely, but documents in English appear as enrolments with increasing regularity.

The rolls were formerly known as 'Recognizance Rolls' and 'Chester Administrative Enrolments', because the recognizances for debt were usually entered on the first membrane of each roll. Subsequently they were described as 'Chester Administrative Enrolments'. Recognizances continued to be enrolled on the first membrane of each roll, but in the course of the fourteenth century a wider range of documents came to be enrolled, and some rolls contained no recognizances at all.

In the last years of the Palatinate, with the loss of work to the English Chancery, the number of documents enrolled fell considerably, and their subjects were restricted largely to records of appointment and the admission of attorneys at the Exchequer of Chester. A few deeds and pleas were also included.

The rolls end in 1830, with the abolition of the Palatine jurisdiction, but there are no rolls at all for some years. In particular, there are no rolls for the years 1683-1731, except for 1713-1714.

Three alphabetical catalogues or calendars of these rolls (providing indexes to persons, places and subjects) are printed in the 36th, 37th and 39th reports of the Deputy Keeper, under 'Welsh Records', as follows: Edward II to Henry IV see The thirty-sixth annual report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, (London, 1875), Appendix II Henry V to Henry VII see The thirty-seventh annual report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, (London, 1876), Appendix II Henry VIII to George IV see The thirty-ninth annual report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, (London, 1878), Appendix, no 1