Catalogue description Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Bills and Answers

Bills of complaint and informations of the attorney general, filed together with the related answers and other pleadings, presented in the equity side of the Court of Exchequer.

Many of the cases arose out of matters concerning royal revenue or the affairs of debtors to the Crown; among the subjects of the cases they cover disputes over tithes, rights to suit of mill, administration of estates, mortgages, the collection of customs and copyhold tenure are prominent. In the early years of the court the bill of complaint often included a statement that the plaintiff was a royal bailiff or Crown lessee.

There is also a three volume index to all the portfolios of miscellaneous filings for all reigns, and a calendar of such filings for Elizabeth's reign. A calendar of bills and answers for her reign relating to the counties alphabetically from Bedfordshire to Kent: is E 501/6

Strays are in E 193

These records remained in the office of the King's (Queen's) Remembrancer until 1858, when they were transferred to the Public Record Office.

Abstracts of bills and answers, as well as lists of related proceedings, for all the Exchequer equity cases relating to Wales from the reign of Elizabeth I are in Exchequer Proceedings (Equity) concerning Wales, Henry VIII-Elizabeth, ed E G Jones, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales, History and Law Series, IV (1939) Also from the reign of James I in Exchequer Proceedings concerning Wales in tempore James I, ed T I Jeffreys, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales, History and Law Series, XV (1955) A guide to the procedures of the court, written by one of its practitioners, is D B Fowler, The Practice of the Court of Exchequer (London, 1795) A modern account is W H Bryson, The Equity Side of the Exchequer (Cambridge, 1975)

There is a series of 34 contemporary calendars of all the bills filed in the equity side of the Exchequer between 1558 and 1841 in IND 1/16820-16853. The bills are recorded in county sections, with a new book or books for each reign. The names of the plaintiffs and defendants are given and for some entries a brief note concerning the nature of the claim is also included.