Catalogue description Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Ancient Deeds, Series D

This series is chiefly made up of conveyancing deeds, although it includes too a noticeable quantity of recognizances, bonds made with Jewish moneylenders, some wills, receipts with seals in poor condition, and other documents.

The series represents the greater part of around 14,500 private deeds acquired by the King's Remembrancer's Office and brought to Chancery Lane in 1858. Most of the deeds are likely to have been brought to the Exchequer as evidence: either in connection with processes before the Court of the Exchequer or to explain the non-payment of Crown revenues. In either event the deeds would have been lodged with the King's Remembrancer. Other deeds have almost certainly been attributed to the series in error. The series exhibits only limited signs of order and is largely unindexed.

A number of estate archives, perhaps properly belonging to the deeds series of the Augmentation Office, are represented in this series, including those of the abbeys of Battle, Bordesley, Evesham, Pershore and Reading, the priories of Canons Ashby, Maiden Bradley, Stamford St Michael's and Sopwell, and of Sir Francis Englefield, Sir John Perrot and Robert Becket of Cartuther.

More than 11,000 of the deeds deposited in the King's Remembrance Office now make up this series. The remainder have been divided according to size, the condition of the seals, and date, among the four succeeding series::

E 213

E 214

E 212

Pieces 1-1330 are calendared and indexed in A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office, iii (London, 1900) Pieces 376-384 have been printed in full, with commentary, by The Pipe Roll Society, x (1888) A list of the wills and related material found in the series was compiled by J R Crompton, A List of Wills, Administrations, etc in the Public Record Office, London, England (Baltimore, 1968)

Pieces 1331-11325 are catalogued in a typescript available at the Public Record Office, Kew