Catalogue description Exchequer: Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer: Writ Files

This series consists of writs and commissions issued from, and returned to, the office of the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer. The files also include returned posteas. Most writs are addressed to sheriffs, although some are to other officials such as the escheator, or the Treasurers of Ireland and Calais.

Most writs were designed to obtain information or to secure the appearance of accountants and the payment of arrears at the Exchequer. Although many are endorsed with a variant of the standard evasive return, others append useful inquisitions into the tenure of lands or inventories of goods. Elizabethan and Stuart files include long writs: orders to the sheriff to distrain for arrears or other specified dues, to which were appended long schedules detailing arrears of rents and farms of Crown lands. With the extension of tenancy-in-chief by the sales of former monastic lands, writs for distraint of homage, always a significant element in the files, became predominant.