Catalogue description EQUITIUM REGIS.

These accounts relate to the management and expenses of the royal stable (equitium regis) and stud from the reign of Edward I to the reign of James I, sent to the Exchequer by the keepers of the king's horses and the keepers of the stud farms in the North and South of England, and of the Masters of the Horse from the reign of Richard II onwards. The majority of the accounts date from the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They do not include accounts for warhorses or other stabling expenses incurred during war.

The contents of the accounts include: accounts of provender for the animals - hay, beans and oats; equipment and tack bought and repaired - harnesses, saddles, horseshoes, nails; surveys and stocktaking of animals; sales of horses, carts and other related equipment; documents relating to the business of the keepers or masters of the horse - goods and debts; indentures of the receipt and delivery of horses; accounts relating to purchase of horses abroad; accounts relating to royal studs which were located mainly in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, with a few elsewhere in England, most notably at Burstwick in Holderness.

For warhorse accounts see E 101 army, navy and ordnance. Ceremonial saddles, harnesses, fine horse gifts, payments of livery of horse keepers' accounts, see E 101, wardrobe and household section, foreign expenses; for household stables and sumpterhorses, daily expenses. Equitium regis enrolled accounts see E 372 pipe rolls and chancellor's rolls, E 352. From 42 Edward I - 1638 enrolments are in foreign account rolls, E 364; from 1638 see 'Master of the Horse', E 351/1748-1769.

J Thirsk, 'Horses in early modem England: for service, pleasure and power', Reading medieval studies (1978); G Stretton, 'Some aspects of medieval travel, with special reference to the wardrobe of Henry, earl of Derby, 1390-1393', Transactions of the royal historical society, 4th series, 1924. M Burrows, The family Brocas of Beaurepaire (London, 1886) on hereditary keepers. Warhorses - A Ayton, Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward III (Woodbridge 1994)