The series includes many of the surviving original treaties, ratifications, powers, letters of credence and notarial exemplifications of formal documents which were deposited for safe keeping in the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer prior to the reign of Charles I.

It includes also copies, drafts, instructions to envoys and others; receipts and obligations, including documents concerning ransoms, pensions and foreign loans and memoranda of the council. There are several files of petitions heard before commissioners in Gascony and Calais, and documents arising from or relating to the administration of both; and several files of claims and counter-claims of English and Flemish concerning damage to shipping and merchandise in the mid and later fourteenth century.

The records include also notarialised complaints of merchants of the Low Countries, the Hanse, and Spain, and proceedings of the English court of Admiralty. Wills in original or copy include those of Isabella of Spain, duchess of Brittany, and Charles V of France. There is also a copy of household ordinances of Charles VI of France, dated 1418. It includes also a substantial accumulation concerning the divorce of Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, wives of Henry VIII.

The records in E 30 are Exchequer documents by reason of its custodial function. Those documents which are of English origin are records produced by or for the Chancery, the Wardrobe, the Council and, latterly, the secretaries of State and the State Paper Office, rather than of the Exchequer itself.