Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Common Pleas: Dockets

This series contains docket rolls and books maintained by the Prothonotary of the Palatinate Court of Common Pleas. Entries usually cite the membrane number of the plea roll on which was recorded progress in pleas, fines and recoveries dealt with by the court for which action was recorded on the plea rolls. After 1760 entries for fines seem to refer to the final concords. There are several distinct series, some incomplete and some overlapping.

The main series consists of docket rolls for the period 1377-1760, with some gaps (PL 16/1-16). Until the end of Henry VIII's reign pleas, fines, and recoveries are in one sequence, usually entered in the same order as on the plea rolls with citation of the appropriate roll (membrane) number. Thereafter pleas, fines, and recoveries are entered in separate sequences; roll numbers, where they appear, are those of the related plea roll. In the case of fines the reference is to the plea roll entry concerning payment of the King's silver.

From 1760 separate dockets were kept for pleas (PL 16/29-34, 36) and for fines and recoveries (PL 16/17-20). Entries in the dockets for pleas refer to entries on the plea rolls. Details include the names of the parties and of their attorneys, the declaration number and the roll (membrane) number.

The docket rolls for fines and recoveries are more complicated. Entries for recoveries correspond with entries on the plea rolls, on which recoveries continued to be enrolled. Entries for fines are different. There is some correlation between entries for fines in the dockets, on the plea rolls, and on the separate rolls kept for fines, to the extent that the same names usually (but not always) appear; but the order of entries is different in each series. This reduces the usefulness of the dockets as a means of reference to the plea rolls or to the enrolments of fines. The order of entries in the dockets appears instead to correspond with the order of final concords in the sessional files of fines.

The series also contains some rough and draft dockets which can fill gaps in the main series. The records were controlled formerly as IND 1/4666-4700, 8863 but have now been restored to their original reference numbers in this series or (as in the case of IND 1/8863) transferred to this series. The former reference is quoted in the series catalogue, on which the regnal years contained in each piece are specified only where the entire reign is not covered.