Catalogue description Assizes: Norfolk, Home and South-Eastern Circuits: Indictment Files

The files of the Home Circuit, dating back to 1559, include the earliest extant files for any circuit, following the end of the medieval series in the fifteenth century.

Some files contain documents that have strayed from their proper files, but the vast majority are the trespass files for all the counties in that particular session. Indictments relating to trespasses were placed on one file for all the circuit, while indictments relating to felonies were placed on separate files for each county. The distribution of associated documents between the two types of file varies, but as a general rule trespass (or general) files contain the precepts and other documents issued under the justices' commission of oyer and terminer, while the felony files contain the precepts issued under the justices' commissions of assize and of gaol delivery, and such related documents as gaol calendars and names of the commission of the peace for the county in question. In the nineteenth century the trespass file is renamed the misdemeanour file. The practice of filing felonious indictments separately from those relating to lesser offences ceased in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Other Home Circuit indictments are in p. 22-24 in ASSI 39

Indictment files from 1689-1850 were removed from this series in 1996 and can now be found in ASSI 94

Files for 1851-1971 are now in ASSI 95

J S Cockburn, Calendar of assize records: Home Circuit indictments, Elizabeth I and James I: Introduction (London, 1985) contains a full account of early indictments files in this series. Indictments in this series for the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, and for Kent for the reign of Charles I and for the years 1649 to 1659 have been calendared in Calendar of assize records, 13 vols (1975-1995).