Mainly a single series of annual memoranda rolls called controlment rolls, kept by the clerk of the crown in the King's Bench to enable him to record the progress of crown cases in which he was concerned from term to term. By the later seventeenth century, the controlment roll consists of three sections for each term. The Bag Roll includes a memorandum of each crown case begun that term and how it had begun, giving direct numerical cross-references to the appropriate indictments on the indictments files (KB 9-KB 11). The Controlment Roll proper, or Roll of Entries, contains minutes of appearances and pleas in each term. The Special Writ Roll includes enrolments of all special writs, the most important being writs of mandamus and their returns. Earlier there were other sections; for example, one for the enrolment of sureties of the peace, from 1459 to the reign of James I.
There are also several other short-lived series of memoranda rolls. For the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VII and Elizabeth I there are lists of all persons outlawed at the suit of the crown. For the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and most of that of James I there is a series of rolls recording the issue of writs of attachment and appearances made in cases initiated by informations. For the first twenty years of the reign of Charles II there is a series of annual recorda rolls, containing copies of returns, to writs of certiorari and error from inferior courts, and which duplicate the information recorded in the recorda files (KB 145) for the same years. There are also a few rolls which retrospectively collect information concerning cases from previous reigns which were regarded as still current.
Digital images of some of the records in this series are available through the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website. Please note that The National Archives is not responsible for this website or its content.
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