Catalogue description MANORIAL RECORDS

Manorial records are the records of manorial administration which traditionally form a separate section in estate archives. They consist of manorial court rolls, manorial accounts and manorial surveys and rentals. AR/2/1-731 are manorial records for single manors; AR/2/732-1398 are composite manorial records where the details of more than one manor are recorded on the same document.

The records of single manors are organised by county and within each county by manors in the order of their acquisition, as for the title deeds. Within each manor the court rolls are arranged in chronological order, followed by the manorial accounts in chronological order, followed by the rentals/surveys in chronological order. These groupings by single manors include manorial records inherited by the Arundells as well as those from the time of the Arundell lordship. If there is a gap in the chronological sequence for a particular manor check the composite records for the relevant date. The records of the Arundell manors are followed by manorial records for non-Arundell property.

For Hartland in Devon (AR/2/519-567) the court rolls of the manor are followed by those for the borough and then those for the hundred. The accounts for the manor, borough and hundred are together in straight chronological order as two or three of these administrative units sometimes appear on the same account roll.

The composite manorial records are also arranged by record type: court rolls followed by accounts followed by rentals and surveys. Within each type, however, there is a division between records inherited by the Arundells along with the property and the records from the time of the Arundells' ownership of the manors. The inherited records sometimes include those for land which did not pass to the Arundells. For example, AR/2/843-857 includes accounts for manors of the Earl of Oxford which were never owned by the Arundells as well as for those which they did buy in 1575. Some of the composite records are grouped according to the source of their acquisition (eg. Dinham manors, Chideock manors, Earl of Oxford manors) as they were clearly administered in such groups at the time. When composite records for different groups of manors cover the same dates they are arranged according to the order of the acquisition of the manors - thus any records including Treloy manor come first.

The increasing numbers of composite records in the later centuries indicate how the administration of the estate moved from a manorial basis to a centralized system, although the manors remained the units of the system. Some of the later manorial court presentments, which have been arranged under composite court rolls, are in fact individual documents for each manor but were bundled together by year and so have been preserved as composite records.

See also Cornwall Record Office AR3 and AR6 for surveys, valuations and particulars of manors and tenements of varying detail.