Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Common Pleas: Enrolments of Fines

This series contains rolls maintained by the Prothonotary of the Palatinate Court of Common Pleas, as a result of the Act 27 Eliz I c9 which established the machinery for enrolment of fines levied in, inter alia, the Palatinate of Lancaster, and for the certification of the enrolment by the presiding judge. The Act made similar provision for common recoveries but they continued to be enrolled on the plea rolls rather than on the rolls in this series. Payment of the King's silver continued to be recorded on the plea rolls.

The rolls (many of which bear the title 'fine roll') extend from 1587 to 1834, when fines were abolished, in an almost unbroken sequence. They record details of the fines, and preliminary writs, under the session in which enrolment took place. This was usually but not always the session in which the fines were levied.

Numbers appear on some membranes in some rolls but they only occasionally correspond with numbers appearing on related records such as the files of fines or dockets. Because of this, and because the order of entries in each series tends to differ, it can be difficult to trace all references to a given file.