Catalogue description Privy Seal Office: Docquet Books

Docquet books, or registers, giving abstracts of all documents issued under the privy seal, or passing unsealed through the Privy Seal Office, with consequent payment of fees. The warrants as recorded in the docquet books were sent on to the Chancery to act as authority for passing an instrument under the great seal, or to the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer, to authorise the issue of money from the Receipt of the Exchequer; a few were sent to the deputed great seals (e.g. of the common law courts). Immediate warrants from the crown to the great seal, which were not passed under the privy seal, were also included in these docquet books, as fees remained payable to the privy seal clerks. The docquet books have a fuller coverage than the series of warrants.