Catalogue description Special Collections: Miscellaneous Objects Recovered from the Records of the Courts at Westminster, and from the Site of the Liberty of the Rolls

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Details of SC 16
Reference: SC 16
Title: Special Collections: Miscellaneous Objects Recovered from the Records of the Courts at Westminster, and from the Site of the Liberty of the Rolls
Description:

Coffers, skippets and other artefacts (otherwise in PRO 30/1), including keys and leather ink bottles, anciently used for the storage or creation of records; objects associated with or recovered from the site of the Rolls Chapel and the Liberty of the Rolls, including pottery, sculpture, and the font used in baptismal ceremonies; and miscellaneous engravings, printed ephemera, textiles, coins, wallpaper and domestic utensils transferred with the records.

The most typical examples of archival storage are the numerous pouches dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, of white leather or canvas, fastened with leather cords, and endorsed with memoranda identifying their contents.

The series is an artificial one. Many of the items are of unknown provenance though it is probable that most of the coffers, forcers and skippets originally housed records deposited in the Treasury of the Receipt (that is, in the several treasuries which included the Chapel of the Pyx at Westminster, and the offices of the Receipt itself). A few documents have a provenance among the deeds and evidences of the Court of Wards or are of Chancery origin.

The series includes an incomplete set of keys to the locks which secured the chest in C 46.
Date: 13th century-19th century
Related material:

For other forcers, skippets and similar small containers see especially E 27
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Chancery, 1066-1875

Court of Wards and Liveries, 1541-1660

Exchequer, Treasury of the Receipt, 1109-1833
Physical description: 62 artefacts and files
Custodial history: By the mid-eighteenth century records from the Treasury of the Receipt were consolidated in the Chapter House at Westminster. In 1859 the Chapter House's archival holdings were transferred to the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane. Records from the Court of Wards, after its abolition, were housed with the records of the Exchequer in the Westminster treasuries. Records relating to Chancery cases were held in the offices of the Masters in Chancery.
Publication note:

Many pieces in the series were displayed in the Public Record Office Museum, Chancery Lane, at various times between 1901 and 1956, and are described in successive editions of theCatalogue of Manuscripts and other Objects in the Museum of the Public Record Office (various editions, 1903-1948).
Unpublished finding aids:

See also Special Collections: Miscellaneous Objects Recovered from the Records of the Courts at Westminster, and from the Site of the Liberty of the Rolls (formerly introductory note to SC 16)

Administrative / biographical background:

The Liberty and Chapel of the Rolls from medieval times housed the Domus Conversorum, and also provided offices for the clerks of Chancery outside Westminster. From the late fifteenth century onwards it provided a repository for the records of Chancery until becoming, from 1851, the site of a purpose-built archive for the Public Records.

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