Catalogue description Chancery and Lord Chancellor's Office: Crown Office: Coronation Rolls

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Details of C 57
Reference: C 57
Title: Chancery and Lord Chancellor's Office: Crown Office: Coronation Rolls
Description:

From the early seventeenth century, these rolls provide a record of the accession of the sovereign, followed by a proclamation of the coronation and of the peers' attendance, the appointment of the Court of Claims and the petitions to it (in full) with their answers, a short account of the ceremony with the services performed, and a list by rank of those doing homage.

From 1702 the oath sworn by the sovereign is included as a schedule, and except in the case of George IV, this is signed. Declarations against the transubstantiation of the sacrament and the archbishop of Canterbury's certificate are included from 1714 onwards.
Date: 1308-1954
Related material:

Court of Claims minutes for the twentieth century are in PC 10

There are copies of older coronation claims in SP 9
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English and French
Physical description: 17 roll(s)
Custodial history: The Coronation rolls for Edward II, Henry IV and Henry V were transferred to the Public Record Office by the Crown Office in accordance with an order of 10 June 1856 which removed them from the Wakefield Tower. At 31 December 1858 the remainder of the rolls then extant were in the Rolls Chapel, their usual repository, whence they subsequently came into the custody of the Public Record Office. From 1685 the rolls end with a memorandum of their transfer to the custody of the Keeper of the Rolls.
Publication note:

Abstracts of some of the records in this series appear in Collections relative to Claims at the Coronations of several of the Kings of England beginning with Richard II (London, 1820). G W Wollaston, Coronation Claims (2nd ed, London, 1910) summarises the claims from 1377 to 1902. Early records, including these, are surveyed by H G Richardson and G O Sayles, 'Early Coronation Records', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xiii (1935) and xiv (1936). See also, D H Gifford, 'The Coronation in the Public Records', Archives, x (1953).
Administrative / biographical background:

Coronation rolls are drawn up by the clerk of the Crown. All the rolls have in common a recital of claims made (until George II's reign in Law French) to perform services at coronations, and adjudications made on these claims by a Court of Claims set up ad hoc to examine them. Most claimants are entitled by hereditary title, personal or tenurial. There are no rolls for Edward III, Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I and Charles I. The only subsequent omission is for George III.

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