Catalogue description Chancery: Inquisitions Post Mortem, Series I, Richard II

Search within or browse this series to find specific records of interest.

Date range

Details of C 136
Reference: C 136
Title: Chancery: Inquisitions Post Mortem, Series I, Richard II
Description:

The fifth series of inquisitions post mortem in Series I, dating to the reign of Richard II.

Date: c1377-c1399
Arrangement:

Each file is usually made up of the documentation of inquisitions post mortem following the deaths of about twenty persons. The actual number of inquisitions in each file is likely to be rather greater than twenty, given that a tenant might well have held lands in more than one county, in which case separate inquisitions were required to be conducted in each shire concerned. The series is arranged, as far as possible, in chronological order.

Inquisitions made upon the lands of particularly wealthy magnates may take up several files on their own.

Related material:

Accounts submitted to the Exchequer by the escheators are in E 136

Separated material:

Copies of inquisitions post mortem sent to the Exchequer are in E 149

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: Latin
Physical description: 109 file(s)
Custodial history: The records in this series were formerly housed in the Tower of London.
Publication note:

Calendared and indexed in Calendar of inquisitions post mortem and other analogous documents preserved in the Public Record Office, xv-xvii (HMSO, 1970-1985). The calendar omits the names of escheators and jurors, and extents, though mentioned, are not given in any detail.

Administrative / biographical background:

In Ireland the escheator, chancellor and justiciar can variously be found taking responsibility for escheats during Richard II's reign, whilst in Calais this function evidently lay with the captain. Responsibility for escheats in Wales outside the principality seems to have lain with the several escheators of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Within the principality it appears that the justices returned inquisitions post mortem to Chancery.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?