Catalogue description Palatinate of Chester: Exchequer of Chester: Common Law Pleas and Returns to Writs of Certiorari

This series is a mixture of different sorts of records relating to common law pleas dealt with in the Exchequer of Chester, including some brought in from inferior courts within the palatinate as well as some referred to the chamberlain of Chester by the royal Chancery at Westminster. A significant number of the records in the series are of traverses of inquisitions post mortem, where the findings of the original jury were denied; three of them relate to Flintshire. The headings of the rolls stated that the pleas were heard before the chamberlain of Chester, who is named, at the Exchequer of Chester. The proceedings mirror those in the national equivalent of the Exchequer of Chester, the royal Chancery.

Some of the records are those of traverses relating to Cheshire or Flintshire begun in the royal Chancery at Westminster, which were sent to the chamberlain of Chester with an order to him to cause the appropriate sheriff to impanel a jury before the justices of Chester; the chamberlain was then to certify the result to the Chancery.

Other of the documents in the series are records of proceedings in tithe cases involving prohibition in courts Christian referred to the Exchequer of Chester. The series also contains a number of returns made to the Exchequer of Chester at various dates between 1460 and 1668 from courts within the palatinate whose inferior jurisdiction the Exchequer could supervise through the prerogative writ of certiorari. The writs were issued at Chester under the king's name, and the cases said by their headings to have been heard coram rege at Chester in the Exchequer.

The cases involved came mostly from the Court of Great Sessions of Chester, or of Flint; the original proceedings at Chester come from the plea rolls of the Great Sessions. Other courts whose cases were called in include the Macclesfield borough and forest courts, the court of the borough of Over and the court baron of Dunham Massey.

Relevant inquisitions post mortem can also be found in

WARD 7

A detailed list of most of these returns was originally printed in the appendix toThe Twenty-first Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (1860), pp 44-46, of which the present catalogue is a version in which some corrections and additions have been made and the place-names have been modernised. Additional items were added subsequently at their appropriate place in chronological order.