Catalogue description Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Commission Books

These are registers recording the return into the Exchequer of executed commissions in both revenue matters and equity causes, and of writs of dedimus potestatem to take answers and depositions in suits between party and party.

For the 16th and 17th centuries the commissions registered in these books are concerned mainly with revenue matters such as surveys of concealed lands, enquiries concerning assessments for taxation, the conduct of revenue officers, lands and goods forfeit to the Crown, and surveys of Crown lands and woods.

Although matters concerning the revenue, such as commissions to survey and regulate ports, or for the assessment and collection of hearth tax, continued to be registered in the reign of Charles II (1660-85), by the end of the century such entries are rare and, by the early 18th century, the commissions registered relate solely to matters arising from litigation between party and party, amongst which commissions to take depositions predominate.