Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: The Caption of Seisin of the Duchy of Cornwall

E 120

1337

This series consists of the Caption of Seisin of the Cornish possessions of the Duchy of Cornwall, taken on behalf of Edward, eldest son of Edward III, in May 1337.

The purpose of the document was for seisin to be taken of the Cornish lands, knights' fees, jurisdictions, assets and privileges with which the duke was endowed.

The caption comprises surveys of the manors, knights' fees and castles of the duchy, and of other Cornish revenues belonging to the duchy, such as the shrievalty of Cornwall and the profits of the Stannary courts. Included are the names, holdings, rents and services of the free tenants; the free conventionaries, that is the free tenants holding under the assession system; the unfree conventionaries who held at will; and those who held in villeinage.

Borough surveys include claims to liberties, copies of charters and, in some instances, lists of burgesses. The last section of the document deals with the farms of the ports, levied by the duke's haveners and assessed according to the number of fishing boats each port supported, and including too the profits of court and rents and fines of stallholders, prises of wine, and wreck of the sea.

The document consists of twenty-nine rotuli of parchment of unequal size, bound Exchequer-wise at the head. Each ends in a triangular tail, the dorse of which was used, as necessary, to indicate the continuation on a following rotulus of the text of an individual record of caption.

Public Record(s)

Latin

1 roll(s)

Topics

Manors

Crown lands and estates

Food and drink

Fishing

Farming

It is clear from inventories that, by at least the end of the sixteenth century, the records of the King's Remembrancer included many Duchy of Cornwall records, although they might more logically have been placed with those of the Augmentations Office or the General Surveyors.

Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince, was created Duke of Cornwall in March 1337. The lands of the new duchy were largely those of the earldom of Cornwall which had returned to the possession of the Crown on the death of the last earl, John of Eltham, in 1336.