Court of Common Pleas and King's Bench, and Justices Itinerant: Early Plea and Essoin...

KB 26

5 Richard I - 56 Henry III

Formerly known as the Curia Regis Rolls, this series is an amalgamation of the plea rolls and most of the essoin rolls of the Bench (later the Common Bench and then the Court of Common Pleas and the plea rolls and the essoin rolls of the Court Coram Rege (later the Court of King's Bench) from the earliest surviving rolls down to the death of Henry III in 1272, together with all the surviving eyre rolls for the reign of Richard I and a few of those for the reign of John.

These are the earliest court rolls among the public records, recording step by step the progress of cases being carried on in those courts. They have been extensively used for research into the early history of the common law, and also for the information they give on national politics and the royal administration. Like other court records they include incidental information on many different aspects of life as well as about the people and places by and about whom the litigation was conducted. Many of them have been published in full transcript, particularly in the Curia Regis Rolls series, and a great deal is known about their individual archival history.

Digital images of some of the records in this series are available through the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website. Please note that The National Archives is not responsible for this website or its content.

During the period from the late 1940s to the late 1960s Meekings undertook extensive editorial and repair work on the records and placed much unsorted plea roll miscellanea, often fragmentary, in its proper place. Many of the rolls are prefaced by introductory notes detailing their archival history, including former references, and their current make-up. Curia Regis Rolls vols XI-XVIII contain detailed physical descriptions of the rolls printed in them, and their archival history.

Some Common Pleas essoin rolls for Henry III as well as all those for subsequent reigns are in CP 21

W K Boyd's notes on the Curia Regis rolls are in PRO 66/1/1

Later rolls are in KB 27 CP 40

Common Pleas Court essoin plea rolls are in: CP 23

Essoin rolls after 1272 are in KB 121

Most eyre rolls later than 1199 are in JUST 1

Public Record(s)

Latin

245 roll(s)

Topics

Archives and libraries

Litigation

A composite collection which, from the time of its creation (c1889) until 1988 was called 'Curia Regis Rolls'. Scargill Bird created it from documents in three series which he abolished: Coram Rege Rolls (formerly in the Chapter House at Westminster); Tower Coram Rege and Assize Rolls; and Tower de Banco Rolls or Placita de Banco Henry III. The division between the two repositories resulted from the Stapledon array of records in the 1320s when records were removed from Westminster to the Tower. At Westminster the distinction between the King's Bench and Common Pleas rolls kept there was lost during the 18th century, but in the Tower it survived down to 1840. Despite the earlier archival clarity and the fact that the distinction between the two courts before 1272 was understood by the leading legal historians of the day, Scargill Bird formed the single grouping. The separate series were only re-identified by Meekings in the mid 20th century.