Court of Common Pleas: Notes of Fines Files, George II

CP 26/10

1727-1760

Files containing the drafts of the chirographer, the court official responsible for engrossing final concords, from which he drew up the copies of the agreement, including the foot of the fine that was filed by the court; afterwards he filed these notes. They do include the full text of the agreement, including the consideration, which did not appear in the concord but was added by the chirographer, and various annotations at the foot at different periods. The series is fairly complete, achieving a settled format by the seventeenth century, and they are in English from 1733.

A major series of repertories of the notes of fines, or rather two different series which briefly overlapped, are in IND 1/7233 - IND 1/7244 and IND 1/17217 - IND 1/17268. These are in practice mainly used as means of reference to the feet of fines CP 25/2

From 1509 onwards the series of notes is fairly complete, although the files are not in their original format. The notes were kept in term files, but most of the original files broke and the surviving material was rearranged in the present 14 separate series in the nineteenth century. When they were repaired then the earlier ones were usually restrung, whether in their original order or not is unclear. The notes from the later seventeenth century onwards were arranged in small county files joined with pink tape, and are consequently easier to search.

Fragments and detached file covers are in

CP 26/14

Public Record(s)

English and Latin

133 file(s)

3 working days notice to produce

Topics

Conveyancing

Notes are occasionally still discovered among unsorted common law miscellanea, so missing ones may yet be found.