Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Conventual Leases

E 118

c1327-c1547

This series consists of leases of lands, offices and other profits, such as tithes and rectories, made by individual religious houses before the Dissolution, and other related documents. The series also includes an entry book of conventual leases for five Lincolnshire houses which may be that of the Dissolution commissioners of 1536.

Most of the records in the series are counterpart leases, that is the part of the indenture kept by the religious house as evidence of a transaction. Some, however, are the original leases, that is the lessee's copy, as made clear by the annotations made by the officials of the Court of Augmentations, ordering confirmation or renewal. Unfortunately the majority of the seals, both conventual and personal, have been lost.

Other conventual leases and enrolment rolls are in LR 1

Original finding aids are in E 501

The main series of conventual leases is in E 303

Public Record(s)

English and Latin

144 parchment membranes

Topics

Government finances

Religions

Tithes

Many of the records in this series may originally have been those of the Court of Augmentations. If this is the case their means of transmission to King's Remembrancer is obscure. They may have been acquired from the Augmentation Office, the body set up to care for the records of the Court of Augmentations on its abolition in 1554, during normal business. Conversely, they may have come to the King's Remembrancer after 1833 when the Clerk of the Pipe, whose office had administered the Augmentation Office, was abolished.

The early 16th century saw a progressive increase in the amount of leasing by religious houses, the tenants usually being their secular neighbours. Most of these leases received official sanction in the Acts dissolving the religious houses in 1536 and 1540, and were confirmed by order of the Court of Augmentations.