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Attendees heard two very interesting presentations on the current state of the Civic Trust’s village tree survey and on the Rolleston Station project by Clive Baker.
The larger part of the day was spent on discussion of the recently recovered Rolleston Manor Court Rolls.
Re-enactment of an 18th century court case abstracted from the Rolleston Manor
Court Rolls
As, has become traditional, members were sustained with an excellent buffet lunch prepared by Mrs Beryl Toon and proceeds from the day provided a donation of £400 to St Mary’s building maintenance funds.
Rolleston Manor Court Rolls
The Rolls which cover the period 1717 – 1933 were discovered in a house attic in Lincolnshire in 2016 and fortunately recovered by Rolleston Parish Council before they disappeared into a skip.
Their appearance in that part of the country can be explained the fact that they were held originally in Rolleston Hall. When the Hall failed to sell at the last estate auction in 1924 it was subsequently purchased, together with the title of Lord of the Manor, by a company with its headquarters in St Ives. The final transactions in disposal of the estate were conducted from there.
The Manor Court Rolls are very simply the official records of two very different parish courts.
First, “The Court Leet and View of Frank Pledge with the Great Court Baron and
Customary Court of Sir Oswald Mosley Baronet Lord of said Manor”
Interpreting these words –
A Leet was a court concerned with the administration of the manor and civil or minor criminal misdemeanours. It also maintained the quality of bread and ale.
The term Frankpledge derives from an Anglo-Saxon system whereby groups of ten men pledged themselves to be mutually responsible for good behaviour and it survived, reflecting the peace keeping role of the Court Leet
In today’s terms think of offences such as as cutting down trees, dumping your old mattress in Marston Lane or parking on double yellow lines outside the school.
Second, the Special Court Baron was a basic manorial court held by a manorial lord for his tenants. It was concerned primarily with land and property ownership, tenancy and transfer under the old copyhold system of tenure. Again, Copyhold was defined legally as land held “by copy of the court roll at the will of the lord at the custom of the manor”. Copyhold was legally terminated in 1921 and replaced by the modern system of leasehold.
Briefly, our holdings are as follows -
First there are three large volumes holding the official records, starting in 1717.
The first volume is interesting in that the years, 1717 to 1733, are in Latin
Regrettably, the fifty year period, 1761 – 1811, is missing and we return to the record in 1811 which then runs complete to 1933. During this time we see the decline and obsolescence of the Court Leet as other civil administrations such as the constabulary come into play.
From 1818 the official records are accompanied by several sets of draft minutes from which they are derived. There is also duplication for short periods where there are dual minute takers
Finally there are two index books covering the Courts Baron. The first one covering 1717 to 1819 is continuous script in one hand with minor additions. The second, covering 1717 to 1911, and appearing to use the first, is an alphabetical indexed ledger in various hands. These do allow us to see the names but not substance of land transfers in our missing 50 year record.
There are several ancillary documents, one of which outlines model court procedure. This allowed the group to re-enact a typical example from the records.
At present, the Rolls are held in the village but we expect them to be transferred for conservation in the County record Office when a new archive facility has been built in the next 2 – 3 years.
The History Group will be including more information on the content of the Rolls in future issues of Rollestonian. (This article appeared in the Spring 2018 edition of the Rollestonian).
Last updated: 20 February 2018