HLS Statutes and Registers of Writs Contents

The Harvard Law School’s Collection
of Medieval English Statute Books and
Registers of Writs

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AMES FOUNDATION DESCRIPTIONS

Introduction

The following tables list the 57 HLL statute books and registers of writs for which the Ames Foundation has compiled preliminary descriptions and provides links to those descriptions. Where the description is incomplete, a note indicates what is currently missing. For a complete listing of the HLL statute books and registers images of which are online click here. We have not yet tackled HLS MS 172, a single-sheet ‘sheriff’s copy’ of Magna Carta. HLS MS 193, for which we do provide a preliminary description (on which considerably more work is needed), is not, as suggested by the HOLLIS title, a register of writs, at least as that term is normally understood. Rather, it is a collection of some writs and counts and extracts from treatises but principally extracts from Year Books, designed to illustrate ‘placita personalia’. The description of the single-sheet HLS MS 24b is combined with that for HLS MS 24, so that the descriptions of 57 manuscripts appear on 56 separate web pages.

The descriptions began with putting each of the images in a digital tagger and recording in that tagger a label for an image or range of images, e.g., ‘Front cover’ or ‘Statute of York, 12 Edw. 2’, a rough transcription of any header or heading that appears on the page, noting the presence of, and sometimes transcribing, any marginalia, and any signature marks. Notes were added, as appropriate, indicating illuminated capitals and other decoration. The statutes were identified to their corresponding printing in S.R. If an item that is not in S.R. was found in a statute-book it was given a standardized title and a descriptive note. The same was done if an item was found in a register of writs that was not a writ form or a regula or a nota about it. The manuscript foliation was not normally entered but was where it proved useful in figuring how the manuscript got put together and what is now missing. Where an item was identified by chapter numbers other than the chapter numbers of statutes in S.R. or of standard treatises these were added to the tags.

All of this data was placed in a database and is displayed online in a table called Detailed Contents. Out of this table we compiled a table called Summary Contents, which gives the starting and ending folios and sequence numbers of each substantive item. In the case of the registers of writs we compiled another table that contained rough transcriptions of the name of each writ on the page, normally as found in marginalia in the register. The writs on each page were counted twice, one count of all the writs (but excluding marginalia that said ‘Regula’ or ‘Nota’) and another that took that count and subtracted from it those marked as ‘eodem’ or ‘aliter’.¹ These counts were then totalled. The Writ Table has space for its own introduction and conclusion, some of which have already been supplied. Finally, a preliminary narrative introduction to the whole manuscript was placed at the top of the display, giving a technical description of the manuscript: previous cataloguing (including that in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts in the U.S.A.), binding, layout, illumination, foliation, quiring, and going on to comment on anything about it that seemed to be of particular interest. The introductions tend to conclude with a justification for the date that we have assigned to the manuscript (which frequently is quite different from that which has been traditionally assigned),² speculations as to why and for whom it was made and, where appropriate, remarks on its subsequent use. Baker’s handlist contains a remarkably detailed account of the early modern and modern provenance of each manuscript. In almost all cases, we simply agree.

1. We figured out a way to prevent the counter from subtracting two when the marginalia read ‘aliter de eodem’, but those who wrote the marginalia did not have modern quantitative historians in mind, and the words ‘aliter’ and ‘eodem’ were used frequently. The second count probably slightly understates what it is supposed to be counting.

2. Our dates are mostly termini post quem. In the case of statute-books, they are mostly based on the date of the most recent statute in the main manuscript, with the date of the most recent statute in the additions in parentheses, if there are later additions. In the case of the registers, they are mostly based on the attestation in the initial writ of right patent, where it exists. Where it does not exist, the dates of the registers have to be based on their contents unless we found a dated writ in the register, and, hence, are vaguer. Using the last datable item seemed a better way to do it than simply adding a random number of years to the last datable item to account for the time needed to compile the manuscript. We continue to use ‘ca.’ (‘circa’) rather than ‘after’ to conform to usual library cataloguing practice, but technically almost all of them should be ‘after’. We have so far found no statute-book where the script requires a substantially later date than that of the last datable item; the registers of writs are more problematic. For example, both the script and the date on the initial writ of right patent in MS 25 suggest at date around 1476, but there is nothing in the contents of the register other than date on the initial writ that would lead to a date after the first years of the 15th century.

As the previous paragraph makes clear, the compilation of this catalogue, so far, has been based almost exclusively on the digital images. The digitization was done in a way that would get it done quickly and keep the costs within bounds. The object was to make the text as legible as it would be if it were viewed in situ. What was sacrificed was the production of images that would fully satisfy an art historian, particularly with regard to color. This means that some of our descriptions of the decoration and bindings are unreliable. (They would also benefit from the eye of someone more expert in medieval decoration and in binding from various centuries than any of us is.) Quite a bit of the quiring of the manuscripts can be done on the basis of the images, but some of the more complicated ones need to checked with the physical manuscript, and some will remain uncertain until the manuscript (in many cases quite far in the future) is disbound for rebinding.

The transcriptions were done by someone who was learning how to read medieval handwritten Latin and French. They are rough. They contain marks of suspension where are a more expert transcriber would extend; they contain queries where a more expert transcriber would have been able to supply what was queried. They contain mistakes. They are, however, a remarkable job considering how quickly they were done. The mistakes are rarely misleading, and the more expert can always look at the image to make the extensions and supply what is queried. It seemed better to put online what we had rather than waiting until someone more expert could proof the very large number of transcriptions that we now have. They will be corrected over time.

As the preceding makes clear, what we have now is very much preliminary. Any help would be appreciated. Suggestions may be sent by email.

Three tables follow. The first basically duplicates what is found in the Table of Contents. It adds, however, notes where the description, for some reason, is not substantially complete. All of the introductions to the descriptions are preliminary, and it is in the nature of this kind of work, that is it is never really complete. That is one of the advantages of publication online. A note is included where we are aware that quite a bit more needs to be done. The second table duplicates the first but is in the order of the manuscript numbers (shelfmarks). The third lists only those manuscripts that have registers of writs and links only to the register. The dates given here in some cases differ from, and are earlier than, the overall date of the manuscript.

By Year

This table is arranged by the approximate date of composition of the main section of the manuscript. This is normally the last datable item in the main section of the manuscript (see above). Clicking on the manuscript number will bring you to the Ames Foundation’s description of the manuscript, which lists the contents and links to specific images of the manuscript in ‘Mirador’, the current Harvard University Library page delivery service; clicking on ‘PDS’ will bring you directly to the first image of the manuscript in Mirador.

HLS MS No. 36

England. Statutes [Magna Carta] to 21 Edward 1
Tracts; Registrum brevium

ca. 1293

HLS MS No. 193	Writs, Counts, Extracts from Treatises and from the Year Books, Concerning ‘Placita Personalia’; Lambard’s Archeion	ca. 1340	PDS
Preliminary introduction. Otherwise complete, but the transcriptions of the marginalia need a considerable amount of work, and the references to the Year Books should be spelled out more fully than they are.

HLS MS No. 38	Registrum brevium judicialium	ca. 1400	PDS
Preliminary introduction. Otherwise complete. For reasons explained in the Introduction, the Summary Contents includes only the two major divisions of the manuscript.

HLS MS No. 59	England. Statutes, Magna Carta to 12 Edw. 2 Abbreviated Anglo-Norman Brut Tracts and Documents	ca. 1318 (with later additions)	PDS
Preliminary introduction. All the sections of the description are available in draft form. Their completion awaits the fixing of the order of the images in Mirador.

HLS MS No. 185	England. Statutes, 1 Edw. 3 to 9 Hen. 6	ca. 1431	PDS
Preliminary Introduction. Otherwise complete.