<Preliminary introduction>

The HOLLIS cataloguing may be found here. The following items are worth repeating:

“Description: [102] leaves : vellum ; 31 cm.

“Notes: Written in a neat legal hand, long lines, 42 to a full page.

“Irregularities and errors in foliation: leaves 1–24 numbered correctly; leaves 25 and 26 both numbered xxxiiii; leaves 27–50 numbered xxxv-lviii; leaves 51–102 not numbered.”

The cataloguing in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts, 1, no. 49 reads as follows:

“REGISTRUM BREVIUM

“MS. 22.

“C.xv, 100 ff. The first writ is by Thomas Morton, clerk, against Robert Burgeys, Yorkshire, tested 6 March 3 Henry.

“Bookplate of Rogers Ruding FSA (d. 1820); later belonged to Sir Thomas Phillipps (MS. 4457); his sale, 22 March 1895, no. 330, to Maggs; acquired by George Dunn in Jan. 1899; his sale, S. 11 Feb. 1913, no. 67; bought privately by HLS.

“Census, I, 1026, no. 22; Early Registers, xxvi.”

The HOLLIS date for the manuscript, ca. 1450, is impossible. See below.

The manuscript is approximately 310 X 221 mm.

It is bound in parchment of uncertain date.

The digital foliation corresponds to that in HOLLIS and not that in Baker. The error in the manuscript foliation on fol. 25r noted in HOLLIS looks to us more like ‘xxxiij’ than ‘xxxiiij’ whereas that on fol. 26r does look like ‘xxxiiij’. Hence, this may not be an error. Fol. 25r begins a new quire, and fol. 24v has what seems to be a carryover at the bottom of the page that does not carryover. It is possible that one or more quires are missing. It seems more likely, however, that the quires were foliated before the manuscript was written, and the intervening quire(s) not used. The signature markings which are medieval, proceed from ‘c’ to ‘d’, and there is nothing that is obviously missing.

The quiring is straightforward: regular quaternions with the final two folios missing from the last quire (one of which has been visibly torn out). There are no freestanding endpapers. Collation follows:

1–23⁸ (f. 1–102, lacks 2 after 102).

There is no illumination. Many of sections have a space for a decorated initial that is not decorated.

The script of the manuscript is English semi-cursive. It reminds one more of the scripts of the early fifteenth century than it does of the later fifteenth century.

As others have noted, the initial writ of right patent is brought by a Thomas Morton, clerk, against a Robert Burgeys.¹ It is addressed to the bailiffs of ‘A’ for lands in Ripon with default to the sheriff of Yorkshire. It is tested 6 March year 3 of a King Henry. The HOLLIS date of ca. 1450 is thus impossible. If it is later than 1450, the earliest possible date is 1488, 3 Henry VII. That does seem genuinely impossible for the script and contents of what we have. The possibilities are 1402 (3 March in year 3 of Henry IV), 1416 (3 March in year 3 of Henry V), and 1425 (3 March in year 3 of Henry VI). Henry IV seems virtually impossible because the manuscript (fol. 59r), in the basic hand, cites something that happened in that king’s year 10. Hence, our bracketing dates of 1416 X 1425.

1. Possibly the Roger Burgeys who with his wife Constance was the deforciant in a fine levied for lands in Greasbrough (in Rotherham), Yorks., 3 Feb. 1408. See Medieval Genealogy.

The Analysis of Writs suggests that this register is quite different from the other three that we believe come from approximately the same time, HLS MS 23, 26, and 26. It is only about half the size and lacks what those registers have in their second half. While it is possible that this register was made up for someone who wanted only what we now have, it seems far more likely that the original second half of the register was lost. That this is the case is suggested not only by what is missing from what we now have but also by the fact, as noted above, that the final quire of the register lacks its two final folios and by the fact that the final writ in the register ends in mid-sentence. It is also possible that what we now have was simply never completed.

No heading found

As noted in the Introduction, the initial writ of right patent has to be dated either in 1416 or in 1425. We have found nothing in the manuscript that would require a later date, and, hence, our bracketing dates for the register of 1416 X 1425.

The following table gives a rough transcription of the marginalia in the register in the order in which they appear on the page. Two counts of the writs are given in the right-hand columns of the following table. The first counts all the writs for which there are marginal notes, excluding, however, the notes that are labelled ‘Regula’ or ‘Nota’. The second excludes from the total all the writs where the marginal note includes the words ‘eodem’ or ‘aliter’.

The totals are not particularly large for the period, 956 in the long count and 628 in the short. These numbers contrast with MS 23 (1763 and 1118), 26 (2030 and 1313), and 27 (1905 and 1281), in all cases approximately twice number of writs. The structure is also somewhat different, and the contents and proportions quite different: Right (17%), Ecclesiastical (27%), Waste (5%), Replevin (8%), Criminal (1%), Trespass (18%), Royal inquests (13%), Account (2%), Debt (7%), Rights in land (0%). Actually, this is not too far different from other contemporary registers as far as it goes. Compare, for example, MS 23: Right (12%), Ecclesiastical (15%), Waste (2%), Replevin (3%), Trespass (17%), Account, Debt (6%), Rights in land (2%), Covenant (2%), Succession (3%), Writs on statutes (6%), Novel disseisin (10%), Mort d’ancestor (1%), Entry (4%), Formedon (2%), Testaments (1%), De indempnitate nominis (1%), Ad quod dampnum (5%), De libertatibus allocandis (2%), Ecclesiastical addition (3%), Mainprize (1%), Audita querela (1%), De supersedendo (1%). The major categories MS 22 appear in the same order as they do in MS 23. The proportions are, of course, quite different because MS 22 contains nothing after Rights in land. The only exception is that MS 22 has a category between Trespass and Account that we have called ‘Royal inquests’. Similar writs are found in MS 23 (fol. 97v–101r). There are not so many of them as there are in MS 22, but they are in the same position. For categorization purposes we included them in trespass in MS 23. The headers in MS 23 call them ‘De errore’ and ‘De conspiracione’. Similar headings are found in MS 22.

While we were trying to figure out what possible use MS 22 as it now stands might have been to someone we constructed an elaborate picture of an attorney whose clients included secular ecclesiastics (a representative of religious houses would have needed more writs concerning land) and secular persons of the ‘middling sort’, merchants and trades people in general, whom we know had been increasingly using the central royal courts for personal actions in this period, debt cases in very large numbers, and trespass. These were not people for whom inheritance of land was particularly important, and the absence of writs that deal with the inheritance of land may reflect that fact.

Such attorneys probably existed, but a much simpler explanation can account for MS 22 as we now have it. As noted in the Introduction, the final quire in the register lacks two folios at the end. That something is missing is confirmed by the fact that the final writ in the register ends in what seems to be mid-sentence. MS 22 may originally have been a register quite similar to MS 23, but then all the quires subsequent to Rights in land may have been lost. That would account for both the size and the contents of what we now have. It is also possible that what we now have was simply never completed. We have no evidence that anyone in the Middle Ages ever used this register.