Hundred Rolls
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The Hundred Rolls are a census of England and parts of what is now Wales taken in the late thirteenth century. Often considered an attempt to produce a second Domesday Book, they are named for the hundreds by which most returns were recorded.
The Rolls include a survey taken in 1255 of royal priviledges, and the better known surveys of 1274 - 5 and 1279 - 80 into liberties and land ownership. The two main enquiries were commissioned by Edward I of England to record the adult population for judicial and taxation purposes. They also specify the services due from tenants to lords under the feudal system of the time.
Many of the Rolls have lost and other have been damaged, but a minority survive and are stored at the National Archives in Kew. Where they survive, they are a major source for the period. Those known in the early nineteenth century were published in 1818, while more recent discoveries are being collated by the University of Sheffield.
External link
- National Archive on the Hundred Rolls (http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=3&CATID=12367&SearchInit=4&CATREF=sc5)
