London Sheriffs’ Court Records, 1320: Detailed Case Index

UKDA study number:6574

Principal Investigator

Davies, M.
University of London. Institute of Historical Research. Centre for Metropolitan History

Data Collector

Davies, M.

Sponsor

Economic and Social Research Council

Distributed by

UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Colchester.

October 2010

Bibliographic Citation

All works which use or refer to these materials should acknowledge these sources by means of bibliographic citation. To ensure that such source attributions are captured for bibliographic indexes, citations must appear in footnotes or in the reference section of publications. The bibliographic citation for this data collection is:

Davies, M., London Sheriffs’ Court Records, 1320: Detailed Case Index [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], October 2010. SN: 6574, http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-6574-1.

Acknowledgement

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Any publication, whether printed, electronic or broadcast, based wholly or in part on these materials should carry a statement that the original data creators, depositors or copyright holders, the funders of the Data Collections (if different) and the UK Data Archive bear no responsibility for their further analysis or interpretation.

Copyright:
M. Davies

Disclaimer

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6574 . London Sheriffs’ Court Records, 1320: Detailed Case Index

Depositor:

Stevens, M. , University of London. Institute of Historical Research. Centre for Metropolitan History

Principal Investigator:

Davies, M. , University of London. Institute of Historical Research. Centre for Metropolitan History

Data Collector:

Davies, M.

Sponsor:

Economic and Social Research Council
Grant Number: RES-000-22-3343

Abstract:

This data draws, from London's only surviving medieval Sheriffs’ Court roll, on all court session dates, litigants’ surnames (sometimes with occupation or location of residence), litigants’ dispute types, and individual court roll entry types. It adds to the original data tagging of entries by case, so as that all entries pertaining to any one case may be collated and court process and procedure may be studied, and tagging of cases involving female litigants, so that female court usage may be studied. Only court roll entries for appointment of attorney have been excluded from data collection, as these were not explicitly part of the litigation process. The study of cases by writ-type, e.g. frequency of debt cases or debt cases involving women, also has potential socio-economic value. This data may prove of exceptional importance in the study of medieval women, due to the relative frequency with which female litigants, a typically under-represented group, are recorded as having appeared before the Sheriffs' Court.

Main Topics:

This data is a detailed index of entries and cases appearing on the City of London's only surviving medieval Sheriffs' Court roll; covering Trinity term, 1 July - 26 September, 1320. The Sheriffs' Court of London was the court of first resort for most medieval Londoners wishing to initiate a lawsuit in matters of trespass, debt, account, surety of peace ('de minis'), breach of contract and a variety of other principally 'civil' disputes. Although notably, property-ownership disputes, such as disseisin, were not heard in the Sheriffs' Court. The entries on the Sheriffs' Court roll pertain to cases at all stages of legal proceedings, from mesne process - the process of bringing a defendant before the court to join issue - to the pleading of cases before the court and ultimately to final process - whereby the judgments were executed. Original-document entries contain cursory to full details of the dispute (depending on the stage of legal proceedings), the litigants and sureties first and last names and, additionally, often persons occupation or location of residence.

The data deposited here is a '.tab' file export of a MsAccess table, listing, for each court roll entry [excepting appointments of attorney]: a full document reference (including document membrane number); the date of the court session a which the entry was recorded; the surname/s of the plaintiff/s and defendant/s; the writ-type (indicating what kind of case it was, e.g. debt/trespass/contract/etc.); the entry type (e.g. order to arrest/essoin/pleaded case/judgment/etc); an indication of whether the case involved a female litigant; and, where applicable, further notes about entry. Each entry in the deposited data also contains a unique entry ID number and metadata field with a 'Case' number, allowing the collation of entries pertaining to each of the more than 500 individual lawsuits, or 'cases', recorded on the roll.

Coverage:

Time Period Covered: 01 July 1320 - 26 September 1320
Dates of Fieldwork: 01 February 2009 - 31 January 2010
Country: England
Geography: London
Spatial Units: No spatial unit
Observation Units: court cases
Kind of Data: Textual data; Numeric data; Alpha/numeric data

Universe Sampled:

Location of Units of Observation: Subnational
Population: 1588 summary entries of a court roll of London Sheriffs' Court Records, 1320

Methodology:

Time Dimensions: Cross-sectional (one-time) study
Sampling Procedures: No sampling (total universe)
Number of Units: 1588
Method of Data Collection: Transcription of existing materials; Compilation or synthesis of existing material
Data Sources: London Metropolitan Archive, CLA/025/CT/01/001
Weighting: No weighting conducted

Language(s) of Written Materials:

Study Description: English
Study Documentation: English

Access:

Access Conditions: The depositor has specified that registration is required and standard conditions of use apply. The depositor may be informed about usage. See terms and conditions for further information.
Available to all users based in HE/FE institutions, for not-for-profit educational and research purposes only.
Availability: History Data Service, UK Data Archive
Contact: Help desk: hds@essex.ac.uk

Date of First Release:

5 October 2010

Copyright:

M. Davies

File last updated:

31 October 2011