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 of royal privileges taken in
1255, and the better known surveys of liberties and
land ownership, taken in
1274 -
5 and
1279 -
80, respectively. 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 been 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.
Sources
★
Cam, Helen, ''Studies in the hundred rolls: some aspects of thirteenth-century administration'', Oxford: Clarendon press, 1921
★ Cam, Helen, ''The hundred and the hundred rolls; an outline of local government in medieval England'', London, Methuen 1930
External link
★
National Archive on the Hundred Rolls