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1. The Nature of the fine rolls

The fine rolls were the earliest surviving rolls compiled by the English royal chancery. Surviving in almost continuous sequence from 1199, they are preserved in The National Archives at Kew, one for each regnal year. For Henry III’s reign (1216–1272), there are fifty-six rolls, written in Latin on parchment, with each roll being composed of separate membranes sewn together, the membranes measuring roughly 50 cm in length and 35 cm in width. Since Henry’s regnal year began on 28 October, each roll runs from 28 October in one calendar year to 27 October in the next. Over the course of the reign the rolls expanded greatly in length, many having a dozen or more membranes and containing over 30,000 words. They are a vital resource for the history of England in the period between the establishment of Magna Carta early in Henry’s reign and the parliamentary state which was emerging at its end.

A fine was essentially a promise of money to the king in return for a concession or favour, and the first purpose of the fine rolls was to record the money so offered. ¹ They are essential for the study of royal patronage, the relations between the monarch and his subjects, and structures of families and their histories. Barons and knights gave money to succeed to their inheritances on the death of their immediate ancestors. Money was offered by magnates and ministers for the right to marry heiresses and widows, and, conversely, by widows to control the lands and marriages of their children, and to be allowed themselves to stay single or marry whom they wished. ² The rolls are equally significant in other areas. They record the purchase of an ever growing number of writs, from wide sections of society, to initiate and prosecute law cases, and are thus central to the study of the early common law. They have numerous fines for permission to set up new markets and fairs, thus revealing the rapid commercialization of England. And, resonating from top to bottom of society, they throw light on the rising standard of living of the nobility, the changing structure of the gentry and the growing aspirations of peasant communities, for they contain fines from nobles to be allowed to construct private parks for hunting, from members of the gentry to be exempted from knighthood, and from peasant communities to secure protection from their lords. ³ During the course of the reign, the rolls came to include a large amount of new material unrelated to fines, including rates of debt repayment (by which the king could either punish or placate), and the seizure of lands into the king’s hands in times of political crisis, so making the rolls are a key source for the 1258-1267 Montfortian period of reform and rebellion. The rolls have likewise information about taxation levied on towns and royal manors (hence their value for local historians) and also taxation levied on the Jews, taxation which destroyed their wealth and prepared the way for their expulsion from England in 1290. The changing nature of royal revenue revealed by the fine rolls is absolutely key to understanding the impact of Magna Carta and the development of the parliamentary state.

2. The Aims of the project

Until the advent of the Project, the value of the fine rolls to the historian was gravely impaired by the lack of any proper edition. Whereas the fine rolls of John’s reign, together with all the other chancery rolls down to 1272, had been published, the fine rolls of Henry III were available only in two volumes of Latin excerpts which appeared in the 1830s: Excerpta e Rotulis Finium 1216-1272, ed. C. Roberts (London, Record Commission, 1835-6). These contain only 10% of the total material, selected exclusively for its genealogical interest, and have totally inadequate indexes.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and commenced in 2005, the Project aimed to transform this situation, bringing the fine rolls from the darkness in which they were accessible only to a few scholars to the light in which they are now intelligible and freely available to everyone. The Project has achieved this in the following ways:

3. The Conception, structure and progress of the project

The Project has been funded in two phases by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The first phase was from April 2005 to March 2008. The second was from April 2008 to December 2011. The project combines the History Department of King’s College London, KCL’s Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) (formerly the Centre for Computing in the Humanities), the History Department of Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) and The National Archives (TNA) where the rolls are kept. The project was conceived by Louise Wilkinson (CCCU). The Principal Investigator was David Carpenter (KCL). The Co-investigators were David Crook (TNA), Louise Wilkinson (CCCU), and Harold Short, Director of CCH, who headed the team doing the technical research. The research fellows were Paul Dryburgh and Beth Hartland. The technical team included Paul Spence, Paul Caton, Arianna Ciula, Tamara Lopez and José Miguel Vieria. The National Archives Team included Sean Cunningham, Adrian Jobson, Aidan Lawes and Jess Nelson. The Project was supported by two Advisory Groups: an International Advisory Group and a Knowledge Transfer Advisory Group.