England Newspaper Advertisements for Land, Cartularies, Close Rolls (National Institute)

Advertisements
Local newspapers contain advertisements for upcoming property sales, including farm equipment and stock. The researcher is advised to look for such sales upon the death of tenant-farmer ancestors, and upon the break-up of any large estate in the vicinity. Handbills (single sheets like today’s fliers) also survive in archive ephemera collections. Hoskins laments the fact that until recently they were not systematically collected by them, so luck plays a good part in their survival. He mentions that Devon Record Office acquired several hundred files covering 1880-1925 from an old-established auctioneer’s business. They contain inventories of household goods, factory stock, farm goods and stock etc. for a wide range of farms and houses property in north-east Devon. Estate records usually contain any advertisements about the property, and family records may also be extant.

1912 Advert for Kent Estate



Chart: 1838 Advert for a Devon Estate Found at auction at the website of Lesley Aitchison.

Cartularies
These are volumes of copies of deeds made by individuals or corporate bodies, mainly monasteries, to safeguard their interests in the land. There are about 1,300 extant and most are pre-1535 (Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII).

Close Rolls
From the 13th century deeds had been enrolled at one of the royal courts in Westminster:


 * Court of Chancery
 * Court of Common Pleas
 * Exchequer
 * King’s Bench

Each has several different rolls, the most significant are the vast numbers in the Close Rolls of the Court of Chancery which have been published up to the end of the reign of Henry VII. Unfortunately finding aids after this date are not sufficient yet according to Alcock (Old Title Deeds, 2001), the best reference work for title deeds.

The close rolls contain copies of private documents written out on sheets of parchment which were then stitched together and rolled up. The word close refers to the fact that the originals were folded and closed with a seal (letters close), in contrast to public documents which are not closed and are known as letters patent, having their seals appended (for example dangling by a strip of ribbon or vellum at the bottom) and copied into the patent rolls. Many of the private deeds in the Close Rolls are conveyances. There is a special group of them relating to the major confiscations of crown, church and royalist lands during the civil war and interregnum period 1642-1660, see TNA research guide D68.

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