England Court of Augmentations, Fines, Mortgages, Private Estate Acts of Parliament, Quit Claims, Regnal Years (National Institute)

Court of Augmentations
The Court of Augmentations of the King’s Revenues ran from 1536-1553 to oversee the properties that had come to the crown from the dissolved religious houses. They describe and value the lands and goods and also show the later sales to private people, including the land speculators of the day (see Spufford (The Gentry and the Genealogist. Genealogists’ Magazine Vol 14 #5, page 129-137) and Lawes (The Dissolution of the Monasteries and Chantries. Sources in the National Archives. Genealogist’s Magazine Vol 27 #11, page 483-491)).

Endorsements
An endorsement is the writing on the outside of a deed which explains what it is and from the 19th century gives the date, type of deed, the two principal parties and the property involved. It thus acts as a finding aid when wading through a bundle of deeds, or indeed when scrolling through a film of them where, as it is on the outside of a folded document it is a smaller item and can be easily recognized, see below.

Chart: An Endorsement

[from Pearson]

Earlier deeds were not always endorsed at the time they were made, but subsequent clerks may have done so in order to simplify their own work. Occasionally there is reference to a court case, for example examined and produced in the case of A versus B, so further records of this can be pursued.

Fines
The term fine was also used to describe the sum of money paid at the conclusion of an agreement by the person favoured. In the accounts for the manor of Tillingham, Essex about 1660 the following fines appear:

Chart: Fines in Tillingham, Essex

Gifts versus Grants
The main mediaeval deed for the transfer of property (land) was the gift this was not a free gift, but a deed conveying the property for a price, although the latter may not be stated on the deed.

Goods and rights (for example to tithes) were conveyed by means of deed called a grant.

Inquisitions ad Quod Damnum
An enquiry made by the county escheators regarding possible effect on the king’s rights of an application to alienate land, or for the grant of a market of fair. Examples of their rather limited use in genealogy are given by Unett and Tanner (Making a Pedigree: An Introduction to Sources for Early Genealogy, 1997).

Mortgages
A mortgage is defined as the pledging of land as security against the advance of money. If the mortgagor (borrower) defaults on repayment, the mortgagee (lender) can enter the estate and sell it in order to recoup his money. Long terms of 500–1,000 years and peppercorn rents were typical.

Chart: A Mortgage in Leicestershire

If the mortgagee wanted his money back, he could not foreclose, but instead found someone else to take over the mortgage; this is termed an assignment of a mortgage. There are other deeds of a similar type called assignments of a term in trust to attend the freehold and inheritance, which redeem mortgages. Mortgages and assignments often had multiple parties to them, and many may be noted as trustees to the main parties. Cornwall explains that this is normal as mortgages were a good form of investment, especially of monies held in trust

Private Estate Acts of Parliament
From 1512 parliament could regulate the tenure of property by private legislative record. Many problems were caused by the strict settlement caused by entailing of family estates and thus the private acts became a method of overcoming these. The most common problem was the inability to raise large sums of money for an immediate need, such as farm improvements, development of new uses such as mining, or to pay off debts. The private Act of Parliament or Estate Act provided a solution to such problems, and from 1660 these increased rapidly in number until 1882 when the Settled Land Act allowed life-tenants to sell their land.

An example from Surrey is described by Bond in which an indebted estate was rescued by a private act of parliament. In 1717 at age 11, Richard HEATH had inherited both his father, Sir Thomas HEATH’s, lands including the manor of East Clandon and debts of over £6,000 with a personal estate of only £1,022 with which to pay it. The widow Dorothy HEATH and two other relatives were charged by a private Act of Parliament enacted 22 June 1717 with selling certain parts of the estate (all described in detail) and paying the debts to the various named creditors, for example Henry Quennell butcher and Thomas MARTIN yeoman. Acts did not only relate to the nobility of wealthier gentry, but petitions for Acts were also received from doctors, clergymen, business men and impoverished widows.

Other reasons for Estate Acts included provisions for charitable institutions, church livings, the disabled, parish boundary changes, and trustee appointments and Bond has further details of these. The Estate Acts had to pass through the House of Lords in great detail (and whose records survived the fire in 1834), and then the House of Commons (whose records largely did not survive); everything remaining is at the House of Lords Record Office.

In addition, many schemes for public works such as canals, railways, harbours and turnpikes were promoted by private Acts of Parliament. Many were opposed by local residents and a database of the expert witnesses employed from 1771-1917 is available at the House of Lords Record Office.

Quit Claims
A quitclaim is a formal release or discharge from a claim to property. For example, a widow held her dower (one third of her late husband’s estate) only for her life and could renounce her right to a portion of it by means of a quitclaim so that her son could sell it. If she had inherited the property herself then it was not part of her dower, and she could sell some or all of it by means of a gift (qv).

Chart: Quit Claim for Land in Yorkshire—from an estate sale in British Columbia, Canada and used to adorn a lawyer’s office! [A copy is now in the Northallerton Record Office]

Regnal Years
In the Middle Ages it was customary to date documents by the year of the monarch’s reign and one sees them as 34 Henry II which indicates 1187-88 Anno Domini. Regnal years begin on the first day of the reign so 34 Henry II ran from 19 Dec 1187 until 18 Dec 1188. They are still in use formally today, for example on Acts of Parliament, but for several hundred years it has been common to also indicate the year A.D. on documents. Detailed lists of regnal years can be found in various genealogical and local history aids such as those by Fitzhugh (Dictionary of Genealogy, 1998), Hey (The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, 1996) and Richardson (The Local Historian’s Encyclopaedia, 1985), but the most detailed is C. R. Cheney’s Handbook of Dates (1991).

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