Summary information

Study title

London Sheriffs’ Court Records, 1320: Detailed Case Index

Creator

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

Study number / PID

6574 (UKDA)

10.5255/UKDA-SN-6574-1 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Not available

Abstract

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.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...
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Methodology

Data collection period

01/02/2009 - 31/01/2010

Country

England

Time dimension

Cross-sectional (one-time) study

Analysis unit

court cases
Subnational

Universe

1588 summary entries of a court roll of London Sheriffs' Court Records, 1320

Sampling procedure

No sampling (total universe)

Kind of data

Text
Numeric

Data collection mode

Transcription of existing materials
Compilation or synthesis of existing material

Funding information

Grant number

RES-000-22-3343

Access

Publisher

UK Data Service

Publication year

2010

Terms of data access

The Data Collection is available to UK Data Service registered users subject to the End User Licence Agreement.

Access is limited to applicants based in HE/FE institutions, for not-for-profit education and research purposes only.

Related publications

Not available