The Hundred Rolls are a
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...
of
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
and parts of what is now
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
taken in the late thirteenth century. Often considered an attempt to produce a second
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
, they are named after the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
s 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
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a va ...
to record the adult population for
judicial
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
and
taxation
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal person, legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regiona ...
purposes. They also specify the services due from tenants to
lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...
s under the
feudal system
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
of the time.
Many of the Rolls have been lost and others have been damaged, but a minority survive and are stored at the
National Archives in
Kew
Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...
. Where they survive, they are a major source for the period. Those known in the early nineteenth century were published by the
Record Commission
The Record Commissions were a series of six Royal Commissions of Great Britain and (from 1801) the United Kingdom which sat between 1800 and 1837 to inquire into the custody and public accessibility of the state archives. The Commissioners' work ...
in 1812–18, while more recent discoveries are being collated by the
University of Sheffield
, mottoeng = To discover the causes of things
, established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions:
– Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield
, type = Pu ...
.
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
See also
*
Cambridge Hundred Rolls
*
Kent Hundred Rolls
The Kent Hundred Rolls are the documentary result of a 13th-century Crown inquiry or census into the rights of the English monarchy over land and property in the Hundreds (regional sub-divisions) of the county of Kent. The Rolls are preserved in t ...
External links
The Hundred Rolls on The National Archives site
13th century in England
13th-century documents