This book completes the publication of the late Harold Garratt’s calendar of feet of fines recording the conveyance of estates in Derbyshire from their commencement in the reign of Richard I down to the end of Henry VIII’s reign. An earlier volume (XI, 1985) contained the fines for the county executed between 1324 and 1547. This second volume replaces and extends the unindexed calendar published in instalments in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal between 1885 and 1895.

Feet of fines are among the best known and most heavily used sources for medieval genealogy and the descent of landed estates. They provide a wealth of information, going back to a period from which few estate muniments survive. Above all, they are precisely dated from their commencement, which most private deeds are not before the end of the thirteenth century.

With the appearance of this volume, Derbyshire finally joins the list of counties for which all the medieval fines are available in print in a reliable calendar in English, fully indexed by person, place and subject. The book will immediately become (and remain) a standard work of reference for historians interested in medieval Derbyshire, and for genealogists tracing the origins of families in the county.

Also Available - Derbyshire Feet of Fines 1323-1546 (published 1985)

Calendared by H. J. H. Garratt with an introduction by Carole Rawcliffe

This volume contains full summaries in England of 675 Derbyshire Fines executed between 1323 to the end of the reign of Henry VIII and is fully indexed by person and place. It includes an authoritative introduction by Professor Rawcliffe explaining both the process of conveyance by fine and some of the uses to which the device was put, illustrated with examples from this volume.