RECORDER 



RECORDS 



599 



city ' he certifies the customs of London. He is 

 chief judge in the Mayor's Court of London, and 

 is one of the judges sitting at the Central Criminal 

 Court, commonly called the Old Bailey. Among 

 the many well-known men who have held this post 

 were Lord Coke and Lord-chancellor Jeffreys. 

 There is no such office in Scotland, but the sheriff 

 discharges similar duties. 



Recorder, the name of an old musical instru- 

 ment somewhat like a Hageolet, but with the lower 

 part wider than the upper, and a mouthpiece re- 

 sembling the beak of a bird. 



Records, PUBLIC ( Lat. recordari, 'toremem- 

 lier'), contemporary authenticated statements of 

 the proceedings of the legislature, and the judg- 

 ments of those higher courts of law which are 

 distinguished as Courts of Record. An act, 1 and 2 

 Viet. chap. 94, sets at rest the question what is 

 legally to be held a record, by providing that the 

 word records shall be taken to mean all rolls, 

 records, writs, books, proceedings, decrees, bills, 

 warrants, accounts, papers and documents whatso- 

 ever belonging to Her Majesty, or then deposited, 

 or which ought to be deposited, in any of certain 

 places of custody which are enumerated. This 

 statute, together with the Act 40 and 41 Viet. chap. 

 65, and the Order in Council of 5th March 1852, 

 has placed under the care of the Master of the 

 Rolls the vast mass of documents stored in the 

 Public Record OHice. 



Parchment is the material on which the greater 

 portion of the records are written. The so-called 

 ' rolls ' of the Exchequer and Common Law Courts 

 are comparatively short skins attached at the top 

 after the manner of liooks, but the lines of the 

 writing mn parallel to the line of binding. In other 

 cases they are sewed together consecutively, as in 

 the case of the Patent and Close Rolls, and then 

 form true 'rolls' of great length. Some records 

 are in the form of books, as Domesday ; others are 

 filed Le. each document is pierced with a string 

 or gut passed through it, the whole being fastened 

 together in bundles. Many of the later records 

 are written on paper. 



The early parliamentary records and statutes 

 are principally in Norman-trench, which continued 

 in partial use till the time of Henry V. ; all the 

 other great series of records, except those of par- 

 liament, are in Latin down to the reign of George 

 II. or later, except during the Commonwealth, 

 when English was substituted. 



Public records, which can be traced in germ 

 before the Conquest, gradually expanded under the 

 Norman and Plantagenet kings. They enabled 

 the subject to defend and maintain those feudal 

 right* and privileges which were gradually trench- 

 in;; on royal prerogatives, and to protect himself 

 from arbitrary exactions ; while to the king they 

 furnished precedents which could not be questioned 

 for his calls of military service and taxation. 



The various courts "being the King's Courts, and 

 following the sovereign from place to place, their 

 earliest depositories were the royal palaces in 

 different parts of England; but when the higher 

 court* were permanently established at Westmin- 

 ster, 'treasuries,' or places of custody for the 

 records of the different courts, were appointed 

 there. A portion of the public records were, as 

 far back as Henry III.'s reign, deposited in the 

 Tower of London ami the New Temple ; and in 

 the reign of Edward III. the Tower had become a 

 permanent treasury. The parliamentary committee 

 of 1837 enumerated among the places of deposit a 

 room in the Tower over a gunpowder magazine, 

 ami close to a steam-engine in daily operation ; a 

 compel at the Roll", where divine service was per- 

 foriiuid ; underground vaults at Somerset House ; 



damp and dark cellars at Westminster Hall ; the 

 stables of the late Carlton Ride ; and the Chapter- 

 house, Westminster. From the reign of Edward 

 II. downwards the attention of parliament had 

 often been called to the safe custody and arrange- 

 ment of the records us an object of solicitude. Ihe 

 fullest examination in recent times was made by a 

 committee of the House of Commons in 1800, whose 

 report presents the most comprehensive account 

 of the records in existence. A commission was 

 appointed to go on with the work which the com- 

 mittee had begun, and was renewed six times 

 between 1800 and 1831. All the several record 

 commissions directed the commissioners to cause 

 the records to be methodised, regulated and 

 digested, bound and secured, and to have calen- 

 dars made, and original papers printed ; and 

 numerous valuable publications have been issued 

 bv the commissioners from time to time. The new 

 edition of Rvmer's Fvedera, the calendar of Inquisi- 

 tiones Post Mortem, and the editions with excellent 

 indexes of the earlier Patent and Close Rolls and 

 the Rolls of the Curia Regis are especially to be 

 noted. An inquiry as to the materials for English 

 history to be found in the Vatican and other foreign 

 libraries was instituted about 1834 by the Record 

 Commissioners, and the results were printed under 

 the title ' Ap|>endices to Report on the Foedera,' 

 but have never been formally published. Copies, 

 however, were disseminated, and may be consulted 

 in the British Museum Library and elsewhere, but 

 the report itself has never appeared. Following 

 this example, agents have been employed by the 

 Public Record Office at Paris, Simancas, Venice, 

 and Rome for many years, and the results of their 

 labours have been partly published, while the 

 remainder may lie consulted at the Record Office. 



A full investigation into the proceedings of the 

 Record Commissioners was made by a committee 

 of the House of Commons in 1835, and since 1840 

 annual re|mrts have been issued by the Deputy- 

 keeper of the Records. By the statutes referred to 

 above the Master of the Rolls is empowered to 

 appoint a deputy-keeper of the records, and, in 

 conjunction with the Treasury, to do all that is 

 requisite in the execution of this service. He 

 makes rules for the management of the office, and 

 fixes what fees may l>e demanded. He allows 

 copies to lie made, which, when certified by the 

 deputy and assistant keepers, and authenticated 

 with the seal of the office, are producible as evi- 

 dence in courts of law. The Home Secretary 

 directs from time to time such of the catalogues, 

 calendars, and indexes, and such of the records as 

 he thinks fit, to be printed, and sold at prices fixed 

 by him. All Record publications may be procured 

 directly from the Queen's Printers, East Harding 

 Street, Fleet Street, ami detailed catalogues of 

 them may be obtained from the same source. 



The present Public Record Office, a handsome 

 fireproof building in Fetter Lane, was begun in 

 1851 on a plan which admits of extension as the 

 records of the kingdom accumulate (for it must lie 

 rememl>ered that modern documents as well as old 

 form the subject of the deputy-keeper's care), and 

 provision has been made for the transfer into his 

 hands of the records which are growing from day 

 to day in the great administrative and legal depart- 

 ments of the state, as soon as they have ceased to 

 be needed for frequent reference. 



The principal contents of the Record Office may 

 be classified under seven principal groups. Records 

 of ( 1 ) the Superior Courts of Law, including the 

 Courts of Chancery, Queen's Bench, and Common 

 Pleas, and the Exchequer, with its important fiscal 

 ns well as legal machinery ; (2) Special and Abol- 

 ished Jurisdictions, such as the Courts of Arches, 

 Chivalry, Requests, and Star-chamber, (3) Duchy 



