PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE JUSTICES 



65 



chancery or court of king's bench,' or by some accident 

 its membranes had been united to the membranes of 

 some other roll of placita that normally belonged in 

 Westminster;'' in one instance the placita and the 

 estreats of penalties were combined. ^ Since it is only in 

 the case ot four rolls that there is no obvious explana- 

 tion of their preservation, the conclusion is warranted 

 that the writs summoning them to Westminster have 

 been lost, and that there is at this date no provision for 

 the delivery of such records as a matter of ordinary 

 routine into the custody of any one department of the 

 central government-* or even for their permanent safe- 

 guarding in the hands of the local officials. ^ Unless a 

 given roll were wanted within a few years, it probably 

 would never be wanted ; it is therefore easy to see that 

 there would be no motive for keeping it indefinitely. 

 One cannot but rejoice at the fortunate chance that led 

 to the survival of these eighteen rolls to serve as a basis 

 for a description of what went on day by day before the 

 justices and their clerk. 



(2) Procedure in sessions. — While the ordinance had 



'The writs are either attached to the rolls or in some cases enrolled 

 elsewhere, e.g., on the Memoranda Rolls; see app., 173, 231-232. 



'App., C, i; nos. I, II, III, VII, XI and XVII. 



^App., C, I, no. XIII; cf. pt. i, ch. iii, s. 2, A, as to the London 

 records. 



* Although by 1336 it had been enacted {Statutes, 9 Edw. Ill, St. I, 

 c. 5) that justices of assize, of gaol delivery, and of oyer and terminer 

 should send all their records and processes into the exchequer each year. 



^ By the next reign the oath of the justices quoted previously has the 

 following clause: '" & touz les Recordz et Proces que serront faitz devant 

 vous ferrez mettre en bone & seure garde." Rot. Pari., iii, 8sb. The 

 oath continues as on p. 63, note 2, supra, putting the responsibility on the 

 clerk. In spite of this provision there are several instances where dur- 

 ing the peasants' revolt sessional records were destroyed by the insur- 

 gents; see Rot. Pari., iii, 275a, and Reville, Soulhvement, 38. 



